Advice regarding clients that send bulk e-mail

Vibe

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Aug 3, 2005
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Hi everyone!

I am constantly monitoring our mail queue and periodically see clients that are bulk mailing (typically from Outlook) to large lists of recipients (e.g. 1500+). It hasn't really affected performance - however, I am concerned about the potential issues for blacklisting and/or issues for Hotmail/Yahoo recipients receiving from our IPs.

I have looked into the SMTP limiter plugin and have thought about limiting each user to say 200 emails per day. My only concern is that these "folks" are typically business people that expect the ability to send mass emails. I often suggest that clients signup for ConstantContact or one of the other services for mass email - which is generally received well by the client.

Just a couple of questions that I hope you can provide some feedback:

  1. What are your practices regarding clients sending bulk email?
  2. Do you limit such things as list size (Major Domo) and/or daily email limits?
  3. Do your clients willingly accept the idea of turning to another provider specialized in mass email delivery?

:) Thanks so much for any information/suggestions you provide!
 
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Hi everyone!

[...]
  1. What are your practices regarding clients sending bulk email?
  2. Do you limit such things as list size (Major Domo) and/or daily email limits?
  3. Do your clients willingly accept the idea of turning to another provider specialized in mass email delivery?

:) Thanks so much for any information/suggestions you provide!

1: All of our costumers are allowed to send bulk email, always! we do however check if the mail isnt random spam.(client pc's with malware etc)
2: no, our clients have to setup the list as opt-in-confirmed(opt-in confirmed)
3: no idea, never suggested it.
 
What are your practices regarding clients sending bulk email?
We allow it as long as the lists are double-opt-in.
Do you limit such things as list size (Major Domo) and/or daily email limits?
Not currently.
Do your clients willingly accept the idea of turning to another provider specialized in mass email delivery?
We've never asked. Several of our clients do so, and one or two have switched over since they've been our clients, because they want more features than we can give them with a Majordomo account and they don't want to use something like phpList (which you can give your clients via one-click install if you've installed Installatron.

We're actually considering installing ConstantContact ourselves for a reason you may not have considered:

Is it possible for a datacenter to go completely down? Absolutely. If so you may need a method to contact your clients. While we're in multiple datacenters, it would still be nice to have a third party to be able to send our contact emails if required.

Jeff
 
Thanks so much for your feedback midas & jlasman it is certainly appreciated!

After reviewing the notion of setting a daily limit for email I must admit that it left a "bad" taste in my mouth. I know that for many of our clients it would negatively impact their daily business practice - which would turn the off to our service. I am learning to be more proactive as far as email monitoring as we start to grow (the gurus in this forum have enlightened me :D)

I have reviewed PHPList as well as a couple of other alternatives - which I'm sure your familar with:

POMMO Mailing List: http://pommo.org/Main_Page

DADA Mail: http://dadamailproject.com/

I have worked with both and they appear to be decent options (vs. paid option). Many of our clients use ConstantContact and are very pleased with the results. We too are setting up an account for the very reason that jlasman mentions - redundancy. We are about 15 minutes away from our data center, however, the "what if" scenario is good enough reason to pay the extra monthly fee for security.

Thank you again for your input - gives me more to think about for sure!
 
I hadn't seen this until just today, checking on it after reading your post. When I try the test the html doesn't work in my browser, and since the test won't send me an email, I can't see if it works in email. Have you tried it? Does html email work?

If you have it installed can you please send me a test html email to the address in my sig? Thanks.
DADA Mail
Now this one I've heard of :) . I've also heard of Justin Simoni, though i don't remember where. He writes that the project was once called Mojo Mail; I vaguely remember using it under that name, perhaps a while ago.

Same question: how does the html work?

Of the two, which do you prefer? If you tried DADA mail Pro? If so, which do you prefer, and in a few words, why?

I hope you can take a few moments to continue the discussion; I find it helpful and hope others will as well.

Jeff






I have worked with both and they appear to be decent options (vs. paid option). Many of our clients use ConstantContact and are very pleased with the results. We too are setting up an account for the very reason that jlasman mentions - redundancy. We are about 15 minutes away from our data center, however, the "what if" scenario is good enough reason to pay the extra monthly fee for security.

Thank you again for your input - gives me more to think about for sure![/QUOTE]
 
Hi Jeff,

I must apologize for the delay in my reply! I went on vacation after my last post, and spent some additional time with family out of state. I am just getting back into the swing of things - my apologies!

I'm sorry to say that I currently don't have either Dada Mail or Pommo installed - I have typically used these for client installations that have been well received. However, I must admit that I like both applications for different reasons. I may end up installing the newest version of Dada 3.0RC1 to see some of the new changes.

You mentioned Mojo Mail which did became basis for Dada Mail. Dada is definitely a full featured application and further along in development than Pommo. Dada is Perl based (which may turn off PHP fans) however, it has proven to be a very reliable application. It can be configured with MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite. It is a bit more complicated at first to setup (installation, configuration and list building). The overall process for setting up lists reminds me of Major Domo as far as the overall functionality. Being Perl based, and due to my inexperience with Perl, it is also more involved to configure the appearance (it's easy to tell if a site is running Dada from the way it looks) - however, I believe the newest version offers templating for the actual interface. There are a wide range of config options that can be set including throttling, caching for delivery etc. Dada has a fair number of plugins including a log viewer that allows you to review statistics including click-throughs, errors and bounces as well as other statistics regarding recipient domains and such. HTML email is XHMTL compliant with a range of default templates to choose from. You can also integrate FCKEditor for a WYSIWYG editor. I must admit that I have not reviewed much of the formatting of the actual emails (I should - but was more focuses/pleased with the sending results). Of the installations that I have done, most customers maintain lists of 1500+ or so subscribers - easily handled. You can import/export subscribers with csv files (and I believe can now add single subscribers from the backend with the newest version).

Pommo mail is also an excellent option. It is PHP based and easy to install and configure (PHP, MySQL). The big selling point for me was the overall process of integration with an existing website as well as the ease of use for the end user (big plus here). It has a fair number of options - but not the complexity of Dada mail. I have found that customers lacking the technical expertise definitely need a much simpler interface. One feature I like is that you can dynamically design the signup form to include the specific fields that you want users to fill out (as well as setting field ordering and whether it is *required). Then it is just a matter of copying and pasting the html form into your website. Dada Mail also has this feature (form/field creation), however, it is more complicated for the average user. The management tools are not as full-featured as with Dada mail - however, this can be advantageous for a "non-techy" user. The ajax back-end and "web 2.0" feel to the interface are more inviting than the "strictly business" interface of Dada Mail (Literally a few clicks to make things happen). FCKEditor is also the WYSIWYG editor - from my experience with Drupal I believe the code is closer to being "XHTML compliant" than with TinyMCE (...hope I don't start a flame war :). You can import/export subscribers with csv files.

If I were looking at overall functionality the following would be my main points:

Dada Mail - Can install as a main application to handle mailing lists for multiple customers. If I needed something that would handle a large load this would be my choice. I might think twice about installing for a typical "non-techy" user, but would be comfortable knowing that it will work. Good performance, reliable and many configuration options + plugins. Interface is not as polished - you can also disable viewing of some options if it appears to be too complicated for your users.

Pommo Mail - I like Pommo for the ease of installation, configuration and interface. This is a good option for the "typical user" and is very easy for the non-techy. I am not certain of the overall "max" performance as compared to Dada - but it has worked out well for several of our customers. I have heard that "theoretically" very large list sizes are possible, however, one might need to tune MySQL's packet size in order to prevent large queries from Pooping out. The point and click process without all the config options is well liked by those who we have installed it for - especially the graphical interface. However, one the other hand, once you setup Dada your good to go - so the config options are really only something to work-out in the beginning. Pommo is a good option for the single-client installations.

I hope this is helpful and I would definitely suggest trying both to see what fits. I think they will serve the same purpose well. One thing that I would like to see is some performance comparisons between the two. I'm sure Dada will surpass due to it's maturity, but I have heard good things about newer versions of Pommo.

Michael
 
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