Guide to Email

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This guide discusses sending large quantities of emails to your customers or mailing lists. Usually such email has computer generated content (like social network invites, transaction details specific to the user, etc.).

General Advice

Be sure to set the SPF record in your DNS records to indicate which servers are allowed to send mail from your domain. e.g. for AuthSMTP and Google apps you might use "v=spf1 a ptr include:authsmtp.com include:aspmx.googlemail.com ?all" or something even stricter than "?all" if you are sure these are the only servers that will ever send email from your domain. If you have any unused domains, set the SPF record on them to disallow any email "=spf1 -all" to dissuade spammers from using your domain name to send junk.

Email Providers

  • AuthSMTP.com
I've heard good things about http://authsmtp.com/. Benjamin Curtis [benjamin.curtis@gmail.com]
  • aweber.com
  • campaigner.com
  • CampaignMonitor.com
This comes recommended. Like most, this is limited in the control you have over the data going into the email template. They try to free and review email templates to prevent spam. This was recommended by Kevin Merritt at Blist.com.
  • cheetahmail.com/corp/
  • ConstantContact.com
They are used by PopShops.com. They are good and a cheap entry level provider. But once you get bigger, the price becomes too much and it is better to have your own hardware. Be careful, if you are using a dirty IP or too many people flag you as spam, they will kick you off ASAP with no recourse.
  • CoolerEmail:
Cheapest one is CoolerEmail - 1c per email. You might be able to get discount for volume (I haven't tried that yet) Has good delivery rates. - Rajat Garg [rajat79@gmail.com]
They appear to be very expensive. They have been used at PayScale and they were very happy with ExactTarget.
  • goodmail.com
  • Infusion software
From Olya [olyalapina@gmail.com]: I looked into Infusion software for newsletters, follow up, auto response. They are awesome but I found their services a bit expensive for us at this point. I would be interested to know about newsletter options from others.
  • JangoMail
Bryan Starbuck: JangoMail is: a) turn-key, b) low cost, c) has APIs (with Ruby APIs), d) and they take care of the spam issues. It is great at being lower cost than most of the others. We have found them lately to be a little flaky and so we are considering moving off of them. Rajeev Goel: JangoMail has been super easy to use for us. The web service is a no brainer to figure out. Their mass emails offer personalization, so that you can easily replace fields in the body of the email with personalized data. And their ability to send transaction emails is nice because they get sent instantaneously.
  • MailChimp:
Alyssa Royse [alyssa@justcauseit.com] uses them, and LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it. it handles all the technicalities beautifully, manages lists, integrates with Google Analytics, tracks all bounces and clicks in each newsletter, and has the cutest darned branding of anything i've ever seen (which it DOES NOT put anywhere on the newsletters we send out.)
  • mailspade.com
They are under beta. GOOD: They give customers full SMTP access so we aren't constrained to templates. BAD: They are still under development. BAD: I very much worry about them saying "Sorry, this site still looks like ass in IE." on their page footer. Not necessarily the kind of professional diligent philosophy of people looking for 4 or 5 nine's of stability on email sending.
  • MelissaData.com
From Olya [olyalapina@gmail.com] is pretty good for mailing lists. You can set the criteria based on geographical location of the companies you mail to, size, industry etc.
  • Postini
This blog post talks about this startup company using them as their public facing email service that isn't flagged as a spam problem. http://groups.google.com/group/startupemail. They charge $3 per account. They limit sending 500 emails a day per account.
Adam Ely [adame780@gmail.com] from (Disney Online?) uses them: With Postini, you configure your mail server to smart host to their mail servers over SMTP standard port 25. You have full control over the content of the email, sending, etc. They just act as an incoming and outgoing gateway for you. Reasons I like them:
  • They queue mail if your server is down (not sure for how long)
  • You can restrict connections to your mail server to only theirs to improve your security
  • You no longer have to worry about your mail server being blocked due to EC2's dynamic IP range
  • They also provide a web based dashboard to review stats such volume, delivery, etc.
So far no issues, I have been using them on some small systems so far so nothing huge.
People have said great things about them for the specific task to TEST and MEASURE the percent of email being caught by various ISP's spam filters. (Earthlink, AOL, etc.) Dogster.com mentioned using them.
  • Savicom
Jordan Mitchell [Jordan@OthersOnline.com], Using Savicom and does everything I need -- cheap, works well, and easy to use. Let's me personalize each email with whatever data I have (first name, user name, dates, etc.) and HTML. Haven't even automated it, takes just too little time to send out a welcome blast each week to previous week's registrations.
  • sendgrid.com
  • strongmail.com
  • VerticalResponse.com
Best one we found was (in terms of reporting). Has good delivery rates - Rajat Garg [rajat79@gmail.com]
  • ymlp.com
Used by Ksenia Oustiougova [ksoust@gmail.com]
  • WhatCounts http://www.whatcounts.com Seattle-based firm used by MSNBC, Costco, Alaska Airlines, TeachStreet, The Woodland Park Zoo, The Seattle Times, Virgin America, Voice of America, REI. Important features of their platform includes:
  • operates as both a SaaS and on-premise, appliance solution
  • strong analytics engine
  • robust content management
  • flexible API suite
  • integrated video management, delivery and tracking features
  • integrated RSS with personalization capabilities
  • complimented by a great consulting and services organization

Links

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