Email campaign software is a major boon for the bulk email marketing industry, which has been plagued by all sorts of trouble since its inception to the point where some internet gurus believed that it is a failed exercise. This is probably because of the actions of spammers whose activities also come under the ambit of bulk email marketing; however the crucial distinction between the two groups lies in the fact that spammers don't follow the rules and regulations. Bulk email marketers, on the other hand, are bound to follow regulations like the CAN SPAM act of the US Government. Using campaign software is required at some point or the other for a company in bulk email marketing and this is irrespective of whether the software is online or offline in your office. Campaign software architecturally consists of a database of email addresses that have been acquired from some kind of sign-up form, also called an opt-in. The database is then referred to by a mailing application for disseminating the emails that you have designed.

As mentioned before, there is very little intervention required when you use this methodology and invest in a proper type of email campaign software. However, ensuring delivery is something that is still up to you.

One of the first parts of ensuring proper delivery lies in the database itself. In many cases, old databases may contain invalid email addresses. It is therefore important that you “clean” up your databases very often by checking bounce-back reports and other tracking statistics. Accordingly, you must also add more email addresses regularly.

Another important aspect of delivery lies in your arch enemy, the spam filter. A spam filter is an invention that has been around for a few years now to stop spammers choking people's mailboxes. However, these filtering mechanisms are not discerning and can stop your mails also reaching people's inboxes. Therefore, you must take the time to understand how spam filters work. Most of these analyze the content of the email for some suspect keywords or phrase sets. By understanding how spam filters operate, you can then modify your content to avoid detection and unnecessary scrutiny.

Email clients are curiously another problem factor for any kind of mail, whether spam or not. The problem lies in the fact that most email clients that are widely used block downloadable content. This renders most newsletters and bulk email unviewable. Therefore, you must ensure that you have text that is explanatory in itself.

Email campaign software takes most of the hard work out of the bulk email marketing campaign however, this does not absolve you of some responsibilities of your own like ensuring that your databases are always up to date, that you ensure that your mailing material is always spam content-free, and that you follow the guidelines of the CAN SPAM legislation of the US Government. This is a basic prerequisite and you must follow this whether you are in the United States or if you cater to an American audience. It is also a good set of guidelines to follow as more countries jump on the bandwagon.