How many emails can I send?

Latest post 09-16-2006 1:50 PM by bonniecady. 12 replies.

How many emails can I send?

08-29-2006 8:58 AM

I have about 2000 business and personal email addresses. I am planning to send them three or four MS Publisher solicitations a year through a mail merge on Outlook.

I am reading all about the penalties of over aggressive email marketing, like blocking your email address.

Can anyone tell me the rules of the Internet Service Providers(formal or informal)? (By the way, I have ATT/SBC). I am looking to see how many emails per day, week or month can safely go out without penalty. Is there more to it than that?

Thank you for your attention to this question.

RE: How many emails can I send?

08-29-2006 3:55 PM

2,000 addresses is not very many. The main thing is if you have permission to mail to everyone on your list?

Being reported for spam could get your account closed, depending on your ISP's rules and how many complaints there are.


RE: How many emails can I send?

08-29-2006 6:41 PM

You may want to invest in a listserv. They were designed to handle this sort of thing. Try Constant Contact, or check with your mail host provider - they may already have a listserv you are paying for but didn't realize.

If you decide to still do it from your computer with Outlook (not really designed for what you want), stay under 20 contacts per email and you should be relatively safe.

RE: How many emails can I send?

08-30-2006 6:16 AM

Chris;

Thank you, I am grateful for your advice. I will call my ISP to determine if they have a listservice. This is a relief to get some insight into how to not fall victim to a problem that I can now better try to avoid.

GBY

RE: How many emails can I send?

08-31-2006 8:32 AM

Gary,

There are significant challenges to managing a 2,000-name mailing list through Outlook.

One of the big ones is managing unsubscribes and bounces. Email marketing software automates these processes, but you will have to do them manually. Under CAN-SPAM, you will have to process unsubscribe requests within 10 business days. You will probably need a method for keeping someone in your database (they might be a donor, want to get hardcopy mailings, or want to be on other email lists) while suppressing them from this particular mailing.

Processing bounces manually can be very time-consuming. It usually requires opening an attachment on each bounced message, finding the email address you mailed to, discerning whether the problem is temporary (e.g., full inbox), permanent (bad email address), or resulted from a typo. If either of the latter are the case, you then need to manually update your address book.

You need to be sure you're sending 2,000 separate messages, rather than putting multiple addresses on the BCC line (or, God forbid, the To line). Using the BCC line is a big spam flag. You're also limited in how many addresses you can BCC at once.

And, as mentioned earlier, you need to see what your ISP's sending limits are. Some monitor the number of messages sent per hour and will ban your account if they decide you are a spammer.

None of this guarantees that your message will reach the intended recipients. It just deals with the mechanics of sending your messages.

I've posted links to articles on email delivery here and on spam here. See if these help.

Robert

RE: How many emails can I send?

08-31-2006 8:47 PM

Robert brings up a couple great points. Constant Contact and most listservs provide a method for people to unsubscribe themselves.

RE: How many emails can I send?

09-01-2006 8:22 AM

Robert;

Thank you very much for your excellent information. Christian, thanks again. I have a much better idea about this process now.

RE: How many emails can I send?

09-01-2006 6:33 PM

Are there any Groundspring.org EmailNow customers out there who'd care to comment on their experiences?

Any other recommendations positive or negative would be appreciated as well. My org is currently evaluating email vendors.

Thanks,

Geoff Froh
Densho.org

RE: How many emails can I send?

09-02-2006 11:02 AM

Geoff,

Have you read Idealware's article, A Few Good Email Newsletter Tools?

Robert

RE: How many emails can I send?

09-05-2006 10:31 AM

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the link. That Idealware article was something I read when I was doing my background research -- good stuff.

Cheers,

Geoff

RE: How many emails can I send?

09-05-2006 3:49 PM

For about 4 years we administered our email subscriber lists in-house using off the shelf bulk-email software; frankly it was not worth the time and energy devoted to maintaining the lists - deleting bounces, updating info, adding addresses, etc.

With the advent of Can-Spam we opted to look at outsourcing. Our (new) web host does offer bulk-email administration, but it is pretty limited, and while we only have about 5,000 subscribers (alot to some folks, a pittance to others ) we really wanted to be able to rely on someone else for full-service administration & accurate list maintenance.

Much research led to ConstantContact.org - they aren't perfect (archiving previous newsletters seems nigh on impossible) but overall we are really quite happy. In short, our spam reports and bounces are (way, way) down and our response rates - measured by click-throughs, appeal actions, etc - are up.

That's our experience, but since nothing's permanent I look forward to hearing yours!

RE: How many emails can I send?

09-05-2006 4:28 PM

I also have ATT/SBC and could not get them to tell me how many emails I could send without getting blocked; I guess it's a state secret. From my testing, it appears to be about 350 per day, and about 50 per hour. It might be more or less in your case. We have used WorldMerge from Coloradosoft.com (free with advertising, or $50 without). It runs on your own computer and can use Outlook Contacts, Excel files, etc. Better yet, it allows you to pace your sending, and we send one email every 30 seconds, and send to about 1500 successfully. Of course, it takes a l-o-n-g time to complete the send. Also, it seems to "spin" while it's waiting, so the program seems not to be responding (poor software coding). We now are using VerticalResponse which is an excellent package and has a discount for non-profits. However, it's not real cheap, about $10 per thousand. GraphicMail is cheaper, but we haven't tried them.

RE: How many emails can I send?

09-16-2006 1:50 PM

"You're also limited in how many addresses you can BCC at once."

Does anyone know what the limit is for the BCC field in Outlook? Just curious.

Thanks,
Bonnie