Why Whitelist?

According to MarketingSherpa, a Whitelist is an advance-authorized list of email addresses, held by an ISP, subscriber or other email service provided, which allows email messages to be delivered regardless of spam filters.

Whitelisting is the superlative way to avoid deliverability issues, however companies do very little to promote it. A mere 22% of merchants in the Silverpop 2005 Retail Email Study, Phase 1 (August 2005) asked to be whitelisted. Only 7% offered instructions on how to do so.

It is a good idea to remind your subscribers that if they enjoy your newsletter by adding your email address to their address book, the can ensure they will continue to receive it. This removes any question a spam filter may have regarding content.

To be sure your email marketing campaign is whitelisted; instructions are provided for popular email clients below.

Outlook (2003+)
1. Open the email.
2. Right-click the sender’s email address.
3. Click “add to contacts” in the short-cut menu.
4. Click “save and close”.

Outlook Express (6+)
1. Open the email.
2. Left-click the sender icon, or right click the sender’s name.
3. Click “add to contacts”.
4. Click “save and close”.

MacMail
1. Open the email.
2. Ctrl-click the sender’s email address and select “open in the address book”.
3. Verify the sender’s contact details.

Yahoo!
1. Open the email.
2. Click “add to address book” to the right, next to the sender’s name.
3. Verify the sender’s contact details.
4. Click “Add to Address Book”.

Gmail
1. Open the email.
2. Click “more options” in the email header.
3. Click “add sender to contacts list”.

Hotmail
1. Open the email.
2. Click “save address” in the toolbar.
3. Verify the sender’s contact details.
4. Click “ok”.
*Users may also white-list a sender’s entire domain (everything behind the @ sign) using the “Safe List” feature under Options-> Mail-> Junk E-Mail Protection.

AOL 8.0
1. Open the email.
2. Click “add address” icon.
3. Verify the sender’s contact information.
4. Save it.

AOL Webmail
1. Open the email.
2. Click the sender’s name or email address.
3. Click “add to address book” in the window that appears.
4. Enter any additional information.
5. Click “save.”

Entourage
1. Open the email.
2. Right-click the sender’s email address.
3. Select “add to address book” in the short-cut menu.
4. Verify the sender’s contact details.
5. Click “save”.