RE: UKNM: Dead email accounts

[Svein Eriksen]

Andy,


ISP's will not delete a mailbox just because it is full, rather the email

will normally bounce with a "mailbox full" message. A full mailbox normally

occur in the following situations:

  a) User has left, and nobody has deleted the account, causing messages to

pile up.

  b) Email reader is wrongly configured to leave mail in the mailbox.

  c) User is receiving a lot of heavy duty mail (graphics, for instance),

and not checking the account regularly enough.


Both free and paid for ISP's can be poor at deleting accounts. Most

systems/internal routines are good at setting up services (otherwise users

complain a lot), but nobody really complains when an account is left

enabled. This includes internal procedures in HR departments even in big

companies.


When an ISP is handling the mail account, clients very rarely

remembers/bothers to tell their provider that an email address belonging to

an ex-employee should be deleted. It only becomes an issue if the client is

charged per mailbox. I know from experience as I used to run an ISP. One

client grew from 50 to 70 mailboxes, and upon receiving their annual invoice

together with a list of their mailboxes the client quickly responded with 15

to be deleted. The invoice was duly revised :-(


I have myself tested several free services and received free email accounts.

Although I have not used them, some of these accounts remain active months

later. Remember, most of these services quote the number of email accounts

rather than the number of *active* users - the inactive ones are likely to

be a fairly high percentage. This gives a real incentive not to cut off

email accounts, as often bigger customer lists equates to higher

evaluations.


I presume that the real purpose of the excercise is to measure how many

people see the email, rather than finding out how many bounce.

Unfortunately, due to the reasons given above it is very difficult to

measure/estimate the real exposure.


Svein Eriksen

http://www.ibresources.co.uk/ - Providing Independent Technology Advice


>

aajgraytalk21 [dot] com

> Sent: 18 October 2000 16:41

> Subject: UKNM: Dead email accounts

>

> Here's a question for y'all.  I've just finished a small email marketing

> campaign for a client and the transmission reports make

> interesting reading.

>

> The client is well used to what mail return rates to expect on DM

> but wants

> to gauge the return rates on the email campaign (i.e. indicating

> what email

> addresses have 'lapsed').

>

> The best comparison I can think of is to take the 'unknown recipients'

> results from the transmission report.  In this case, 7.5% of emails sent

> were returned due to 'unknown recipient'.  Obviously, if one is

> using a work

> address and then leaves, the address is deleted from the server in most

> cases.

>

> What I would like to know is at what point does this occur with free

> Internet email addresses?  A user could switch from one free email account

> to another and emails would just continue to pile up in the in-box without

> an 'unkown recipient' response issued.  Do hotmail/ talk21/ yahoo

> etc. draw

> the line when they see full email boxes and cancel the account?

>

> Thanks,

>

> Andy Gray



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