Group Mail

[Stereo Steve]

We have just started using Group Mail on the recomendation of users of this forum. Very nice software and we bought the personal edition.

We have a dedicated 2003 Exchange server running which does our outbound mail without routing through an ISP. Anyway, we have 30,000 odd addys in our previous customer list and decided to send a promo email today. Firstly, we mistakenly set the softwre to use 'Standard' sending method and somebody had configured it to use smtp.nildram.co.uk. Needless to say, after 10000 or so, it refused to do any more. I then tried 'Direct' which sends direct from the PC. This was extremely slow and not viable. Selecting 'Outlook' told me that I require an upgrade to the Business edition.

So, can anyone advise on this? I want the server to send the mails and not use any ISP. Do I need to upgrade to Business and use Outlook to send this many mails?

I'm hoping Nildram will not be too unhappy with what we did today. Should I contact them and apologise?

[jont]

Would Outlook make any difference as that would also be set to use via SBS as well?

I use the direct method with SBS 2003 and it is very slow ... I tend to set it gong before leaving the office and leave it running all night. I have broken the database down into various smaller groups (as well as keeping a master) so this also allows the option to send over the course of several days ... granted this may not be suitable for all your mailing campaigns (mine are monthly) but does ensure a smoother mail out.

If you are wanting faster results I think it is a case of paying for a hosted service (such as Pinbrook offer) as PC based systems will always be inherently slower.

[Stereo Steve]

Thanks Jont. I tried the Direct method and it is indeed slower. I believe the full business version allows up to 256 connections which should allow faster sendout? Next time I will move Groupmail to the actinic PC which stays on all the time and see how long it takes to get through 30,000 emails!

[pinbrook]

You have to be very careful how you manage your send.... if you send too quickly which seems to be your aim your send could be viewed as spam.

Just imagine if 1000 of your send all hit the AOL mailserver at the same time? it will definately get rejected as spam and thus your mailserver could get blacklisted

The slower the better for a send of 30,000. You should speak to your host ot ask them how they would like you to manage the send.

[Stereo Steve]

Thats true. I'm going to try the direct method with a single connection and see how it goes. If it takes a couple days to get through them it's no problem.

[fergusw]

You said that your Exchange server is currently configured to send via your ISP? I am assuming you mean the SMTP connector in your Exchange server is set to smtp.[isp-address] ?

You could configure your Exchange server to be your local SMTP server.
(be careful about relay settings! You do not want your server to be abused and used as an open relay!)

With your own SMTP server you can set Group Mail to use your new local SMTP instead of your ISP and thereby get around the whole issue.

You would need to check DNS resolution etc for the sending, and it would depend on other issues e.g. static IP, but this method can work.

Again, though, speed is important as well as Jo said. One by one through your own SMTP server may be the way to go.

Alternatively search the internet for mass email SMTP services. There are several out there that will allow you to pay to send large volumes of messages through their services.

Just a couple of suggestions.

[Stereo Steve]

We use Nildram SMTP because AOL reject our emails otherwise. I now have GM installed on the Actinic PC and it's sending them 1 at a time. About 25% are failing, mostly AOL and Yahoo giving me a timeout message. Timeout is set to max so I guess I'm just not going to get through to those people.

With 30k addresses it's predicting about 9 hours left which is fine as I'm off to bed.

[remmo]

We also use Group Mail and also find that a high proportion of our addresses are failing first time through with a time out message. This is quickly solved in our case by resending the message a few times - GM screens out the previously successfully sent addresses and tries the failed ones again. Four or five resends normally gets all the emails out successfully.