How Frank Bauer Lost 90,000 Subscribers

Earlier this year Frank Bauer posted a blog article that caught my attention, “Warning: Did Aweber turn into PayPal?”.

Now if you’re not an Aweber user you may think this article doesn’t pertain to you or your business but you could be wrong. True, the article talks about Frank’s Aweber experience however the information is pertinent to everyone using a paid aurtoresponder service.

Briefly, here are the 5 reasons Aweber closed 2 of Frank’s accounts without warning:

1. “Spam complaints about mailings done via other systems that pointed to sites with Aweber forms on them.”
2. “Attempting to hide the unsubscribe link in messages.”
3.”Batching of subscribers thru non native forms.”
4. “Numerous blacklisted URLs contained in messages.”
5. “Feedback loop contained rates.”

To get all the details about what each of these means and how to avoid them you can read Frank’s article.

However after reading the article I had 1 major question left unanswered.

In the article Frank stated he was using the Butterfly Marketing script on one of the sites where his account had been closed and asked Tom Kulzer, the owner and CEO of Aweber, if using this script was considered “batching of subscribers.” This question was left unanswered when Tom replied that the Butterfly Marketing script was not being used and the question was irrelevant.

Since I use Aweber and have installed the Butterfly Marketing script on 1 of my sites I really wanted an answer to Frank’s question. In addition I know there are other Aweber users using similar scripts that allow people to fill out 1 form and have the information collected for their own database while sending it on to their autoresponder service.

So I went in search of an answer and here’s what I found in the Aweber FAQs:

Can I Submit Subscribers to AWeber via Another Script?

Submitting subscribers to AWeber via a server-side script (PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, etc.) is not permitted.

This also applies to any membership software or server-side shopping cart software that you may have installed on your site.

And the reason they have this policy makes perfect sense. They are in the message delivery business and need  to keep their delivery rate high. To do this they must have an audit trail for each subscriber to prove to ISPs that subscribers actually went to a site and requested information.

While the Aweber answer gives much more information including an alternative to using an automated script the answer wasn’t the easiest thing to find. It’s not stated as a direct and easy to understand statement in their service agreement. And because they don’t mention the names of any of the popular scripts you can’t use any of those names to search their FAQs and find it.

In the end Frank decided the best alternative he had for not using one of the major autoresponder services and running the risk of losing his subscribers was to use his own software on one of his own servers. And that’s a good way to solve the problem if you happen to own your own server and have the time or staff to install and maintain your own autoresponder.

Conclusion:

Most of us don’t have the resources necessary to implement Frank’s solution. Therefore I recommend you use an established and reliable paid service like Aweber and follow their rules. If you decide to use some type of automated script to send subscriber information to your service find out if it’s allowed. If you can’t find your answer in the service agreement or FAQ’s then do what I would had done if I had not found the answer – contact their tech support.

What Do You Think?

From the tone of Frank’s article I concluded that he felt having his accounts terminated was unjustified. And while I do sympathize I understand Aweber’s position.

A better solution may have been for Aweber to suspend his account and send him a warning about cleaning it up. However while some things happen quickly online others take a lot of time and effort, like keeping a good reputation with ISPs,  so I don’t know if this option is even possible.

Therefore, as another Aweber user who doesn’t want to be affected by Frank’s actions, I am glad Aweber did what was necessary for the good of their other clients.

What do you think?

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Here are 3 more important things you should know:

1. If you use more than 3 – 4 blank lines before your unsubscribe link in messages it can be considered an attempt to hide the unsubscribe link.

2. “Feedback loop contained rates” has to do with the number of spam complaints you receive. Aweber has a posted policy about spam rates however I know from personal experience that they take other things into consideration. Here’s what Tom told Frank about how they used Frank’s 5 violations, including his spam rates, to decide whether or not to close an account.
“Any single one of the issues mentioned above may not get an account terminated, even sometimes more than one may not. However, when we see an extensive trend of abusive traits about a campaign or an account, then they add up.”

3. Frank mentioned that Aweber gave him a copy of his subscriber list when they terminated his account. For Frank, this allowed him to keep his list because he was moving it to his own autoresponder software. For those who would have to move to another service you could expect to lose approximately 90% of your subscribers. (Again, I speak from personal experience. And no, I’ve never had an account terminated due to policy violations. I made the move decision every time except once when the service I was using closed down.)

Tags: aweber, Butterfly Marketing script, email delivery, email lists, email subscriber, Frank Bauer, spam policy

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