Sending out e-mail and avoiding the spam trap - how?
We all hate spam. I don't think I can ever say that strong enough. And it has almost destroyed a perfectly good way for people to stay updated on things.
Still, I actually like getting some things delivered to me as a newsletter. Not several times a day, but things that comes once per week or once per month. Or only when there is something big happening.
But how can we send these out? I have been looking for a solution that is simple and easy to manage. It does not need a lot of bling or fancy stuff. But it needs to be solid.
And I am not even sure it needs to be server based. For the customer I am working with right now, a Windows based solution he can run from his PC might be the thing.
His list is less than 2500 names. I have been looking at Sendblaster Pro and it do not look half bad. But am I missing something? One reason why I am VERY sceptical to install it on the server is that if anyone reported a message as spam, all of us on that server would be affected by a block. So I want to make sure that either he or me violate any rules.
Of course, I will check with the hosting provider what their limits are. I have a really great relationship with them, so that is no problem at all.
But have anyone of you set up any newsletter systems? What is your experience? What was the difficult parts? How easy is it ro run the system you are using? How easy is it to create a mailing and get it reliably delivered? Should I keep it separate from Joomla? Or am I worrying way too much? :-)
Still, I actually like getting some things delivered to me as a newsletter. Not several times a day, but things that comes once per week or once per month. Or only when there is something big happening.
But how can we send these out? I have been looking for a solution that is simple and easy to manage. It does not need a lot of bling or fancy stuff. But it needs to be solid.
And I am not even sure it needs to be server based. For the customer I am working with right now, a Windows based solution he can run from his PC might be the thing.
His list is less than 2500 names. I have been looking at Sendblaster Pro and it do not look half bad. But am I missing something? One reason why I am VERY sceptical to install it on the server is that if anyone reported a message as spam, all of us on that server would be affected by a block. So I want to make sure that either he or me violate any rules.
Of course, I will check with the hosting provider what their limits are. I have a really great relationship with them, so that is no problem at all.
But have anyone of you set up any newsletter systems? What is your experience? What was the difficult parts? How easy is it ro run the system you are using? How easy is it to create a mailing and get it reliably delivered? Should I keep it separate from Joomla? Or am I worrying way too much? :-)
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Comment by Ajmal Afif on March 15, 2010 at 11:13pm
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Hello there,
hmm I am figuring this out myself too. Anyway from the post above, it looks like you are talking about a newsletter software that is setup on the server (one or more level up than Joomla directory folders & files), right?
I asked couple of Joomla devs and many of them recommend to keep it separate from Joomla, caused I am looking for more detailed newsletter handler. Some recommend MailChimp, Campaign Monitor etc.
One thing I learn that using these types of newsletter (like MailChimp etc.) it will have higher chances to avoid the spam traps in inboxes, given their reputation and all. That would be one other advantage perhaps.
With that being said, I am still contemplating because using external newsletter component (MailChimp to be precise) has slowed down my site to about 5-8 seconds; just to load the newsletter module. It could be because I am at the other side of the world, far far away from US or UK, but who knows for sure.
I am still experimenting things here and there. Thanks for this great post!
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Comment by Robert Vining on March 16, 2010 at 8:06am -
I would leave the newsletters up to the newsletter people and servers. I recommend and use iContact simply because of their delivery success rate. Especially if you have a list of 25,000 names. If you can't cover the cost of a quality email newsletter provider with a list that large, your doing something wrong.
In addition, any automated newsletter should require a double opt-in from every name on that list. When you create a list at iContact from a list of names that you upload, they give you the option of asking each person to 'double opt-in' with a confirmation email that they want your stuff.
If all 25,000 actually want the information from you or your client, they will confirm the invitation. If they don't want to hear from you, they aren't a good lead anyway.
No small time server, not even an organization the size of Joomla itself can get the types of success rates that the 'big-time' newsletter companies offer.
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Comment by Mitch Pirtle on March 16, 2010 at 8:08am -
One of your biggest challenges is the IP address of your outgoing SMTP server. In a nutshell, companies like Mailchimp, JangoSMTP and whatnot go through extraordinary steps (and frustration) to get their IP addresses whitelisted by all the major ISPs.
This is CRITICAL for your mail campaigns, otherwise whatever IP address you are sending from is most likely going to land on a "questionable or worse" list and that will also be a long-lasting penalty to your domain.
For example, my company was sending all transactional email (registration requests, welcome email, password resets) from the web platform. Their former technology partner was using their own SMTP server, which unfortunately was blacklisted. So for four months these guys were sending their mail from a blacklisted IP...
I switched them over immediately, but the domain still remains in a sort of jail for a few weeks while the reputation is rebuilt.
If you are setting up a brand new website and you're looking to have email campaigns and/or do serious commerce, I'd recommend someone like JangoSMTP for all transactional (joomla-powered) email. Not only do they have whitelisted IP addresses on their outgoing servers, they can provide simple tracking so you see if registration emails are getting opened, etc. This visibility is critical if you want to really understand what is going on with your customers and website communications overall.
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Comment by Svein Wisnaes on March 16, 2010 at 9:14am
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This is all good advice and exactly what I was looking for :-) BTW - Robert, I think you misread the number of addresses - you added an extra zero. But still, I am checking out the services you mentioned.
And Mitch - I never thought about the transactional stuff as well. Very good point. What is the experience of all the others here about that?
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