99 Questions to Ask a Prospective E-Mail Vendor

Comparing one e-mail vendor with another is difficult, since the features vary so much from one to another. This 99-question collection tool is designed to be used once you've narrowed down the field to the programs you wish to consider more carefully. It contains a comprehensive set of questions that will keep you from forgetting features that may be important to you.

The questionnaire is the basis of a massive appendix in The E-Mail Marketing Handbook (Second Edition) (to be released in August 2005), in which more than 50 top e-mail vendors answer these questions in detail about their products. If you desire to understand the significance or importance of any feature, see Chapter 9, "Selecting an E-Mail Marketing Program."

I've purposely made this with wide margins so you can print it out easily on your printer for use with several vendors.

Contact Information

1. Product name and Version

• Product Name
• Version (if applicable)

2. Company contact information

• Company
• Address1
• Address2
• City
• State
• Postal Code
• Country
• Company phone
• Company URL
• Company e-mail address or contact URL

3. Other Contact Info. Any additional company contact information, such as other offices. 

4. Contact Information (private). Contact information for an individual in the company.

• Your Name
• Your Phone
• Your E-Mail
• Best time to phone

2. Product Type

5. Product Type. Which of the follow best describe the product?

• Licensed desktop e-mailing software
• Licensed e-mailing software that installs on the user's server
• Hosted ASP e-mailing service (self-service)
• Hosted ASP e-mailing service (full-service)
• E-Mail functions are a component of a larger application
• E-Mail industry tool
• Other (please specify)

6. Explanation of product type (optional, only answer if necessary)

7. State in 2 or 3 sentences a summary description of the product or service.

8. (Licensed or CGI program only) OS. On which operating system(s) can the product be installed? What database(s) is needed (or may be used) to run the application?

3. Subscription Management

9. Does the software provide HTML code for a subscription form?

10. How many different lists can be administered at no additional charge?

11. Does the system handle confirmed or double opt-in subscriptions?

12. Which of the following does the database place into a separate field?

• Subscription timestamp
• IP address of subscriber
• IP address of confirmation
• Confirmation timestamp

13. Can a subscriber express a preference between text and HTML?

14. Can a subscriber edit his or her own profile to change an e-mail address, format, subscription preferences, etc.?

15. (ASP hosted only) Do they require users to employ confirmed (double) opt-in? If so, do they prevent users from users from employing the subject line or text of the confirmation message as a spam ad?

16. (ASP hosted only) Can users import lists they certify as confirmed (double) opt-in without asking subscribers to indicate their desire to be on the list an additional time?

17. (Hosted ASP only) What kinds of screening processes do they have for new clients or newly-imported e-mail lists?

18. (Hosted ASP only) Do they have restrictions on how many e-mail addresses can be imported at a time? Does a human monitor review the addresses before e-mail is sent to any of the new addresses?

4. Bounce Management

19. Which of the following best describes the bounce management system:

• Automatic (no user settings)
• Automatic (according to user settings)
• Manual only
• Manual option
• N/A

20. How does the bounce system distinguish between hard and soft bounces?

5. User Administration

21. Do they include any kind of project management or work flow system to manage tasks to be completed in a campaign?

22. Do they offer multiple levels of password access and permission for different employees, resellers, or agencies that contribute to the campaign?

23. Can company departments with separate accounts be tracked together as one company for reporting purposes if desired?

6. Database

24. Can the user import all the fields in the database, including opt-in and confirmed dates and IP addresses?

25. Can the user export all fields in the database including opt-in and confirmed dates and IP addresses?

26. Can users import IP addresses and timestamps from previous lists?

27. Do they have user customizable fields? If so, how many? Is there any extra charge? How much?

28. Can the program read and write to an ODBC compatible database (whether on your computer or online)? 

7. Dynamic Database

29. Does the database record any of the following that can be traced to a particular subscriber? (Note: Summary reports on a campaign are covered later.)

• E-mail sent
• E-mail opened
• Click-through
• Tracking point(s) on the user's website
• Conversion (sale, lead, subscription, etc.)
• Sales amount
• Subscriber location by IP address (geo-targeting)

30. Can users set friendly names for trackable links?

31. What kind of history is kept on each subscriber? Send log, purchase history, etc.?

32. Does the program have a built-in system to do A/B split-testing?

33. (ASP hosted only) If cookies are set in any of the tracking processes in this section, are they set from the user's domain or the ASP host's domain?

8. Data Segmentation or Filtering

34. Can an individual subscriber list be filtered or segmented by various characteristics for a particular mailing without creating a separate list for this mailing? What are the limitations? If not, are there any work-arounds?

35. Can standard SQL commands be entered by the user for data segmentation? If not, what kinds of commands can be used?

36. Can the customizable fields be used for filtering (data segmentation)?

37. Can the database be segmented by:

• Conversion frequency
• Conversion recency
• Sales dollar amount

38. Can a single e-mail campaign be programmed to automatically send one paragraph to one subscriber and a different paragraph to another subscriber based on the subscriber's individual profile?

39. Can the user program the software to take conditional actions? Must that done by support staff?

9. E-Mail Headers

40. Is the visible "From:" address flexible so that it can be set for each campaign?

41. Is the header "Sender from:" return path changeable by the user?

42. Is the "Reply-to:" address changeable by the user?

43. Can the subject line by personalized (such as with the subscriber's first name)?

44. Is the "To:" field different for every e-mail sent, or are e-mails to the same ISP grouped together for mailing?

45. Can the "To:" field be personalized to include the subscriber's name?

46. Can the user insert customized headers (such as a Habeas header)?

10. E-Mail Message Formatting

47. Do they have HTML e-mail templates available? Can users upload their own templates?

48. (Hosted ASP only) Do they host images for e-mail campaigns? Do they offer an image library?

49. Do they have a built-in WYSIWYG editor for HTML e-mails? Do they have a built-in spell checker?

50. Do they support foreign languages, accented characters, etc.? Do they support double-bit languages such as Korean?

51. Can subscription forms, subscription management forms, forward-to-a-friend forms, auto-responses, etc. be customized for each campaign? If so, can they be archived for use in creation of future campaigns?

52. Can customized headers and footers (templates) be set up for various lists?

53. What database fields can be used for personalizing an e-mail message? Are there any fields which cannot be used for personalization?

11. Tools

54. Do they offer any of the following tools built-in to the system?

• Poll
• Survey
• Sweepstakes
• Coupon
• Refer-a-Friend
• Loyalty
• Integration with PayPal
• Integration with Amazon
• Integration with eBay
• Other (please specify)

12. Autoresponder Functions

55. Does the program offer sequential autoresponder capabilities?

56. How many autoresponder sequences can be set up on the system? Is there an extra cost for these? How much?

57. Is there a limit to the number of messages in a sequence?

58. Can messages in a sequence be programmed to be delivered on a particular day of the week?

59. Can each autoresponder sequence have its own unique, automatically-inserted headers and footers?

13. Sending

60. Do they support test e-mails before the full e-mail blast is sent?

61. Can campaigns be scheduled for delivery in the future?

62. Do they support message delivery for recurring events such as contact behavior and birthdays, etc.?

63. Which sending formats does the program support?

• Plain text
• HTML
• Multi-part text/HTML MIME

64. Can text be auto-generated from HTML?

65. Can attachments be sent with an e-mail message?

66. (Licensed and CGI only) Can the user set the desired SMTP server?

67. (Licensed and CGI only) Does the program require an SMTP server, or can it use some kind of "direct delivery"? How well does this work?

68. (Licensed and CGI only) Does the program support multi-threading? If so, how many simultaneous threads?

69. (Licensed and CGI only) Can you slow down the sending rate or insert pauses in order to keep an ISP from blocking your outgoing mail?

70. Do they enable RSS/XML and web-browsable datafeeds for automatic newsletter content archiving and alternative delivery methods?

14. Deliverability (Hosted ASPs only)

71. Do they publish SPF records detailing a user's sending domains?

72. Can users obtain one or more dedicated IP addresses? If so, how do they price this? Do they recommend this option?

73. Do they provide reporting by campaign on inbox deliverability to specific major ISPs? If not, is there any way users can get this kind of information?

74. Describe the relationships with major ISPs. Which ones? How would they resolve a deliverability issue should one occur?

75. Is the service on any whitelists? If so, which ones?

15. Spam Law Compliance

This section explores how they help (or require) users to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act or other applicable anti-spam laws.

76. Do they provide an integrated content checker that checks e-mails against a list of spam words (such as SpamAssassin) prior to sending the e-mail blast?

77. Do they provide any kind of "bulk unsubscribe" function (that is, the ability for a subscriber to unsubscribe from any or all mailing lists hosted by the ASP or the user)?

78. Is an unsubscribe link automatically inserted in each e-mail?

79. What steps must a subscriber go through to complete the unsubscribe process?

80. Does the program create a list of those who have unsubscribed? Do they have a "Do Not Mail List" or surpression list? If so, how are names added to this list?

16. Summary Reporting

81. Which of the following are included on the campaign summary reports?

• Delivery success
• Open rate
• Click-through rate
• Conversion rate

82. Are summary reports e-mailed to users or only available online?

83. Do summary reports on the database include....?

• Database growth
• Demographic distribution
• Unsubscribes

84. Can reports be exported for spreadsheet analysis?

17. Customer Service

85. What kind of support is available to users at no extra charge? What kind of support is available to users for an extra charge?

86. How does a new user learn the features of the software or service? Which of the following do they provide?

• Context-sensitive help system
• FAQ
• User manual
• Training video
• Online user forum
• Other

87. (ASP hosted only) Do they assign program managers to a client for a period of time or permanently?  (For an additional fee, of course.)

18. Infrastructure (hosted ASPs only)

88. How often are system-wide back-ups made? What does the back-up process entail?

89. What kind of redundant systems do they employ? Databases, web servers, e-mail servers, etc.?

19. Competitive Advantages

90. What about the software or service do they feel sets them apart from the closest competitors? If they have important features that haven't been adequately described above, describe them here.

91. Do they offer an API (Application Protocol Interface) to allow integration with other programs?

92. Does the e-mail marketing system offer integration with other products, such as CRM?

20. Fees (Licensed and CGI only)

93. What do they charge for the software?

94. Do they charge for program updates?

95. Do they have a charge for installation or set-up?

96. Do they charge for support? If so, how much?

21. Fees (Hosted ASPs only)

97. Beside a monthly fee, what is the basic way that they charge for the service?

• Number of e-mails per month
• Number of e-mail addresses on stored lists
• File size of e-mails sent per month
• Other

98. Do they charge an initial one-time fee (for set-up, license, etc.)? How much?

99. Describe the pricing structure in detail, including monthly fees, add-ons and extra services.