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  1. #1

    In House Autoresponder - Whitelisted?

    Hi,

    I run a replicated website and I have a autoresponder tied into my site. My emails are going through my server, but some emails are not getting through and it's pissing my people off and me. I have hundreds of emails going out daily. They are ALL opted-in.

    1. How can I get whitelisted with the proper isp's to ensure deliverability?

    2. Who do you recommend for a dedicated email server?

    3. Should I use SENDMAIL, POP3, SMTP? I'm clueless in that area.

    4. Should I get a email server just for this?

    I'd appreciate all your feedback.

  2. #2
    Some questions for you:

    1. Do you send an autoresponder sequence? (e.g. 5 emails within 7 days after a
    user confirms his/her optin)

    2. How many subscribers do you have? (e.g. 10K)

    Arguably the #1 challenge when trying to send a bulk autoresponder message or
    even broadcast mailing is email delivery. Unless you're RAW (Ready, Able, Willing)
    to handle all its aspects (e.g. maintaining relationships with ISPs, dealing with
    spam blacklists, etc.) while hosting the email autoresponder/mailing list solution, it
    might be time to consider "outsourcing" it to someone who specializes in this field.

    I'm sorry I can't really answer some of your questions above (except maybe #1,
    and that's to talk to maybe each and every ISP around to know their policies). But
    I can only recommend you consider signing up with a service who does this stuff
    like aweber, emailaces, and getresponse.

    Take it from me. My broadcast mail provider handles that stuff while I continue to
    work on getting more subscribers for my blog's mailing list.

  3. #3
    Thank for the reply...

    1. Yes I have a backend software that allow me to sequnce when the emails go out. It's very comprehensive.

    It has all the opt out links in the emails. The user can put their own tags with thei name, and other fields we provide: phone, email, etc.

    I use aweber for my personal list, but we can only use our own autoresponder with this software simply because it is personalized for all emails.

    Since it's a replicated site, it has that users info in the email which cannot be done with any other service except in house.

    I need to know the in's and out's of managing the list.

    Where would I start to keep this under control and what aspects of maitaing this are priority?

    I appreciate your help. Thanks!

  4. #4
    1. How can I get whitelisted with the proper isp's to ensure deliverability?

    2. Who do you recommend for a dedicated email server?

    3. Should I use SENDMAIL, POP3, SMTP? I'm clueless in that area.

    4. Should I get a email server just for this?
    Unfortunately you cannot get whitelisted everywhere when using autoresponders. Your own dedicated server will not really help you either, as the problem is your autoresponders (and I am sorry to say, your autoresponders may be the reason your servers mail IP is blacklisted in the first place)

    http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html

    Problem: The traditional auto-responder
    Description: A message is sent in response to inbound email informing the purported sender that you are on vacation, listing FAQs or otherwise sending a standard message - all too often, to the wrong person.

    Solution: Do not use these systems. Inform your normal corespondents of your absence before you depart. Or let a co-worker answer your email in your absence. Publish FAQ information on a web-site. If you wish to dispense information via email, it's easy to reject a message while referring the sender to a FAQ web-page. Using sendmail, this is done in the access.db table like so:
    There are several ways to work around this issue (ie you can send autoresponders out on a different IP then the rest of your email, therefore only your autoresponder IP is getting blacklisted) - however, this will not really resolve your issue, as your autoresponder is the one that seems to be mission critical.
    www.cartika.com
    www.clusterlogics.com - You simply cannot run a hosting company without this software. Backups, Disaster Recovery, Big Data, Virtualization. 20 years of building software that solves your problems

  5. #5
    duplicate message
    www.cartika.com
    www.clusterlogics.com - You simply cannot run a hosting company without this software. Backups, Disaster Recovery, Big Data, Virtualization. 20 years of building software that solves your problems

  6. #6
    How do I go about getting whitelisted with AOL, hotmail, gmail, yahoo, and the other major email providers?

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    271
    Quote Originally Posted by mustang09
    How do I go about getting whitelisted with AOL, hotmail, gmail, yahoo, and the other major email providers?
    Hahaha you must be joking! Delivering regular mail to some of these providers is a pain. Autoresponders and bulk mail (solicited or not) are close to mission impossible.

    I have some very important customers who use Hotmail and my one-off messages to Hotmail have been disappearing or ending up in their spam folder.

    The only reliable solutions I found:

    - send email to Hotmail via Hotmail (I subscribed to a Hotmail $20 / year account)

    - or attach a jpg or txt file of at least 500kB (this bypasses spam filters)

    Regardlessly of the above, you should implement SPF and DomainKeys (good luck with the second one!).


  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by mustang09
    How do I go about getting whitelisted with AOL, hotmail, gmail, yahoo, and the other major email providers?
    Like I said, talk to them. Learn their policies, and do your best to comply.

    From what I've gathered from various sources, AOL users are a potential problem
    (and maybe gmail users, too). Reason is because of the "spam" button they can
    click on should they (mistakenly) believe they got unwanted email/s from you.

    The moment a user clicks that button, the email provider (AOL, for example) might
    consider your email as spam. if that happens, it'll take days to resolve it with them.

    Another problem is the possibility of somebody "spoofing" your email, which is why
    markwolk suggested implementing email authentication methods like SPF and DK.
    That, too, can be easy or difficult to do, depending on how much you know about
    DNS.

    Could you elaborate a bit more what exactly you meant by this?

    Quote Originally Posted by mustang09
    Since it's a replicated site, it has that users info in the email which cannot be done with any other service except in house.
    Can't you export your list from that in-house software and re-import it to aweber?
    I don't remember if they'll allow that, though.

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