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A great price and being flexible ... hmm ...
Posted By: John Glube In Response To: Autoresponder search continued (Dorothy Rowland)
Date: Wednesday, 23 February 2005, at 7:23 a.m.
I have responded elsewhere specifically to Dorothy's post, but I wanted to make some general comments on email service providers and email.
(An email service provider - ESP - is a company, partnership or individual which specializes in providing bulk email services for hire, providing list management. In the Internet marketing arena, typically firms offer sequential auto responders with broadcast ability.)
There has been a lot of talk over the last year about what is spam, the use of co-registration services, the new laws and whether you should run a single or double opt-in mailing list.
Some marketers have been upset with the restrictions being placed by certain ESPs on the ability to import lists, or requiring that lists be double opt-in.
If your list is single opt-in it is much harder to move your data base from one ESP to another with any kind of good delivery rates.
Why? An ESP runs shared mail servers for the benefits of its clients. If the ESP has lax rules on allowing list imports, people will take advantage and this will cause delivery problems for the ESP, so affecting all of their clients.
How come? A number of reasons.
Let's say the ESP caters to network marketers. Many people in this line are involved in purchasing leads.
Unfortunately, this is an area fraught with difficulty. It is not uncommon for a seller to market a so called "opt-in" list, when in reality the list was simply harvested with the supporting data being faked. I am not saying that all those who market leads are involved in this practice. But it happens to often to ignore.
The result? The list is imported, mailings commence, spam complaints come in and more than likely the ESP finds its mail servers being black listed, so hurting delivery rates for all its customers.
Another situation. The list owner will claim the list is good, but in reality it is a dirty list. The list is imported. Problems arise and everyone is the loser.
As a result, the better ESPs with good delivery rates exercise controls. Why? Because they don't want to place their good reputation at risk, or they are new to the market and want to gain and keep a good reputation.
Some ESPs, like AWeber prohibit the importing of purchased lists.
ESPs that do allow the importing of purchased lists will impose various restrictions. The ones which are savvy and want to avoid problems with having their mail servers black listed will take a number of steps.
These steps may vary and often include rate limiting, age limiting, requiring re-confirmation of all lists, unless the list was purchased from a known source which has been properly vetted and tested and lead collection meets the appropriate criteria, checking all lists for fake data (even from approved sellers) and monitoring bounce rates.
Even if the list is a "house list," unless the owner can satisfy management as to the list origin and that it is double opt-in, the better ESPs with good delivery rates will:
* Require that you re-confirm the list before mailings can commence; and/or
* Impose rate limits, verify the list, monitor bounce rates and do list testing.
Why all these restrictions?
In today's email environment an ESP is in the business of not just simply providing a platform for sending messages, but also in getting the message to its desired destination.
With spam levels continuing to escalate, networks are taking a variety of different steps to protect their servers from being abused.
This includes:
* Content filters, black listing, strict criteria for mail delivery and in some cases use of third party filtering firms with extremely tough policies to protect their mail server load; and,
* Large consumer mail box providers offering individuals the ability to be extremely selective on what type of email makes it into the inbox versus the junk mail folder or bulk mail box, while allowing individuals to determine what is spam, through the use of the "this is spam" or "this is junk" button.
As a result, an ESP with a good reputation which equates to being able to get your message delivered is extremely protective of its reputation.
This means the owner will have to manage its customers' lists like a hawk, immediately swooping down and thwarting any abuse.
My point? When selecting an ESP, don't just look at price and features.
I can provide you with all the features imaginable, including the ability to import umpteen thousands of leads a day without any restrictions, all at a great price.
But if the IPs I use to send email on your behalf are black listed by Spamhaus and off and on the SpamCop block list, your delivery rates will be terrible.
The result? To keep getting mail delivered for my customers, I will have to burn through IP addresses and start moving from network to network. Hmm ...
Some ESP owners have decided, that is not how I want to run my business. Why? The email world is changing. I thought the change would happen more rapidly. But it is happening none the less.
The old way, all email is good unless proven otherwise is dying out. The new way, all email is bad unless otherwise shown is becoming a reality.
America Online, the largest consumer ISP is leading this charge. The result for them? Spam loads are continuing to drop.
In response to the change, many marketers have said, email is dead, RSS is the future. Other marketers have said, build huge lists and even if your delivery rate is under 50% and your open rate is around 1%, you can still make money.
I am not going to sit here and say, we should all do this or that. The choice is yours. Just understand what it means for a shared resource, the Internet and the long term health of your business.
Appreciate that the people who run the "good" ESPs, the ones who will take care of your lists, your most precious asset, are looking ahead. Some have added the ability to create RSS feeds. This will become more common as ESPs move from being email service providers to digital message providers.
The same "good" ESPs have implemented precautions and checks to protect their and in turn your interests, while adding features to allow you to improve your marketing. This will continue.
Okay, with that rant out of the way, for those who want to build solid house lists:
* AWeber - http://glube.aweber.com
* Bighip - http://bighip.com
For those who want to use co-registration services:
* EmailAces - http://glube.emailaces.com
* US Email Service - http://us-email-service.com
(Please note, I have simply placed the providers in alphabetical order. You make the choice.)
There are other good choices. But, these are four which come to mind and will fit most people's budget.
John Glube
Toronto, Canada
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