A

Alt Attributes
The alternative text that is attached to an image so if you don’t see the image (at all or not until you download the images), you see this text instead.

Attachments
These are files which you can send along with your email.

Auto-responder
A computer program that automatically responds with a pre-written message to anyone who sends an email message to a particular email address or uses an online feedback form.

Authentication
A term that refers to standards, such as Sender ID, SPF and DomainKeys/DKIM, that serve to identify that an email is really sent from the domain name and individual listed as the sender. Authentication standards are used to fight spam and spoofing.

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B

Blacklist
A list containing email addresses or IP addresses of suspected spammers. Blacklists are sometimes used to reject incoming mail at the server level before the email reaches the recipient.

Block
An action by an Internet Service Provider to prevent email messages from being forwarded to the end recipient.

Bounces
Email messages that fail to reach their intended destination. "Hard" bounces are caused by invalid email addresses, whereas "soft" bounces are due to temporary conditions, such as overloaded inboxes.

Bulk Email
when a large number of the same email is sent to a group of people

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C

Content
generally referred to as the elements on an email. This could include text, graphics, clip art, photos, wav files, hyperlinks or any value-added substance that a reader would benefit from.

Conversion rate
The percentage of visitors who take an action after reading the email.

CSS
cascading style sheets which are used by both the authors and readers of web pages to define colors, fonts, layout, and other aspects of document presentation.

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D

Definable Reply-To Address
When you send an email and the recipient clicks "reply," normally the email address that the message was sent from will automatically be used. This feature allows you to specify an address other than the one the email was sent from for replies to be sent to.

Double opt-in
The recommended procedure for subscribing email recipients to an email list or newsletter. Once a person requests to subscribe to a list, a confirmation email message is automatically sent to the supplied email address asking the person to verify that they have in fact requested to be included in future mailings .

Download Message
Allows you to save a copy of an email message to your own computer which will be stored as a distinct text file.

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E

Email-
Electronic mail (abbreviated "e-mail" or, often, "email") is a method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems.

Email Address Finder
Service that allows you to search for other people's email addresses by entering their name, address, etc.

Email client
The software that recipients use to read email. Some email clients have better support for HTML email than others.

Email harvesting
The disreputable and often illegal practice of using an automated program to scan Web pages and collect email addresses for use by spammers.

Email header
The section of an email message that contains the sender's and recipient's email addresses as well as the routing information.

Email Marketing
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience.

Enewsletter
A newsletter that is sent via e-mail.

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F

False positive
A legitimate email message that is mistakenly rejected or filtered by a spam filter .

Filters
Filters automatically move incoming emails into separate folders according to criteria that you specify. These criteria may be based on who the email is from, the priority, the subject, the main message, etc. This is a useful feature if you have a lot of incoming emails that need some way of being automatically organized.

Forwards
This feature indicates that the provider in question can also automatically forward incoming emails to another email account.

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G

Gmail-
is a free Web-based email (Webmail) and POP3 e-mail service provided by Google.

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H

Hard bounces
Email messages that cannot be delivered to the recipient because of a permanent error, such as an invalid or non-existing email address.

Host
When a server acts as a host it means that other computers on the network do not have to download the software that this server carries.

Host name
The name of a computer on the Internet (such as www.lsoft.com).

HTML
HyperText Markup Language – The most commonly used coding language for creating Web pages. HTML emails are emails with graphics, images, fonts, and colors.

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I

IMAP
Internet Message Access Protocol – A protocol used to retrieve email messages. Most email clients use either the IMAP or the POP protocol.

In-house list
A list of email addresses that a company has gathered through previous customer contacts, Web sign-ups or other permission-based methods. In-house lists typically generate higher conversion rates than rented lists.

Interest Groups
A group with a specific shared interest.

Internet
The largest worldwide computer network.

Intranet
Contrary to the public Internet, an intranet is a private network inside a company or organization.

IP address
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique identifier for a computer on the Internet. It is written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can range from 0 to 255. Before connecting to a computer over the Internet, a Domain Name Server translates the domain name into its corresponding IP address.

ISP
Internet Service Provider – A company that provides access to the Internet, including the World Wide Web and email, typically for a monthly fee.

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L

List Broker
A company that sells or rents lists of email addresses. Some list brokers are not reputable and sell lists with unusable or unsubstantiated candidates. It is therefore advisable for email marketers to build their own internal lists.

List owner
The owner of an email list defines the list's charter and policy (i.e., what the list is about and what are the general rules that all subscribers must accept in order to be subscribed to the list). The list owner is also responsible for administrative matters and for answering questions from the list subscribers.

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M

Mail-merge
A process that enables the delivery of personalized messages to large numbers of recipients. This is usually achieved using email list management software working in conjunction with a database .

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O

Open Rate tracking
The process of tracking how many recipients opened their email messages as part of an email marketing campaign. Tracking is only possible using HTML mail.

Open rate
The percentage of recipients who opened their email messages. The open rate is often used to measure the success of an email marketing campaign.

Opt-in
An approach to email marketing in which customers explicitly request to be included in an email campaign or newsletter.

Opt-out
An approach to email marketing in which customers are included in email campaigns or newsletters until they specifically request not to be subscribed any longer. This method is not recommended and may in some cases be illegal.

Out-of-office replies
Automatic email reply messages triggered by incoming email to a user's inbox, typically activated when users are on vacation or otherwise unavailable through email for an extended period.

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P

Personalization
The insertion of personal greetings in email messages (for instance "Dear John" rather than the generic "Dear Customer"). Personalization requires sophisticated email list management software that allows for so called mail-merge operations .

POP3
This is a computing standard that enables emails to be retrieved from a remote mailbox. That is, it allows you to collect emails from an account that you have on another computer (called a server, or host) to your own email software, such as Outlook, Netscape Messenger, Eudora, Exchange, etc.

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R

Reader Optimized Content
is content that is written to please the reader with their interests in mind.

Reminders
Some free email providers allow you to set up reminders, which are messages that will automatically be sent to you on a certain date to remind you of important events, such as anniversaries, birthdays, etc.

ROI
Return on Investment- the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested.

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S

Search Facility
Allows you to find email messages in your folders based on certain criteria that you specify - very useful if you have a lot of messages stored in a large number of folders.

Send to Friend
A mechanism to assist ‘Viral Marketing’. A tag within an email to prompt and enable the reader to forward the email to other interested parties.

Signature
A small "footer" that is added to the end of your outgoing email messages that contains text that you specify. This is usually used to specify your name, email address, website, address, phone number, etc. or anything else you want to be on the bottom of all the messages you send! When sending a message you can usually specify whether or not you want the signature to be appended to that message. Some providers allow you to set up more than one signature and you can select which one you want to use (if any).

SMTP
This is a computing standard that enables emails to be sent through another computer (called a server) from your own email software, such as Outlook, Netscape Messenger, Eudora, Exchange, etc. It is complementary to POP3.

SPAM
The abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.

Spam Check
Spam check is checking your emails for how likely they are to get flagged as spam.

Spell Check
Checks an email message before sending, allowing you to correct any spelling errors. This feature is usually similar to the spell checkers found in word processors.

Storage Limit
Most free email providers have a limit to the amount of disk space your emails can take up on their computer. This is usually somewhere between ½MB-10MB.

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T

Targeting
Using demographics and related information in a customer database to select the most appropriate recipients for a specific email campaign.

Templates
A template is a form or set structure for an email so that the email retains the same format each time but contains different content.

Text only Emails
Text only emails are emails that contain only text, no graphic, so that they can be read using email readers that don’t read html emails.

Tracking
In an email marketing campaign, measuring behavioral activities such as click-throughs and open-ups.

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V

Vacation Reply
This is an email that is automatically sent out from your account whenever an email is received, to the sender of the email. This is also known as an auto responder. Some systems allow you to set up more than one vacation reply (auto responder) and it will select which one to send out based on features of the incoming message, which you specify. For example, any messages from your colleagues may receive one message, whereas messages from external clients receive another.

Viral marketing
A marketing strategy that encourages email recipients to pass along messages to others in order to generate additional exposure.

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W

Web 2.0
Web 2.0 describes the way the Internet has changed, how there are more and more social communities on the web.

Web-Based
An email account accessible by browsing the worldwide web.

White list
A list of pre-authorized email addresses from which email messages can be delivered regardless of spam filters.

WYSIWYG
An acronym for What You See Is What You Get, used in computing to describe a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product.

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