I often get asked about using a hosted service for autoresponders like 1ShoppingCart or AWeber vs. software that lives on your own server like autoresponse plus.
I’m very much opposed to self hosted autoresponder software packages where the code lives on your own servers, and my friend, Victor Chang, did an excellent job explaining why you should use hosted services.
Here is his explanation on email services and deliverability:
The big challenge today in email auto responders services or packaged software isn’t the feature set, it’s getting the email delivered.
If you’re going to run a package software (self hosted) emailing program and you’re more than say 2,000 emails at a time, email deliverability becomes a very, very serious issue. Here are the requirements for self hosting a mailing application:
1) you need a fixed IP address (typically a hosted one at an ISP or T-1 or fractional T-1 line to your office). Cable modems and DSL modems usually use dynamically assigned IP addresses. An IP address is the internet equivalent of the longitude and lattitude of your place of business. Spammers using dynamic IP addresses (constantly shifting their location on the internet) to avoid getting caught, etc… If you don’t use a fixed IP address, you end up looking like a spammer… or if the person who used your IP address was a spammer, now you’re a spammer by association.
2) You need to get your IP address of your mail server to be on the white lists at the major ISP’s. That’s why you need a fixed IP address. If your IP address constantly changes, the white lists can never put your mail on the “approved list”.
3) You generally need someone permanently on staff to interface with the various white listing departments of the major ISP’s and to protest times when you’re put on one of the many internet black lists (that ban your email from getting delivered). OR you need to essentially outsource this function to a mail server certification company that will do this for you (typically big setup fee 4 – 5 figures) and a monthly fee in the hundreds of dollars a month. (Downside is typically your email addresses need to be double opt-in).
By the way the prevalence of Internet white listing and blacklisting has really come on strong in the past 2 years. At this stage, for most smaller businesses it’s not running your own mail application unless you plan to use a certification service (in which case it can
get expensive quickly).At this stage of the game, pretty much ALL roads lead to double opt-in eventually. It’s really a question of timing. Aweber still allows single opt-in , but it’s trying to push everyone to double opt-in. I’m told if you switch to double opt-in on any list in an aweber account, it flips them all to double opt in.
I’ve also been told that the default when you create a new account on aweber is double opt-in. You have to manually switch it back to single opt-in or your account is double opt-in for life. If you import names into aweber, there’s a mandatory double opt-in required on those names. My best guess is they’re trying to get all new customers, new imported emails into double opt-in… reducing the % of the emails in their database that are single opt-in. Once single opt-in is a small % of the total client base, they’ll probably force double opt-in on everybody.
However, during this transition period aweber deliverability is still good. I have one client with a 80,000 name list (adding about 40,000 names a month) on aweber that I had them split test single opt-in and double-opt in. Both single and double opt-in in aweber are routinely getting deliverability into the 90% range. For the time being, I’ve advised them to stick with aweber single opt-in but be prepared to be forced to double opt-in sometime in the future (unclear when) and to be prepared to re-design email marketing practices significantly when that happens.
Stepping back for a moment and looking at the big picture, here’s what’s happening. People with higher quality lists will get a much easier time on deliverability – quality is going to be prized in the next few years. This means more relationship building, more self-selection, and working very hard to stay relevant to readers.
Personally, I’m making a big switch in my email marketing practices based on all of this. I built a 150,00 name email list (20,000+ buyers) on forced opt-in, single opt-in, “blind landing pages” (no disclosure of who I am until after they opt-in) that I’ve only mailed periodically (yeah, shame on me).
I’m switching to double-opt in, full disclosure landing pages and will be split testing forced vs. no forced opt-in, and will be mailing them CONSISTENTLY. So basically, I’m going for a smaller, more intensely loyal and responsive list.
Also something very much worth noting, I re-opted in to Matt Furey’s website www.mattfurey.com one of the best email marketers out there and noticed he has significantly changed his thank you page vs when I opted in a few years ago. On the thank you page he’s going for FULL CONTACT info – mailing address, phone, fax, everything. I found it VERY interesting that one of the top email marketers is building a full contact offline list. He did it in a darn clever way too… VERY clever. You have to go through the entire process to see it though.
I guess all this is a long winded way of saying that in the bigger picture, it’s not a bad idea to assume all email is going to be double opt-in and act accordingly. I think we’re in a transition phase at the moment, but you might as well plan for it now… and if you follow what Matt Furey is doing, he’s preparing for the day email doesn’t work period. Not a bad idea either.
-Victor