YMPL vs your own mail server thingy

[Jamie W]

Hey,

I recently sent out an Email to my mailing list, and the Email contained a link (which went view bit.ly so I could track clicks etc). I thought I had a very low % of clicks from it, probably less than 5%, which made me wonder if a lot of the Emails are ending up in junk folders?

The Emails were sent using my ISP's SMTP thingy, and I'm wondering if it's been flagged as spam? Sending out a lot of very similar Emails, looks kinda iffy (likely to be spam etc).

Maybe it would have been better to use google SMTP (i.e. google apps), or would it just be better to use something like YMLP.com?

Just from the point of view of not getting flagged as spam, is it better to use YMLP.com? and if so, why?

Thanks,
Jamie.

[jpoag]

you need to track more than clicks. You also need a tracking pixel to track your viewing rate.

A really good tracking pixel will even tell you who is opening your emails.

This is basically what YMLP does.

[Tobias]

The general consensus seems to be that it is better to use a service for this. The rationale being that they work hard to make email providers let their mails through, and that you don't want your own mail server blacklisted.

I don't know if YMLP is as good as say MailChimp, since YMLP doesn't force double opt-in.

It's all pretty cheap anyhow and will likely save you a couple hours' work over the years. I'd say go with a service.

[Maupin]

Exactly. Unless you've a system to stagger mail delivery to common providers and can guarantee customers want to read your mail and will manually find it in their spam/bulk folders and move it back to their inboxes, you need to use a service. Otherwise once your subscription numbers grow you're likely to be blacklisted.

[Jamie W]

Cool! Thanks everyone.

Not to mention there are other benefits to using something like YMLP..

Does anyone know if it's possible to put some kind of template wrapper around the sign-up page; when a user fills and submits the signup webform, it takes them offsite to ymlp.com, but I want to make it look like they're still on my site.

Is that possible?

[Jamie W]

Working now, I hope!

I can't sign-up to my own newsletter though; too many subscriptions from my IP addy (was only testing the thing!).

Can someone just check it out, subscribe and unsubscribe, and let me know if there's anything unexpected or ugly that happens?

You can subscribe from:

http://www.qwak.co.uk/
or
http://www.qwak.co.uk/pages/news/

You can ussubscribe from:

http://www.qwak.co.uk/pages/news/unsub.php
or
should be unsubscribe link in any Emails sent!

Thanks again,
Jamie.

[Game Producer]

Works excellent.

And I didn't unsubscribe, so you have one more potential buyer.

[Jamie W]

Thanks Juuso! Expect to be mailed soon, with news on iPhone Qwak!

All the best,
Jamie.

[BantamCityGames]

I had a similar problem when sending out my own newsletter and didn't realize why I wasn't getting any bytes on the links (or not many), but then switched to ezinedirector (similar to YMLP) and then started noticing at least some activity with the newsletter->sale ratio.

I like ezine for the price and ease of use, but I wish they had better ways to dynamically send out content vs having a static template (unless I missed something?)

[Jamie W]

Yeah, it seems like a good thing I think.

I've always been a bit tight, it's crazy really, because I try and skimp on this kind of thing, and will spend days coding my own solution, that will never be that good (webby coding isn't really my forte) ... all in the name of saving a few bob.

The alternative, is to use a pre-existing professional solution, that isn't really that expensive, and spend more of my time makeing awesome games, that will probably work out a lot more cost effective in terms of what I spend my time on (not to mention the fact that I'll enjoy myself a whole lot more).

So there you have it...

By the way, June 8, should be a pretty good day for shopping on the AppStore!

[Nexic]

Trying to run your own mail server is insane. Every email provider seems to have completely different standards and it's really hard work trying to comply with them all. If you do any kind of mass emailing you'll have a hard enough time even getting the email to into their junk folder, let alone ending up in the inbox.

YMLP will make sure your email at least arrives, although there is still a good chance it will be in the junk folder.

[amaranth]

Trying to run your own mail server is insane. Every email provider seems to have completely different standards and it's really hard work trying to comply with them all. If you do any kind of mass emailing you'll have a hard enough time even getting the email to their inbox, let alone ending up in the junk folder.

YMLP will make sure your email at least arrives, although there is still a good chance it will be in the junk folder.

Totally agree. Not only that, but I found when I sent newsletters from my own mail server, it triggered some email providers to move any email from me to the spam folder.

[GolfHacker]

Yeah, my mail server ended up being blacklisted by hotmail and aol. Getting it off the blacklist was not easy. Definitely go with YMLP or some other provider.