Why bernard stops spam on every site, including yours

Every bernard site that sends a campaign sends it through the same email service, under the same company account. To the inboxes on the other end, that makes us one sender with many voices. If one of those voices starts spamming, the rest of us pay for it.

So bernard does not leave spam to the owner, and it does not leave it to the email provider. It builds the rules into the product, and it applies them to every site, from its very first email. This page sets out each rule, why it exists, and what it costs you, because some of them will slow you down.

Why bernard sends through AWS

Bernard sends its customers' campaigns through the email service of Amazon Web Services (AWS). That was a deliberate choice. We wanted the email infrastructure that large businesses send on, not a small marketing-email vendor, because what we need most from it is that it works, every day, for every site.

AWS says its email service sends more than a trillion emails a year, for customers that include Netflix and Duolingo. AWS also publishes a service level agreement for it: a commitment that the service will be available at least 99.9% of each month in each region, with credits back when it falls short. That is a promise that the service will be there. It is not a promise about the inbox, and the rest of this page is about why.

One reputation, shared

Inbox providers decide where your email lands partly on how people react to the sender. Too many spam reports, too many addresses that do not exist, and the sender's mail starts to go to the spam folder.

The question is who "the sender" is. Bernard's sites send from sending servers that AWS shares between its customers. AWS's own documentation is plain about what that means: on shared servers, "your sender reputation is set at the account level and can't be isolated". The account is bernard's. Every site on bernard sends on it.

AWS also offers a way to keep customers apart within one account, and bernard uses it: each site is its own separate unit, watched and paused on its own. But the same documentation adds that the units' "combined sending activity still affects your overall account reputation", and that units "that develop poor sending practices could put your entire account at risk". It also makes clear whose job that is: "As the account owner, it's your responsibility to monitor the reputation metrics of all your tenants."

That is the whole argument in one sentence. AWS holds bernard responsible for every site on it, so bernard holds every site to account.

What the inboxes ask for

The rules are not ours to invent. Gmail and Yahoo both publish what they expect from senders.

Gmail says senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts must keep their spam rate below 0.30%, and advises keeping it below 0.10%. It says marketing messages "must support one-click unsubscribe", and that bulk senders need the three standard proofs of identity, called SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Yahoo asks for a spam rate below 0.3%, a working one-click unsubscribe, and that unsubscribes are honoured within two days.

One small business will rarely send 5,000 emails a day. Bernard's sites together can. So bernard treats every site as if the bulk-sender rules applied to it, because to the inbox, they do.

AWS has lines of its own, too. Its documentation says an account with a complaint rate of 0.1% or more is placed under review, and at 0.5% or more its sending may be paused. For addresses that do not exist, the lines are 5% and 10%.

What bernard enforces, and where

Each of these is in the product. None of them is a guideline you are trusted to follow.

Only people who said yes. A campaign goes only to people bernard holds a real yes for: your buyers, your students, and sign-ups who ticked the box and then confirmed by email. Bernard counts that audience for you before you send, from the evidence it holds, one person at a time. You cannot upload a spreadsheet and email it. Permission you bring over from another email tool counts after a short wait, with its source recorded, and the first campaign to those people is capped.

Sending starts closed. A new site cannot send a campaign until an account owner has accepted the customer-email terms and bernard has checked the sending setup and opened sending for that site.

A warm-up. For its first couple of days of sending, a site can email only a limited number of people a day. The limit lifts after those days. A small first day shows the inboxes a new sender at its best, and if a list turns out to be stale, the damage stays small.

The first complaint stops a new site. During the warm-up, a single spam report stops that site's campaigns until the complaint is no longer recent. After it, a site stops if its share of complaints, or of addresses that fail, crosses a line. Bernard sets those lines to trip before AWS's review lines, so that a site is stopped before its sending can put the account at risk.

One-click unsubscribe, on your own domain. Every marketing email carries an unsubscribe that works in one click, by the method set out in the internet standard RFC 8058, which is the one Yahoo recommends. The link uses your site's own web address whenever it has one, not ours. An unsubscribe goes on your site's do-not-email list at once, and bernard checks that list before every send, so it is honoured well inside Yahoo's two days. Addresses that keep failing are retired the same way.

Each site stands alone. Every site is a separate unit with the email provider. If one site has to be stopped, it is stopped alone, and every other site keeps sending.

Limits on volume. Each account has a monthly sending allowance, and bernard paces its sending at a speed it sets itself, never faster than the provider allows. A campaign that would go over the allowance is declined whole.

A human can step in, on the record. Bernard can pause sending for a site or an account. Reopening it needs a written reason, and the decision is recorded.

What it costs you

Some of this will get in your way, and it is fair to say so.

Your first big campaign may have to wait a couple of days. One complaint in your first days stops your campaigns, even if that one person simply forgot they signed up. You cannot email a list you bought, or a spreadsheet of people you met at a fair. And you will be asked to accept terms before your first campaign.

We think that is the right trade. The owner who sends a careful newsletter to people who asked for it is the person these rules protect. Without them, that owner's email shares a reputation with whoever on the platform cut a corner this week.

What we cannot promise

Nobody can promise the inbox. Gmail, Yahoo and the rest decide where email lands, on rules they do not fully publish, and anyone who guarantees you inbox placement is guessing.

What bernard can promise is narrower and checkable. Every site on bernard is held to the same rules from its first email. Nobody on the platform is allowed to send to people who did not ask. And if a site starts to go wrong, it is stopped, on that site, before it drags the rest of us down. Email campaigns, explained: one email, written once, sent once shows the rest of the campaign machine, including the quote you approve before anything is sent.

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