+1 on either outsourcing OR spending the money to do it properly in-house. We send a weekly newsletter to about 100k addresses as well as several other smaller mailings on a fairly regular basis, but we purchased the hardware and software to do it right. We use a StrongMail messaging appliance with its own dedicated external IP address and registered through StrongMail's blacklist-negotiating servers. The StrongMail service gets us the latest definitions to avoid blacklisting each week (since providers like Hotmail change then very often) and ensures that users who report the list as spam or ask to be removed are promptly taken care of in our databases. Our list is automatic-opt-in for all of our employees at MSU and generally available as an opt-in to anyone else who wants to receive it, so it has quite a reach. IIRC, so was the pricing and configuration of the device and the newsletters sent through it – I want to say something like 50 grand for the appliance and the first year of service and several weeks to bring it online, build up enough traffic to be able to safely send that quantity of emails (since if you start right away everyone will blacklist you as a spammer), and develop the outgoing messages for the system.
Unless this is going to be a regular thing for you, do the right thing and buy service from Constant Contact. ---- Jack Kramer Computer Systems Specialist University Relations, Michigan State University w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955 From: Martin Blackstone <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: NT System Admin Issues <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:11:29 -0500 To: NT System Admin Issues <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: RE: Blacklist avoidance You need to outsource this. Contant Contact comes to mind as a provider. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 7:10 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Blacklist avoidance My marketing department wants to start sending emails to customers that have signed up for special notifications. I have advised them to keep their lists to 99 and only one list per hour to keep us off any Blacklists. My question is how do I get set up with Comcast, AT&T, Sprint, etc to be able to send loads of valid emails and not get automagically put on a blacklist? Is there an SLA I can pay for with these types of companies or am I pissing up the wrong rope? ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
