Email Deliverability Selection via SMTP Connection Assessment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Online merchants face challenges in reliably delivering emails to customers due to issues like inactive or canceled email accounts, network problems, and deliverability issues, which can result in delayed or undelivered messages, especially for time-sensitive communications like order confirmations.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that acquires multiple email addresses for a customer and uses deliverability-based and round-robin e-mail sending methods to select the most likely successful delivery address, assessing deliverability through SMTP connections and engagement metrics, and sequentially attempting delivery across multiple addresses until successful.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single email address is used for each customer account, then the system is simple to maintain, but email delivery reliability deteriorates due to inactive or canceled accounts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the single email address into multiple email addresses associated with a customer account. Instead of relying on one email address, the system maintains a list of multiple email addresses (primary and alternative) for each customer, allowing delivery attempts to be distributed across multiple targets to improve overall delivery reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-establishing multiple email addresses for each customer before delivery failures occur. This includes designating a primary email address and alternative email addresses in advance, so that when the primary address fails, the system can immediately attempt delivery to alternatives without delay.
2Reliability
If multiple email addresses are maintained for each customer, then email delivery reliability improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements self-service mechanisms where the customer themselves manages their email address list. Customers can designate primary and alternative email addresses, update them, and manage their preferences through the user interface, reducing the burden on the system to actively manage complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates feedback mechanisms where delivery results (success or failure) are monitored and used to automatically attempt delivery to alternative addresses. The system receives feedback from SMTP servers about delivery status and uses this information to determine whether to try alternative email addresses, creating a closed-loop system that manages complexity through automated decision-making.
3Reliability
If email delivery is attempted sequentially to multiple addresses, then delivery reliability improves, but delivery time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial action by not attempting delivery to all alternative email addresses in every case. Instead, it uses a threshold-based approach where delivery is attempted to alternative addresses only when certain conditions are met (e.g., after a failure at the primary address, or based on engagement metrics), reducing unnecessary delivery attempts and time loss while still improving reliability when needed.
4Measurement precision
If SMTP connections are opened simultaneously to assess deliverability, then delivery assessment accuracy improves, but system resources are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses partial action by opening SMTP connections selectively rather than simultaneously to all email addresses. It assesses deliverability metrics (such as SMTP response codes, connection success, engagement history) and uses this information to prioritize which addresses to attempt delivery to, consuming resources only when the assessment indicates a reasonable chance of successful delivery.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for deliverability-based e-mail sending are disclosed. A plurality of e-mail addresses for a user are acquired. For each of the e-mail addresses, a connection between a sending computer system and a receiving computer system is opened. A likelihood of successful e-mail delivery is determined for each of the connections. The connection having the highest likelihood of delivery is automatically selected. An e-mail is sent using the selected connection, and the other connections are closed without sending an e-mail.