Don't Do List in E-Mail

List Management Don’t | Use separate lists for each segment of your audience. |
Email Design Don’t | Use Meta tags. Meta tags will make the email too complicated for receivers to understand it. | Don’t | Use form elements. People will not pay more attention on these forms. They want some direct information in the email. | Don’t | Use Java, Javascript, Frames, ActiveX, ASP, PHP, Cache Busters, or Dynamic HTML. | Don’t | Embed Flash or other rich media files into the email message. | Don’t | Use rowspans or colspans. | Don’t | Use image maps. | Don’t | Attach documents to the message. |
CAN-SPAM Compliance Don’t | Make the unsubscribe process long and confusing, or require unsubscribers to log in to a preference center using their user name and password. | Don’t | Use false or misleading transmission information. | Don’t | Use deceptive subjects or headings. |
Reputation and Deliverability Don’t | Use a shared IP address. | Don’t | Think you can simply gain accreditation to fix deliverability or reputation issues as you must have a good reputation to begin with and you must maintain a nearly flawless record in order to preserve your status. |
Metrics and Reporting Don’t | Rely on horizontal or vertical benchmark reports to determine the success of your campaigns – only use them as a guideline. | Don’t | Assume each ESP calculates the rates the same – the industry still lacks standards. | Don’t | Measure your success by looking at the open or click-through rates only. | Don’t | Assume that all subscribers that do not open your messages are inactive as some might be reading your emails in the preview pane without triggering the one pixel image that tracks responses. |
Miscellaneous
Don’t | Only rely on email to communicate with your customers. |

Failure case study：
The insecure brand
Culprits: FedEx and Subway
Some might say that marketing is part promoting your own brand and part disparaging the competition. More