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RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jun 15, 2007
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Geek on the Hill
I have a client that insists on using a mailing list service to notify clients of new products and so forth.

I don't allow clients on shared servers to use lists because, in the past I've had too many blacklisting incidents. Not that the clients were spamming; rather, recipients who had opted-in to the email later decided they no longer wanted them, and reported them as spam rather than opting out. This caused all the clients on the shared server to have mail issues until I sorted out the problems with whichever of the umpteem blacklists I was lucky enough to wind up with that day.

I've told this client that if they want to use lists, I will happily move them to a VPS with its own mail server and IP addresses, this way whatever they do doesn't affect any other clients. But they don't want to pay the extra cost. So now I'm considering third-party mail solutions for them. I've used Google Apps for some clients in the past, but preferably what I'd like for this client is a mail-only service.

My concern is simply isolating them from any of my mail server IP addresses, so when they wind up getting themselves blacklisted, it's not my problem. Otherwise, I'm not going to renew them, and they can find hosting elsewhere.

Any suggestions?

-Rich
 
Ideally, you'd lead them to using a real mailing list service to send their notifications. Constant contact, Emma, mailchimp, etc. That way their users can opt-out when they like AND they have much better list management and analytics.

To answer your original question. Google Apps or Rackspace. http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/
 
Have them set up an account with web.com. They don't seem particularly bothered when their servers are blacklisted.
 
RJM62 said:
I have a client that insists on using a mailing list service to notify clients of new products and so forth.

I don't allow clients on shared servers to use lists because, in the past I've had too many blacklisting incidents. Not that the clients were spamming; rather, recipients who had opted-in to the email later decided they no longer wanted them, and reported them as spam rather than opting out. This caused all the clients on the shared server to have mail issues until I sorted out the problems with whichever of the umpteem blacklists I was lucky enough to wind up with that day.

I've told this client that if they want to use lists, I will happily move them to a VPS with its own mail server and IP addresses, this way whatever they do doesn't affect any other clients. But they don't want to pay the extra cost. So now I'm considering third-party mail solutions for them. I've used Google Apps for some clients in the past, but preferably what I'd like for this client is a mail-only service.

My concern is simply isolating them from any of my mail server IP addresses, so when they wind up getting themselves blacklisted, it's not my problem. Otherwise, I'm not going to renew them, and they can find hosting elsewhere.

Any suggestions?

-Rich
Click to expand...

We used to have a couple of mailing lists for small groups and moved them to Google Groups where they seem to do quite well. Google Groups lets you administer the groups' functionality and works well, at least for the two small groups that we moved over.
 
jason said:
Ideally, you'd lead them to using a real mailing list service to send their notifications. Constant contact, Emma, mailchimp, etc. That way their users can opt-out when they like AND they have much better list management and analytics.

To answer your original question. Google Apps or Rackspace. http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/
Click to expand...

Thanks. I've been looking into both of them.

As far as the mailing list services, the problem is that I've had other clients using those services, but some subscribed users still tend to flag email as spam once they no longer want to receive it. They don't unsubscribe. They just flag. And as long as a domain mentioned anywhere in the flagged message points to one of my servers, I still wind up getting blacklisted -- and then all of the clients on that shared server have problems.

AT&T, BellSouth, and others in that family are especially annoying. They just go ahead and blacklist any server belonging to any domain that's in any way referenced in the "spam" -- even if it's just a hyperlink to the site. That makes me wonder if just moving the mail service will be enough.

Other RBLs, like SpamCop and AOL, at least send me a report first, which I can respond to with the explanation that the user opted-in, but was too dumb or lazy to unsubscribe when they no longer wanted to receive the mailings.

Aside from the other clients having problems, getting off all these freaking blacklists (there are, like, hundreds of them) every time some user decided to flag a subscribed mail as spam took more time than I cared to spend. So I just told my clients that if bulk mailing was that important to them, they would have to move to a VPS so when they got blacklisted, no one else would be affected. I also bill them for my time getting them off the blacklists.

Most, however, just decided that bulk mailing really wasn't all that important, anyway. A few selected the upgrade, which is a very simple thing to do on my main provider's service. I have a default image that I use, so all I have to do is click a button to create the VPS, register the nameservers, and move the account over. But it does cost more money.

This account nets me a bit over one AMU a year. If I have to let it go, it won't break the bank. Of course, given the choice, I'd rather not lose the money; but based on past experiences, the aggravation factor will be more than the money's worth if I let them do the bulk mailings while they're on one of my IPs.

-Rich
 
I recommend MailChimp. I use their free service for a number of different mailing lists I maintain, and they work great.

I don't know how their paid service works, but if it is better than their free service (which is a good assumption to make), it'll be great.
 
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