Woodpecker Sending Policy

Woodpecker has been committed to quality email sending since its establishment. As an organization, we fully support the idea of fighting spam and any other form of mailing that could be harmful to anyone. This policy refers to our engagement into quality sending and defined acceptable standards of sending that we assess as sufficient to be considered quality sending as a consequence as coherent with our software acceptable use. Please familiarize yourself with this policy before you start sending messages via our Service.

Below you can find core statistics the Woodpecker team uses when reviewing email accounts and sending practices. Please familiarize yourself with this chart and work to stay below these acceptable thresholds. Accounts with statistics above these numbers may be subjected to account suspension and in some cases or in case of our Terms of Service violation with full account termination. Prior warning of such actions will be given in all cases unless the risk is deemed to be critical to the security of Woodpecker’s infrastructure

1. Sending quality metrics

Core metrics:

a. Bounce rate: we assess that a bounce rate that is acceptable when it comes to deliverability, as well as your positive sender score, is oriented below 8%. Our users are currently having an average bounce rate between 5-7%.

b. Spam complaints: receiving a spam complaint is always an indication of sending issues and we assess that the rate of spam complaints shall be as low as possible but unconditionally below 0.08% (when sending over 1000 but never more than 50 complaints per day).

c. Opt-outs: we assess that the opt-out (unsubscribe) level calculated as the ratio of the number of opt-outs to the number of initial messages sent shall be below 1.4%. Our users are currently having an average bounce rate of between 1%.

d. Invalid rates: we assess that the calculated as the ratio of the sum of the number of prospects marked INVALID in all campaigns of a given company to the sum of prospects in all campaigns of a given company shall be below 4%.

e. Spamtrap hits & unjustified abuse complaints: occurrence of any of Spamtrap hits & unjustified abuse complaints should not take place (acceptance level below 1).

2. Woodpecker’s Commandments

COMPLIANCE WITH OUR SENDING METRICS

Woodpecker cares about the deliverability and safety of our system. We highly encourage our users to comply with high standards of sending. Furthermore, we highlight that there is a variety of applicable laws and regulations applying to outbound sending – please familiarize yourself with applicable rules that may affect your sending process. What is more, regular maintenance of your prospects’ list will ensure that you are emailing an engaged audience with active email addresses. While it can vary between industries, a good benchmark for an engaged customer is someone who has opened or clicked on an email in the past 3 to 6 months.

Maintaining a list of customers who regularly read your content and find value in your messaging will result in fewer bounced or blocked emails. While the process of removing inactive or incorrect email addresses may make your contact list look smaller, it will significantly improve your deliverability (and sender reputation) in the long run. Other things to keep in mind for good practices are: writing subject lines that are reflective of the content within the emails & avoiding promotional terms or common spam words, adding personalization.

THIRD-PARTY MAILING LISTS ACQUISITION

Sending campaigns to contact lists that have been acquired (bought, exchanged or rented) from a third-party company where you are not explicitly named will negatively impact deliverability and may be deemed illegal but a plurality of jurisdictions. As a result, email addresses must always be collected in a way where the recipient has explicitly opted in to receive communication from you and/or that fully comply with national regulations that define consent collection, opt-in lists and other applicable requirements.

CONSENT TO SEND MESSAGES

Some messages, except transactional emails, shall be sent only with prior consent or an equivalent legal ground to conduct such data processing. All your contacts should have granted clear, explicit and provable consent to receive communication. This consent should be granted through a confirmed simple opt-in or double opt-in system that clearly expresses the topic of the subscription on an online or offline form via a checkbox. This checkbox must not be checked by default.

ABUSE COMPLAINTS

Woodpecker takes every abuse complaint including complaints about lawful data processing very seriously. Our Terms of Service prohibit use that violates any third-party rights. Please familiarize yourself with our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and GDPR Compliance before you start using our Service to send messages.

ACCEPTABLE USE

Your use of our services must comply with all applicable laws and regulations in effect including data protection and privacy laws, as well as our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Security Policy.