E-Mailing Services and Software
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson,
Wilson Internet Rocklin, CA
There are three main types of e-mailing services and software:
- Desktop software, which is installed on your desktop computer and sends out e-mails using your Internet connection. This sometimes limits the number and speed of e-mail transmission, since ISPs often severely limit bulk e-mail sending.
- CGI Software installed on your webserver. This gives you a fast connection to the Internet, but may give you deliverability problems if recipient ISPs think you are sending spam.
- Hosted ASP (Application Service Provider) E-Mailing Services. The software resides on their servers. You usually pay a monthly fee for these. There are hundreds of good ones, but I can only recommend a few. One advantage is that your service provider will work for you to get your e-mails through spam filters, delivered to the recipients.
Now let me recommend a few in each category.
Desktop Bulk E-Mail Software
There are a number of good solutions. I'll only mention three:
Gammadyne Mailer is the one I like and use. It is very powerful, allowing me to not only read but write to lists contained in MS Access databases and Excel Spreadsheets. You can access any ODBC-compatible database -- I even access an online MySQL database. This software is modestly priced and has been under constant development for several years. The downside is that because of its power, it is not very user-friendly. You can also read my older review.
Infacta Group Mail, Personal Edition. This software is excellent if you only need to maintain a newsletter database and simple enough to use fairly easily. Modestly priced.
Arial Campaign Enterprise can work on a Windows desktop or Internet server to manage an unlimited number of e-mails. It is both powerful and fairly user-friendly. Priced higher than my other recommendations, but worth it for the support available.
CGI Software
In addition to Arial Campaign Enterprise mentioned above for Windows servers ...
AutoResponse Plus 3. I use and recommend AutoResponse Plus 3. It is written in Perl with a MySQL database, installs on most Unix servers, and can handle lists in the millions. It has a very powerful autoresponder function as well as the ability to send out newsletter broadcasts to subscribers. You can read my older review.
ASP Hosted E-Mailing Services
Among the many good ones, these are some stand-outs. Their pricing varies and so do their services. All have a good reputation.
Constant Contact starts at $15 per month. They are known for their simplicity and user-friendliness for those a bit intimidated by the power of other services. A number of templates are available, and a WYSIWYG editor will be available soon.
Topica is a cost leader, with a very low monthly price of $49.95/month for up to 5,000 names in a database and nearly unlimited e-mails.
Campaigner from Got Corp. (formerly GotMarketing) prides themselves on "the highest deliverability in the industry." Fees start at $25 per month and are based on the number of e-mails sent. They also serve enterprise size clients. This is a company to watch with an excellent feature-set.
Vertical Response begins at $19.50 for 1,500 e-mails. Pricing is based on the number of e-mails sent per month.
AWeber stores up to 10,000 e-mail addresses for $19.95 per month. It offers both e-mail broadcasts for newsletters as well as a powerful autoresponder system.
Some Deliverability Tools
If you aren't getting your e-mails delivered reliably, here are a couple of tools that can help.
Blacklist Monitor from Mailworkz notifies you whenever your sender IP address or domain appears on a blacklist. It provides instructions for contacting each blacklist owner so you can try to get delisted. Free trial is available.
DeliveryMonitor from AWeber Communications tracks three e-mail addresses for each of 20 of the most popular US Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to see when and if your e-mails are delivered. Graphic results, plus suggestions on getting delivered.
