Automate Email Followup Instead of Copying and Pasting

[Guest]

Gmail/yahoo/msn block more than 100 emails from any 1 ip from being delivered per hour and do not report a bounce at all. They just redirect into a null file and watch it evaporate.

Where is that documented via an original or at least an authoritative source?

 

[mynarky]

Correct me if I'm wrong but all you are doing is substituting one mail client (i.e. Outlook) for another (Sendblaster.) Your mail is going out of your ISP's SMTP server.

The "spam issue" is a constant, no matter whether you send mail out of your ISP's outgoing (SMTP) mail server or your web host's server.

My point is that your ISP may be a lot more sensitive to any complaints. If they pitch a fit at you, you are going to have a TOS violation leveled at you and they might cut your connection and then where are you? If your only choices are say ATT and Comcast and neither of them will have you as a customer, what are your alternatives? And do you want to take that chance?

If your web host gets complaints they might be a bit more tolerant... and you can/will get thrown off, but you can easily find another web host or private SMTP service. Indeed, these folks might be the best answer at a few bucks a year if you are afraid of some kind of retribution from your mailing list. You might try these folks if you have large lists and your volume requirements are higher. [Disclaimer: I have no relationship with either of these companies and have no knowledge about their service levels or support. YMMV]

If you have a web host that will let you send mail from your local machine through your ISP's connection (like some port other than 25) bypassing their smtp servers to the web-host's outgoing server, you might consider it. It's the same concept as the links above.

Why use a different outgoing server than that of your ISP?

I know for a fact that ISP mail servers often get bogged down and mail can get queued-up for HOURS. Happens all the time with ATT here on the West coast.

I hardly ever send mail out of smtp.att.yahoo.com because odds are it will be delayed. I send all mail out of my web server. (Some web hosts permit this and others don't have that facility.) I know that my mail might get delayed somewhere down the line... no way to prevent that... but I know it is not sitting on the outgoing server waiting to be launched on to the net because some guy is sending a list of 500,000 emails through ATT and has impacted their servers ([editorial]which are lame to begin with [/editorial].

Per usual, YMMV.

Al

No I use Interspire on a server usually which doesn't use my primary ip. If I'm emailing an old list using sendblaster then I use a VPN which cloaks the IP. As far as sendblaster simply being the same as outlook, that is way off. Outlook involves sending the messages one by one and changing the info yourself. This is like having a robot change the name and whatever other information for you and sending slow.

If you are sending to newer leads, spam complaints are not an issue. If you are going after an older list, don't risk it.
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It's a nice system from what I saw of it. However it does not look like it is still supported. It looks like the last change was made in 2008. The user forum is not working.

The docs are rather sketchy and I thought the user interface needs a bit of work. I've never heard of this project and I keep up with this stuff. I'm glad that you find of value... I'll stick with my tried and true PHPlist.

I don't know much about throttling. I send about 900 plain text emails out of my server in about 2 minutes and I've always assumed the were either delivered or bounced back to me. I have a dedicated server so I can pretty much do as I please... Within reasonable limits. I know that shared servers and ISPs often require email be sent in batches of 50 or 100 with a 10 second pause between them... or similar limits.

Al
Sent from my iPad.

Slow down the sending to 50 an hour, I guarantee a lot of those messages are getting spamboxed or qeued. Whats the hurry? You don't have to watch it send.
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Al, there's a php based solution that is actually a bit better than phplist now, and open source, and free.

. ..poMMo.. .

pommo is possible to install multiple smtp's, you can throttle all of them, and its very very easy to use and install. Thats the demo link to their already set up version.

Go under the settings tab and change it to smtp relay then look at the config panel. It's very low footprint, low memory usage.

It also has the unsub link features etc of phplist.

It also has the nicest import feature I've ever seen, it just lets you tell it what the columns are without even scrubbing the csv and it pops them into the sql.

I looked at both of them when I was looking into ways to send out to lists in bulk.

Also, using a smtp relay its safe to send around 300 emails per hour per relay, but best if you can throttle to each large provider to 100 per hour, which is something you can do with pommo. The reason for this, google, yahoo, and msn all limit inbound from the same IP address to around 100 per hour, so if you exceed that they don't get delivered, and to top that off, they don't bounce so you get no record that it happened.

Pommo lets you throttle both the total outbound send per ip and the total per server per ip send, so you don't exceed either of those, and has the unsub features to be compliant, and it's free.

I'm pretty sure phplist has smtp capability, along with sendmail as well, so if you're using that you're not necessarily sending from your server either.

Some hosting companies have a policy that states that if they receive a spam complaint about you even if you didn't send the email from their server they can blackhole your ip, meaning even if the mails were sent by constant contact you have to prove they opted in.

Be aware of that if you're doing something like this, keep record of where the opt in took place and make sure your emails are fully can spam compliant if you don't wanna get slapped by your hosting company.

If in doubt, use a outside vendor like constant contact, awebber, etc, so they keep those records for you.

Actually it's called "blacklist" and no you wont get blacklisted for one complaint, its expected you will accidentally get 1 complaint per thousand emails as someone can mistakenly press the spam button.
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Constant Contact
$15 a month for up to 500 people.
$30 a month for up to 2,500 people.
$50 a month for up to 5,000 people.
$75 a month for up to 10,000 people.


I'm a big fan of them. I have agent sign up for my newsletter and also use them for my clients. It helps me track who opens it and allows them to opt in and out.

It is well worth the money.

Looks like they lowered their prices since I saw them. This is fine for sending bulk mail, but I like my messages to look like I typed them, for newsletters I just use the interspire newsletter system and it has optout as well.

 

[ksigmtsu]

Blackholing an ip is different than blacklisting.

My hosting company has a policy that spam complaints can result in your ip address being redirected to null until you explain and correct the issue. That's blackholing.

Blacklisting means your emails start getting blocked. Totally different things.

Sending email the way you're suggesting opens you up to legal action because of can spam, blacklisting and blackholeing. It's not a good idea. Add compliance roofers and have the ip and date of the opt in and you're not taking that risk.
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Footer. Not roofer. iPhone autocorrect is semi retarded.

 

[Guest]

Slow down the sending to 50 an hour, I guarantee a lot of those messages are getting spamboxed or qeued.

What is your "guarantee" based on? Do you have some documentation or some TOS verbiage from somebody? Where or from what authoritative source can I learn more about what you are claiming?

As President Reagan once said, "Trust... but verify."


Al

 

[ksigmtsu]

I'm trying to dig this up for you from someone other than email marketing forum posters on another site al, but I'm having trouble finding official people who ever talked about it.

Not surprising because I don't think they wanna give spammers the limits.

My info came from some guys who are sending millions of emails managing a large bank of smtp servers.

You don't have to follow it, obviously, and it might not even effect you, I just know they were pretty adamant about that.

My sending settings that I personally use are within those boundaries and I have high deliverability numbers.

Also, in your case you aren't sending 200000 emails a month so what's the harm in throttling them as a test to see if your click rate goes up.

If you sent a couple and compared the data you can prove or disprove it yourself by comparing to your old numbers.

 

[Guest]

you can prove or disprove it yourself

I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just curious as to the source of what I believe might be a rumor.

I also don't want to wade through the ton of PHPlist documentation trying to find out how to throttle.

I'm sure it is buried somewhere in one of the config files.

What it comes down to is that I'm pretty "savvy" on internet tech stuff and in all the years and years of working on the net (starting with Usenet News in 1987) I've simply never heard of the throttling for delivery (receiving.) I've never heard of any ISP mention anything about a "policy" on receiving... such that if they get too many notes from a single IP that they put them in the bit-bucket. I'm not saying it's not true... I just would like to verify it.

Yes, yes, I know some server farms (web hosts) require you to throttle outgoing mail at around 50 a minute with a 10 second break, but I know my server (since I'm the only one one it... dedicated) does not require it. (I also run my own SMTP on my dedicated server so I'm not bogging THAT service down either.) I obviously am adding bits to the "the pipes" to the up-line but I've been told that with only 900-1000 plain-text letters not to worry about it.

Al

 

[HealthGuy]

Al: I can't believe you are quoting Reagan. Has hell frozen over?

 

[Guest]

Al: I can't believe you are quoting Reagan. Has hell frozen over?

How many times do I have to remind this group of my "flaming liberal" voting record (or support (*) before old enough to vote):

1956: Ike* (I like Ike)
1960: Kennedy* (New Frontier)
1964: Goldwater* (In Your Heart...)
1968: Nixon* (Nixon's the One)
1972: McGovern (Come home, America)
1976: Carter (I Will Never Lie to You)
1980: Reagan (Are You Better Off Now Than..
1984: Reagan (Morning in America)
1988: Bush (Read My Lips, No New Taxes)
1992: Clinton (It's the Economy, Stupid)
1996: Dole ("Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility")
2000: Bush (I'm not Clinton)
2004: Bush (Mission Accomplished)
2008: Obama (Change You Can Believe In)

Make of that what you will. The problem, as I see it, is that most people like me are socially liberal but fiscally conservative. No one "talks" to us. We're moderates... independents.. slightly to the right of center. The KEY is that most people like us put their social "causes" just slightly before their economic ones.

If a candidate offered to cut taxes and balance the budget but said he/she was also going to repeal the civil rights laws (as I read that Rand Paul had suggested or hinted at) well, I can't go there... because as important as the economic issues are, I simply don't want to return to Alabama of 1958 or Selma of March 7, 1965 because I saw THAT first hand, and I saw hate the faces of some of your parents and all the tax cuts and balanced budgets in the world is not worth reviving that again. You could not possibly understand unless you lived it.

Back to the topic... there is a big difference between truth and rumor... and there is always a conflict about truth and belief. President Reagan nailed it when he told Gorby that while he would take the Russian at his word to dismantle nukes, he wanted proof just the same.

When I hear about "rules" and "procedures" that I've never heard of before... like the one in this thread about X number of emails from an IP being sent to the bit-bucket if received too fast, I'm happy to "trust" but I also want to "verify."

I hope that answers your question. If not, I'll be happy to write a longer and more detailed reply and explanation

Al

 

[ksigmtsu]

The only people that I'm getting the info from are guys operating smtp server banks.

I wanted to find out how to market via single opt in email lists.

I have my system set up as I described above, doing 20 emails every 5 minutes on a cron with a limit of 100 per ISP using 2 smtp servers.

My open and Ctr rates are higher than average, using those guys advice. I imagine there is some truth to it, because it makes sense, but I cannot find a tos addressing it.

I imagine it doesn't apply to whitelisted emails.

 

[HealthGuy]

Al: I respect your reply, and well put. You are a gentleman.