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How many emails are too many?

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    How many emails are too many?

    Hi folks,

    From time to time, I've written modules that send marketing emails directly from the store. I've been told that this is not a great idea, because too many of those can get the store blacklisted as a source of spam, and it's better to use a 3rd-party service such as Mailchimp for mass mailings. On the other hand, larger stores obviously send out lots of emails every day, just for the order notifications to customers and merchants. So I'm wondering, how many is too many?

    Is there a hard limit, or maybe just a rough rule of thumb, about how many emails a store can send before it gets into trouble? Are there any hard limits built into the servers, or any clauses in Miva's TOS about that?

    Thanks --
    Kent Multer
    Magic Metal Productions
    http://TheMagicM.com
    * Web developer/designer
    * E-commerce and Miva
    * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

    #2
    Well. Just from personal experience. I get annoyed after one...and i fully admit i'm a tad adhd and forget things. what I'd like to see (but store owners will hate me for saying this) is a "Remind Me" or "Later" button in the email. If clicked, send a follow on. If not, one and done.
    Bruce Golub
    Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

    Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit CSS/Javascript/HTML Easily | Make Your Site Faster | Get Indexed by Google | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
    phosphormedia.com

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      #3
      The reason these should never be sent from a store is because it can and will cause some measurable increase in unseen or undeliverable transaction emails. By that I mean every marketing sent from the same server, where one or more recipients report the messages as spam, which is nearly guaranteed, will cause some amount of damage. As email providers begin to lower the server or domain's reputation as a result, there will be an increase in transaction emails that get put into a spam folder, flagged in some way, or even silently deleted.

      With the price of sending marketing emails in any way other than through the store, there is simply no value proposition where any risk to transaction emails is worth it. For example, Mail Chimp generally allows you to send somewhere in the range of eight to twelve emails per month to your contact list before hitting overages, and 20,000 contacts on Essentials is $170/month; that's as much as 200,000+ emails per month for $170. Even if you do not care at all about all the other features they have, like automated bounce handling, opt in, analytics, etc., even just a handful of angry customers per month, and lost sales, will cost any reasonable business more than $170. That damage could be in the form of lost sales who never saw the marketing, password reset emails for valid customers that never come through and they go elsewhere, cancelled orders when someone didn't realize it actually went through and ordered elsewhere, returned orders for the same reason, lost shipping fees from such events, processing of those cancellations/returns, customer service reps having to talk to customers who never got their order notification, so on and so forth.

      Last but not least, I have yet to see ANY mass mailing modules or MivaScripts that properly handle double opt in AND bounce handling, and we do mandate proper bounce handling when marketing emails are being sent.
      David Hubbard
      CIO
      Miva
      [email protected]
      http://www.miva.com

      Comment


        #4
        Hi David, thanks for your insights. I'm glad you chimed in on this one; I knew you'd have some good information.

        This particular client is a B2B seller of industrial products, which means he has a different type of customer. And he just told me today that they use a different mail host, not Miva. But I'll pass your thoughts on to him. I already told him to check with his mail host about their own policies.
        Kent Multer
        Magic Metal Productions
        http://TheMagicM.com
        * Web developer/designer
        * E-commerce and Miva
        * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
        http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

        Comment


          #5
          Same concepts would apply in such a case, assuming the mail host even allows it. The store would ideally be set to send email through the same host they use for regular email, so the messages can come from their domain and from a mail host with a good reputation, pass SPF, pass DKIM or any other technologies the mail host has implemented, etc. Then send marketing through a marketing service to avoid issues with the domain's transactional emails. If they're B2B then all the more reason to use a service, as the list is not likely to be massive, which means it should be cheap.
          David Hubbard
          CIO
          Miva
          [email protected]
          http://www.miva.com

          Comment


            #6
            OK, Thanks again.

            Just out of curiosity, if you happen to know the answer: how is it that services like Mailchimp can send millions of emails, when the rest of us can't? Seems like the spammers and scammers could just set up accounts at Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc., to disguise their junk mail.
            Kent Multer
            Magic Metal Productions
            http://TheMagicM.com
            * Web developer/designer
            * E-commerce and Miva
            * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
            http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

            Comment


              #7
              It's a combination of factors. On the actual service provider side, you have to mix in automated bounce handling, actually processing abuse reports, placing proper tracking info in the headers, and booting customers who are spammers. If you don't do that, you'll end up sabotaging your business because you'll become a haven for spammers. Then, as an marketing service provider, you hope to reach critical mass where you become "too big to block", i.e. you're handling such a high volume and high percentage of legitimate email that people want, no email hosting provider would risk blocking your network because it would damage them more than you due to customer defection over missing emails.
              David Hubbard
              CIO
              Miva
              [email protected]
              http://www.miva.com

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Kent Multer View Post
                And he just told me today that they use a different mail host, not Miva.
                You'll still need to work on this too. I'm trying to figure this out for myself. I'm not a fan of anything Microsoft so Office 365 is out of the question. I'd really like to keep using Thunderbird but I've been told it doesn't support two-factor authentication. I'm hoping that Miva will put out help guides for its clients that will need to find separate email hosting.

                Leslie Kirk
                Miva Certified Developer
                Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
                Previously of Webs Your Way
                (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

                Email me: [email protected]
                www.lesliekirk.com

                Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

                Comment

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