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Research by Brightmail has found that spam has grown from seven to 60 per cent of all global email in the last three years. With inboxes clogged up with unsolicited offers to buy sex aids and the like, trying to escape the spammers has become the single-biggest factor in users switching internet service provider.

In response, ISPs have introduced ever more powerful spam filters and blockers. Brightmail now filters 15 per cent of all communications while AOL claims to block up to 80 per cent of its received emails. Spam filters may be reducing the amount of spam reaching inboxes, but they could be catching large numbers of legitimate e-marketers in their blocking web.

Research by eMarketer.com among ISPs in the US found that, on average, a quarter of all permission-based email sent last year was blocked. As a result, the ROI for e-marketing campaigns is affected as response rates fall due to valued customers failing to get the information they've requested.

Almost a third of e-marketers cite ISP blacklists and spam filters as their biggest worry. The next most common concerns were email bounces and address changes, and the effect on open rates of inbox clutter, both cited by 22 per cent of e-marketers.

Roberto Bonanzinga, senior vice-president of marketing and business development at Viatel, a data and internet services firm, thinks the problem is going to get worse before it gets better. He points to research from Ferris, which puts the cost of spam to European business at $2.5bn (£1.4bn) a year and increasing. He is concerned that many ISPs are blocking digital communications based on arbitrary decisions of what constitutes spam, made by a machine. "One man's spam is another man's marketing, so it is important that customers are given a choice over what they receive and what they don't receive," continues Bonanzinga.

There are a number of ways in which legitimate e-marketers can fall foul of spam blockers. It may be as a result of perfectly innocent text within the email or header. Words, such as 'free', 'offer', 'pounds s' and 'click' can now be assumed by ISP filters to imply a spam email. Or, a mailing could be filtered out on a volume basis, which does not have to be that high to be marked out as being spam.

Some e-marketers say the perceived problem has been over-hyped and that the actions being taken by ISPs to block it threatens to kill off the internet as an effective marketing channel.

James Ormiston, managing director of Circulation Data Services, which organises magazine subscription-renewal promos for business publishers, describes ISPs' reaction as hysterical. He says spam filtering has affected his business to the extent that he is forced to conduct international communications over the telephone.

"Our email domain has been getting blocked and we have found ourselves on ISP blacklists all because a few crazy individuals - who have opted in to receiving our clients' emails - have pressed a spam alert button," points out Ormiston.

Ormiston says hard-pressed business publishers increasingly adopted email as a valuable marketing tool in a bid to reduce their costs, and they are now being threatened "by a few sanctimonious wackos and the daft antics of ISPs". He continues: "I had 60 spam mails in my inbox this morning, but 55 were for Viagra.

If we could get rid of those, we wouldn't have a problem. The danger is that we will be forced back into mailing through the post. But deleting an email is a lot quicker than opening an envelope and throwing it in the dustbin, and a lot more environmentally friendly," he adds.

For their part, the ISPs say they are only responding to the concerns of their users who are fed up with spam and are demanding that their provider does something about it. As for legitimate marketing email being blocked, ISPs are laying much of the blame at the door of the e-marketers themselves.

Jonathan Lambeth, director of communications at AOL UK, says that since all bulk mailing is now viewed with suspicion by ISPs, it is incumbent on e-marketers to adhere to best-practice guidelines. One problem, he says, is that e-marketers don't make their message clear in the email subject line. "If you put 'Product Announcement' in the subject line, it doesn't tell the recipients anything, so they are going to assume it is spam or it's going to get filtered out as spam," says Lambeth.

Another problem, he continues, is that people who may have opted in to receive a company's emails cannot always find an easy way to unsubscribe, so they just press the spam alert button and have the firm added to their block list. "People who opt in may not be aware of what they've opted into, and they are unlikely to want to receive a company's emails forever."

But some e-marketers believe people are using spam-alert buttons because they have been told by their ISPs that clicking on unsubscribe links only serves to confirm their email address and hence leads to them receiving more spam. They are therefore reluctant to click on any unsubscribe links at all. They also complain that ISPs have been unable to define what spam is and how it differs from legitimate marketing. Lambeth says, for AOL, spam is defined by what its members report it as being.

E-marketers are also suspicious of ISPs' motives in turning up the levels of spam blocking, believing this has more to do with reducing the capacity on their networks and increasing their profits than any genuine concern about members being overloaded by unwanted communications.

Brightmail is now filtering out 80 billion spam mails a month with many more billions likely to be getting through its filters. This, says Jeff Barnes, vice-president of Bluestreak International, is an indication of how much network capacity can be saved by the big email service providers, such as Hotmail and AOL. He explains: "They are keen to cut the volume of email, but they need to be sensible and avoid catching legitimate marketers." Nevertheless, Barnes says e-marketers have fewer problems with the big ISPs than the smaller ones. "At least you can find people to talk to at the big ISPs in order to try and resolve problems whereas, with the smaller ISPs, you are at the mercy of their spam-filtering equipment," he claims.

FHM's email weekly newsletter, which is published by Emap, one of Bluestreak's clients, perfectly illustrates the problem, points out Barnes. "Some internet service providers filter it out because it contains pictures of women in bikinis and they are assuming that it must be porn spam," he explains.

"But we don't know why they are filtering it out unless we can speak to the ISP. It could be a problem with the IP address, the message header or the content. If they think it's porn, then we can explain that it isn't. But, with too many ISPs, you're assumed to be guilty and it's difficult to find anyone to talk to in order to convince them of your innocence."

Nevertheless, Barnes recognises that e-marketers can play their part in establishing good relations with ISPs and doing more to differentiate their emails from spam. He adds: "Having to continually refresh your communications to avoid spam blockers is good marketing practice and an accidental benefit."

The best way of avoiding your email messages being blocked is to get on to the 'whitelists' of the main ISPs (as opposed to a blacklist). To do this, you have to convince the ISP that you're a legitimate business, and that you adhere to the laws and industry guidelines governing things such as opt-in consent and the ability to unsubscribe.

But Michael Ross, chief executive of Figleaves.com, says this is not as straightforward as it may seem. "We are a client of MSN on its shopping channel, so you would think we would be automatically whitelisted by MSN, but that's not the case," he says. "It's a complex procedure. It is not made clear what we have to do and no-one seems to take responsibility." However, Ross is more critical of ISPs that don't operate whitelists and rely solely on rules-based automatic filtering.

Mike Morrison, technical director and a founder of Iwantone ofthose.com, says his unsubscribe rates have fallen significantly lately and believes this is a result of recipients pressing spam-alert buttons instead of unsubscribing. As a result, ISPs have tried to block mails from his company.

To avoid the problem, he says the company is considering introducing a double-opt-in policy so that recipients have to confirm that they have opted in to receiving messages in a follow-up email.

"But, research shows that half the people who have opted in don't reply to a second mail, so you're faced with losing 50 per cent of your list," warns Morrison. "It's a risky policy and very few retailers are prepared to take the risk." He blames some e-marketers for the growth in users pressing spam alerts. "The recent EU directive has proven to be toothless. Too many companies still have confusing opt-in procedures, with recipients unsure whether they have to tick a box to opt in or opt out."

Another thing e-marketers can do is to avoid using words in their emails that are commonly used by spammers, says Morrison. Most ISPs effectively have a points-scoring system, with words used by spammers attracting points.

If the total score exceeds a certain level, say eight points, the mail is blocked. But, even seemingly innocent phrases can attract more points.

"We sent out a mail that included a review for a desk water-dispenser that contained the words 'working from home' and the mailing was filtered out," Morrison relates.

And then there are words that may be used innocently, but surprisingly fall foul of the blockers. Nick Mitchell, senior account manager for Inbox, an email-marketing agency, recalls a Film 4 newsletter containing an image from the Dick Tracy movie that was labelled 'Dick 1' and encountered problems.

Maintaining clean lists is also important in avoiding being blocked. Morrison advises e-marketers to react quickly in deleting addresses that bounce back. "It could be that the user's inbox is full or they have an 'out of office' message on, but if it bounces back six times, we delete it from the list," he says.

Yet, there is a widely held view that no matter what ISPs and e-marketers do to counter the spammers, junk email will continue, threatening user confidence in the internet and, hence, the very future of the medium as a commercial channel.

Neil Morris, deputy managing director of the Institute of Direct Marketing, warns that it is difficult to predict how much bigger the spam problem will become, but if efforts to fight it fail, the business models of e-businesses, particularly those of small companies, are likely to be "blown to shreds". He also fears the introduction of what many believe is the ultimate cure - charging commercial users a levy for sending emails - will make spam uneconomical as spammers only flourish because the cost of sending an email is minimal. "Having to pay would hit small companies badly and there is a danger that governments could seize it as an opportunity to tax businesses by stealth, but it looks horribly inevitable," says Morris.

But, some small e-marketers say they would be more than willing to pay.

Marcelle Speller, co-founder of Holiday-Rentals.com, believes it is the only way forward. "Legislation has proved totally ineffective, so I'd be happy to pay to send an email just as I would pay for a stamp to send a letter. It's just a cost of doing business," says Speller.

Mike Parry, managing director of IPT Services, points out that the cost of sending email has fallen in the last two years, from 5p to less than 1p, so some legitimate e-marketers will probably be happy to pay a levy.

"We need all the ISPs to agree on a system of dynamic tags on emails, with e-marketers having a unique ID in the tag," says Parry. "Only emails carrying a tag would be delivered, and the system could be administered by the DMA with their costs being reimbursed from the levy."

HOLIDAY-RENTALS.COM FINDS FILTERS BLOCK NEWSLETTERS

Small businesses such as Holiday-Rentals.com, which offers accommodation to rent and conducts its entire business online, can be hit hard by spam.

The site sends marketing emails to 4,500 clients with rented accommodation around the world, usually four times a year. Clients are sent an email when enquiries are made on the Holiday-Rentals site. The site gets 30,000 visits a day, resulting in more than 1,000 enquiries.

It realised there was a problem in January, usually its busiest month for bookings, when the percentage of client emails bouncing back rose to 10 per cent. Clients also complained they had not received email enquiries when the web site clearly showed that they had.

Calls to ISP helpdesks did not elicit a helpful response, so Holiday-Rentals founder Marcelle Speller got in touch with AOL and found that her firm wasn't white-listed by the ISP. Its servers were not configured to AOL's standards and therefore couldn't match the source of the email.

"Nobody had told us this and, if it wasn't for contacting AOL, we would still be none the wiser to this day," claims Speller.

A large number of client subscriptions were up for renewal and, with clients not receiving enquiries, the business was under threat.

"We had to do something quickly," says Speller. "Within a week of hearing about the problem, we launched a free SMS alert service for clients, which sent a message to clients' mobiles when an enquiry about their property was made on the web site."

Holiday-Rentals is now on more ISP whitelists, but it still runs the SMS service. "SMS lets clients respond quicker to their booking enquiries," she adds.

AOL TIGHTENS ITS DEFENCES AGAINST SPAM WITH FILTERS

AOL sees unsolicited email as a major threat to online communications. It blocks two billion emails a day worldwide, equating to 70-80 per cent of all email.

Detection is driven by AOL members clicking a 'Report Spam' button to alert the ISP. When the number of reports reach a certain level, the sender is blocked.

AOL's detection tools also stop spam ever reaching users. The latest, AOL 9.0, has personalised 'Bayesian' filters that learn the type of email members don't want. Its link suppression tool gives users the chance to suppress images and web links sent from an unknown address.

AOL has formed an alliance with Microsoft, Yahoo! and Earthlink to improve spam fighting technology and co-operate on law suits against spammers - over 100 so far.

As to the argument that it is being unfair to legitimate e-marketers, AOL says these firms should get themselves whitelisted to avoid being blocked. An area on its site (www.aol.co.uk/spam) offers information on spam-related issues, technical terms, best practice and a feedback form.

AOL claims to be working with other ISPs, telecoms and e-marketers to address the blocked email issue and urges firms to get in touch.

UK director of communications Jonathan Lambeth denies that e-marketers have to be whitelisted by AOL to avoid being blocked, but says mailings need to adhere to EU regulations. He urges e-marketers to be vigilant in ensuring their domains are not infiltrated by spammers and warns that emails with a "reverse DNS path" are always assumed to be spam.

"Spam filters will cause some pain for e-marketers in the short term, but that is nothing to the pain suffered over the last few years by our customers," he adds.

TOP TIPS

- Ensure all email lists, including bought-in ones, have the recipient's permission to mail, preferably through the double opt-in method.

- Include a clear, easy-to-use unsubscribe link and offer other ways of unsubscribing, such as through a web site or over the telephone.

- Good list hygiene stops you emailing invalid addresses.

- Keep content relevant and only send a mail-shot if you have something to say to that person.

- Ensure the number of points scored by words used in your email do not exceed the ISP's points limit.

- Set up seed accounts with all the main ISPs and send a test mail to them to see if they get through. Adjust the content and presentation until they pass.

- Send out tracking emails at the top and tail of each email to audit how many of them are delivered, as ISPs may deliver the first 100,000 and block the rest.

- Educate users in identifying your email from spam and alert them to the dangers of giving out their address.