Yahoo Mail recently deployed a new inbox sorting feature that allows users to streamline their inbox, now users can narrow their “View From” and display messages only from their contacts or connections – a new social networking tie in.
This new feature impacts the eMarketing Community in a couple ways; first, your Yahoo subscribers may inadvertently sort out your messages. If you’re not on their safe sender/ contacts list then they will need to select the “All” feature in their inbox to view your emails. Please note this feature doesn’t impact your deliverability… SPAM Sirens won’t sound, but you may be filtered out unbeknownst to the recipient which could impact your engagement.
To insure you make the cut, assess the number of recipients on your list with a Yahoo! address (remember that there are three – yahoo.com, ymail.com and rocketmail.com.) Create a special campaign for those recipients – be clever and timely. Make reference to the recent Yahoo! updates and let them know you want to be on their friend list so that they’ll receive your best offers. From there, watch your activity among the group – are you seeing a decline in opens/ clicks for this segment versus past campaigns?
Regardless of the domain, make sure your recipients are receiving your message. Some great ways to make this happen are to 1) make sure you ask for the safe sender/ contact add from the start; 2) include instructions on how to add with each message (something simple, at the bottom) and 3) periodically send a “stay connected” invitation when new features/ updates are made available. A great approach for your top domains is a Dynamic Whitelisting push – here’s a past post with the how to information to coordinate the outreach for your top domains. You can also read more about the new Yahoo features on their blog.
