A few weeks ago, I met Julia, Manager Business Development & ISP Relations at Certified Senders Alliancein Paris to discuss CSA opportunities for emailers in France.
Jonathan Loriaux - From a French perspective, CSA is a foreign organization that has no equivalent in France. Why and when did this project start?
Julia Janssen-Holldiek - The project was initiated 12 years ago by eco - the association of the German internet industry. The trigger was the lack of quality standards on technical and legal aspects of email marketing.
JL - This project started as a collaboration between ISPs and email routers?
JJH - Exactly. The CSA was created to act as an interface between email senders and receiving platforms (webmail and ISP) in order to simplify the communication between them. The creation of a standard was the most obvious solution for this.
JL - Is there an organization like CSA in France?
JJH -CSA started as a German project, but expanded its reach across Europe and even the world. We built an international network of ISPs and technology partners, which in turn attracted international email senders. This is also the case for French routers. We are not aware of any French organization offering the same kind of services as CSA.
JL - Does it make a big difference for advertisers to be certified or not? What is the real impact of a certification for an email router?
JJH - Let's start with an overall benefit provided by CSA certification. It allows routers to improve their deliverability, this is the result of whitelisting IP addresses, which also allows them to comply with European legislation by receiving user-generated complaint feedback via eco's complaints desk. User complaints are forwarded to the sender, which helps them maintain a high reputation for their IP addresses. In addition, they can use the CSA logo as proof of the quality of their mailings when talking to prospects. CSA partner ISPs improve the functionality of their spam filters and can streamline their complaint management services.
The added value of CSA certification actually depends on each email sender. If a sender already has a deliverability rate close to 100%, he will obviously not improve his deliverability with CSA white lists. However, on issues of legal compliance and ISP relations, a sender can also benefit from CSA support. Similarly, CSA can help maintain a high level of deliverability with the help of eco's complaint desk.
The experiment shows that the senders do not generally have a deliverability rate of 100% but rather around 83%. CSA can therefore usually significantly improve deliverability. We have 37 international ISPs and technology partners that offer preferential treatment for IP addresses in our whitelist.
JL - Is your complaint desk exclusively for routers?
JJH - No, the complaint desk receives all types of complaints, but the process may be different. The CSA certifies the legal entity that technically sends the email. In most cases, this is the router, but some advertisers send their emails from their own platform and want to be certified individually. If there is a complaint about a certified legal entity, the complaint desk will request information about the sender, such as opt-in types, and initiate a complaint process.
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JL - If an advertiser is not certified, is it still possible to send an email to a German ISP? Or is it more complicated?
JJH - It is still possible to have a high deliverability rate in Germany without being certified. I experienced a situation with an international router that wanted to expand its business in Germany, but was not familiar with the legal rules and demands of German ISPs. In this case, CSA certification can be a great help. Even German routers, who are familiar with all requirements, find the whitelisting procedure an additional advantage for their deliverability. Furthermore, German brands understand the added value of CSA certification and regularly include these requirements in their tenders to routers.
JL - But one of the reasons for certification requests is still an existing deliverability incident?
JJH - This is the most common reason for certification, but there are many other benefits to certification. CSA prefers to work with shippers on a long-term basis to provide support, not just on building a good IP reputation, but also on maintaining that reputation. We provide a complete toolkit to achieve this.
JL - CSA is a German association and currently you have more international than German members. Is it your goal to expand worldwide or do you want to stay German first?
JJH -CSA is a project of two German associations. We are still based in Cologne, Germany. However, we have acquired ISPs and technical partners all over the world. It is not a German project anymore. I would like to quote an ISP who is one of our international partners and who was reacting to a similar question when we were discussing regulation and legislation. He said: "You know what? Email is global. That's it.
We share a similar vision.
JL - About French advertisers. If they don't send any emails to Germany or Austria, should they consider CSA certification?
JJH - Again, email is global, so the answer is yes. It is very likely that French routers have customers who send email to Germany or anywhere else but France. If they face problems with international ISPs like Cloudmark, Yahoo!, AOL, Yandex, then CSA certification becomes relevant from a deliverability perspective.
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More information can be found here: https://certified-senders.eu
