My Lists and SPAM

George Wright

14 years ago

Get a new host.

Get Aweber, or Wild Apricot etc.

George Wright

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spock0149

14 years ago

Thanks for your response George. I must admit I've been rather married to hostmonster.

Looks like aweber would end up costing $130 a month - have to think about that expense!

Thanks,

Rich

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hometutor

14 years ago

Originally Posted by spock0149

Thanks for your response George. I must admit I've been rather married to hostmonster.

Looks like aweber would end up costing $130 a month - have to think about that expense!

Thanks,

Rich

I love hostmonster myself, but if you're doing your own list on your own server I really think that's just asking for trouble. Any people I send to have joined my forums or Yahoo groups and I send announcements through them. The forums are on the host monster server, but they seem to get it's from the forums

Rick

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Rich Struck

14 years ago

I feel your pain. iContact just shut me down temporarily and pretty much removed all of my Yahoo contacts so that kind of sucks. ****ing idiots.

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spock0149 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Rich Struck

I feel your pain. iContact just shut me down temporarily and pretty much removed all of my Yahoo contacts so that kind of sucks. ****ing idiots.

Ouch! That's harsh.

At least I know I'm not alone in this!
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sbucciarel

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by spock0149

Thanks for your response George. I must admit I've been rather married to hostmonster.

Looks like aweber would end up costing $130 a month - have to think about that expense!

Thanks,

Rich

I use automateyourlist.com. Cost me $179/year and they are an Aweber reseller. Love the service

Originally Posted by Rich Struck

I feel your pain. iContact just shut me down temporarily and pretty much removed all of my Yahoo contacts so that kind of sucks. ****ing idiots.

I started with iContact. They froze my acct after my first broadcast ... said temporarily. I don't spam ... it was just a normal email with my latest website offering, that people had signed up to be notified about. I ditched them fast.

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Fabian Tan 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Rich Struck

I feel your pain. iContact just shut me down temporarily and pretty much removed all of my Yahoo contacts so that kind of sucks. ****ing idiots.

Why did they remove only your Yahoo contacts?

Fabian
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- ebusinesstutor 14 years ago
  
  Traffic Wave is a low cost alternative to Aweber, but if you move to any other service, people will have to resubscribe.
  
  You could use a free system like phpList, but most hosting companies have restrictions on how many emails you can send as well. phpList on your own server gives you total control, but your own web server can cost a few hundred dollars per month.
  
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cantfigureout

14 years ago

hostgator ...3 years.. just brilliant

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spock0149 14 years ago

Originally Posted by cantfigureout

hostgator ...3 years.. just brilliant

...and you sending out emails....15k or so....and not getting any problems?
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EmpyreRamiz

Banned 14 years ago

[DELETED]

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spock0149 14 years ago

Originally Posted by EmpyreRamiz

use service like awber and iconnect for sending newsletter

Thanks for the advice. This is obviously going to take a bit of investment. Current provider is a few dollars a month and I can send out 750 emails an hour free - but with the spam problem.

These services look like they'll cost quite a bit.

Rich
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ileneg

14 years ago

Originally Posted by spock0149

Hey folks,

I have a site that I've been building for 2 years now, and have a very good sized list of members.

Trouble is, whenever I send out an email 'en-masse' there's always that small fraction who click the SPAM button...even though I've followed ALL the double-opt in protocols, have text at the beginning in capitals explaining that there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email etc.

My hosting service has pretty low spam tolerance, something like 0.1%.

The last three times I've sent out these emails, I've had my site shut-down, and I've had to make a phone call arguing my case. It's always been turned on again, but it's very unsettling to feel that powerless.

What would a warrior do?

How do you stop people labelling your emails as spam?

If you are using a permission based double opt-in then there may be some kind of other issue. This means that switching to a different service may or may not solve your problem. It depends.

Are you constantly "selling" to your list?
Do you ever provide helpful info w/out a pitch?
If yes, are people hitting the "spam" button even when you provide helpful info w/out a pitch?
Is your list laser targeted to "your niche"?
And are you staying on target and relevant with helpful messages?

ileneg

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spock0149

14 years ago

Originally Posted by ileneg

If you are using a permission based double opt-in then there may be some kind of other issue. This means that switching to a different service may or may not solve your problem. It depends.

Are you constantly "selling" to your list?
Do you ever provide helpful info w/out a pitch?
If yes, are people hitting the "spam" button even when you provide helpful info w/out a pitch?
Is your list laser targeted to "your niche"?
And are you staying on target and relevant with helpful messages?

ileneg

Thanks for your response. In fact, I'm very rarely actually selling to my list. I run a site connecting drivers with deliveries and some emails are an effort to encourage drivers to improve their chances of winning jobs.

Here's an example of a recent email that got my site shut down for a few hours.

-------------------

IF YOU NO LONGER WANT TO RECEIVE EMAILS FROM US THEN PLEASE **CLICK ON THE UNSUBSCRIBE** LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS EMAIL

Want to win more contracts on CitizenShipper.com? Make sure you have a good PROFILE page.

When you BID on a contract, clients are going to immediately click on your profile link to get some idea of who you are. You'll only get a few seconds to make a good impression so make sure you have filled in your profile pages!

Pro Movers Inc-Dallas-TX- CitizenShipper Cheap Shipping Moving Transport

Important Things to Include

* Your contact information (cell phone and email address)
* Your driving experience
* Pictures of your vehicle and yourself
* Any equipment you have to help you with cargo

GOOD PROFILES WIN JOBS!

The CitizenShipperTeam

5925 Kirby Drive, Suite E343, Houston, Tx, 77005.
Unsubscribe to CitizenShipper.

----------------

This is an example of a genuinely helpfuly email - but people are being lazy and instead of unsubscribing they're just hitting the SPAM button.

Rich

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secrets2010

14 years ago

no matter how helpful you try to be there will always be someone complaining...and especially if you send the email to so many people...just unsubscribe those people who reply complaining...and move on...as already has been said i recommend you to use a reseller of aweber...they don't offer the advanced analytics of aweber but it's much cheaper....

Originally Posted by ileneg

If you are using a permission based double opt-in then there may be some kind of other issue. This means that switching to a different service may or may not solve your problem. It depends.

Are you constantly "selling" to your list?
Do you ever provide helpful info w/out a pitch?
If yes, are people hitting the "spam" button even when you provide helpful info w/out a pitch?
Is your list laser targeted to "your niche"?
And are you staying on target and relevant with helpful messages?

ileneg

Thanks

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Neil Morgan

14 years ago

In this instance, switching provider may not help. No provider is going to let you send out email that a significant number of your subscribers are perceiving as spam.

So it seems like you need to work out why that's happening - what aspects of you mailings are flying against the expectations of your subscribers?

Cheers,

Neil

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John Pawlett

14 years ago

Hi Rich

If you have a list of around 15k and find $130 expensive then they are a lot of other issues involved here. Like Neil said you need to work out what's happening.

It might be worth your while pasting a copy of your last email here (blank out the privacy bits) so you could get more specific advise.

Kind regards

John

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spock0149

14 years ago

Originally Posted by John Pawlett

Hi Rich

If you have a list of around 15k and find $130 expensive then they are a lot of other issues involved here. Like Neil said you need to work out what's happening.

It might be worth your while pasting a copy of your last email here (blank out the privacy bits) so you could get more specific advise.

Kind regards

John

Thanks John - posted a recent email just above.

It's not so much that it's too expensive - we can afford that. I'm monetizing the site in ways not deeply related to the list so it just may not be an expense that I can currently justify. Probably need to reassess that paradigm though.

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summerm

14 years ago

what strikes me is that you have the unsubscribe link all the way at the bottom.

don't just put a notification at the top-- put a link at the top. with a clear, concise notice that it is a one-click process. (that's important for lazy people.) if you want people to use the unsub link instead of mark as spam, you have to make it at least as easy to unsub as to mark as spam.

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hometutor

14 years ago

Originally Posted by summerm

what strikes me is that you have the unsubscribe link all the way at the bottom.

don't just put a notification at the top-- put a link at the top. with a clear, concise notice that it is a one-click process. (that's important for lazy people.) if you want people to use the unsub link instead of mark as spam, you have to make it at least as easy to unsub as to mark as spam.

That's a very good point. In Yahoo groups there's unsubscribe information at the bottom of every email that goes out, yet at least once a month I get a genius who can join the group by himself/herself yet cannot seem to scroll to the bottom of the email to unsubscribe

Rick

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Ripped

14 years ago

Services like aweber are compliant to spam regulations, and have white-list contracts with all major ISPs, so it's very unlikely to have any problems if you use such services.

If you're serious about your list, you have to use a serious service like aweber or getresponse

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KathyK

14 years ago

There are some people who click the spam button because they are too lazy to unsubscribe. And a few will also click it by accident when they have a mailbox full of spam.

It doesn't matter if you have the unsub link in your email, because they aren't even reading it.

I would definitely use a double opt-in, and explain in your confirmation email what kind of damage clicking 'spam' instead of unsubscribing does. (That can help reduce things - a lot of people who click spam to unscubscribe don't intend harm - they are just being lazy).

If you have fewer than 500 in your mailing list and don't mail more often than weekly, MailChimp has a free option you might want to look into.

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Kathy

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Daniel44

14 years ago

Get a VPS and handle email from your own server?

Daniel

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bobbydigital 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Daniel44

Get a VPS and handle email from your own server?

Daniel

This is a bad idea. you will get yourself kicked off of hosting quick.

I am a large scale email marketer (millions of messages a day) and I can tell you from experience that if you have even one nasty person on your list they can complain to your host and get you shut down fast, particularly if you are sending your mail off the host's server, but they can even shut you down if you just include a link to a domain on your host (like a redirect/tracking link).

Be very very careful when trying to run your own mail server, it is not nearly as easy as it would seem once you get above a few thousand messages a week.

I would suggest signing up for icontact and aweber: Then basicly run a list cleaning campaign where you bribe your list to resubscribe on one of those services. Yes, you will lsoe a significant nubmer of people, BUT you will basicly winnow out the responders on the list.

Note this should be a multi day campaign driving to a squeeze page with a really great free offer on it. send the same email multiple times if need be but dont give up till youve gotten as many people off as possible.

If you can get a little script written (freelancer.com) that will post the subscribers to icontact via their API after you have them go through the aweber optin (you have to do it in this order because aweber does not have an API and will shut you down if you hack a background post into their system). This way you can have your list double optin on 2 service providers so your can mail less frequently from each and have a backup if one shuts you down.

Best of luck!
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Neil Morgan

14 years ago

Get a VPS and handle email from your own server?

...except VPS is not your own server - there are many VPS's on the same box.

V = Virtual (not real)

VPS = shared hosting by another name, albeit with less access to the accounts of the other people you're sharing with.

A dedicated server is your own.

Cheers,

Neil

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Daniel44

14 years ago

Neil,

To an onlooker from the outside a VPS does look like a real server, this includes email recievers. You use your own sending service from your very own IP address which no other person on the VPS has.

Daniel

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