Does anyone use their own autoresponder?

I haven't used this software yet but I saw the prices of aweber...

Programming an autoresponder isn't that hard so I guess before I pay over $ 100 a month for their service I'd code one myself.

BUT you have to remember that sending out some thousands of e-mails puts a good load on your server (okay thinking about using queues etc. it's not as easy to program it anymore for everyone) and you have to be aware that some providers may consider you to be a spammer.

Imnica Mail is owned by a Warrior. If you are looking for a less expensive and with a better security track record than some other providers. See: Richelo Killian who handles: Imnica Mail .

I do not use them myself yet, but intend to as I have heard nothing bad about them and many good things. Also there is trafficwave.net. Also a Warrior's product.

Self hosting email marketing is usually not a great idea as when your 'list' reaches a certain size, your ISP and the hosting/email you are using will look very hard at what you are doing. Many have a limit on emails sent per day. With a service, you have the added advantage of help in setting up, composing, etc. you do not have going it alone. (At least in most services).

Once your 'list' reaches a certain level, if cultivated well, will negate the cost of the service. Instead of trying to 'save into a profit', just use the service to sell more. The ROI of using a service, building a list and cultivating a relationship with that list is one of the largest ROIs in IM. (Allegedly).

It's easy to host and run your own mailing list software, for sure - but it's not a very good idea.

A huge amount of the time and work put in by these professional email marketing / autoresponder service providers goes towards negotiating their way onto spam whitelists and what not.

This is why they can guarantee (or aim for) such high deliverability rates.

This is something you would never be able to achieve yourself, therefore the moment you receive a few spam complaints - BAM! - your IP address(es) is/are blocked or blacklisted, and you perhaps lose your hosting and/or internet connection.

If you're serious about the email marketing element of your business, then go with a proper, dedicated and professional service. The cost of doing so should be pretty negligible in most cases, in comparison to whatever benefits you are (or should be) getting back.

I was doing self-host for while and it was not a good idea. Most servers can only send 500 mail per hour, thus yu wil have alot of problems when your list reach 1k or 10k.

I shifted to Imnica mail recently and am waiting for them to import my list over. Overall, I think you should get a email marketing service rather than self-host.

I wouldn't really recommend a self-hosted solution, because you are likely to run into lots of technical roadblocks (some of which are mentioned above) that you will have to resolve for yourself.

When you think about the added time and expense needed to fix issues as they arise, not to mention the downtime if anything goes wrong, going the route of using an established autoresponder service truly is a no-brainer, in my opinion.

Paul

I use infinite responder never had any issues with any sort of bad thing but like anything you use it could have a problem.

@Alton, thanks for the info I may be switching as infinite is not quite as powerful as I would like.-Thank you for that
cheers
-WD

Thanks to everyone for their input, sounds like a professional responder service is the way to go.

I have looked into setting up my own autoresponder, but I feel the problems that can come about for bulk email delivery may not be worth it. If you make enough money from your business, I suggest just paying for an autoresponder service

Using your own hosted autoresponder like ARP3 (which no 3rd party will ever come close to in features) is **WAY** smarter and better long term than 3rd party.

Why?

1) Deliverability between own hosted and 3rd party is 0.0%. The whole myth about 3rd party having high deliverability is the biggest B.S. there is. And everyone is repeating it because everyone else is saying it. And that's the core persuasion tactic of 3rd party to go for them.

2) Your own self-hosted autoresponder like ARP3 has features and filtering far more advanced than any 3rd party available.

3) Owning a hosting co... and people consistently mailing from the servers put us on the blacklist only 2 times in 4 years. And that's from at least 5000+ mails sent out per day. And it took us less then 2 minutes to remove the server IP off the blacklist, since each service like spamcop has a blacklist removal link.

So it's almost too-hard to even get on a blacklist. Let me repeat that again: TOO-HARD if nearly impossible!

So here's to all the broken-record repeating sheep who're confusing everyone else:

********** Deliverability between your own autoresponder and 3rd party has 0.000000000% difference. And using your own has infinte times more advantage then every 3rd party hosted solution on the planet combined together, ever will or can afford to. **********

Tech info: This is considering you get a dedicated server, setup reverse DNS, SPF, whitelist your IP.

I'd say Mesmerx is on the right track, while maybe a little too passionate.

Its NOT that hard to do it yourself, and as long as you are on the up and up, doing double opt-in, honor unsubs, and are getting feeback loops from the major players, it is possible to have decent delivery rates. If you are only sending 5k emails per day and you have delivery rate problems, you are spamming, doing something shady, or simply not setting the correct expectations for your subscribers.

I make my living off of bulk emailing, and I send about 1-2 million emails per day. I wouldn't even think about putting my delivery rates up against someone like Icontact, but its not too bad, and gets the job done.

With that said, I still use Aweber for a small 6k subscriber list that I have. For like 50 bucks a month or whatever it is that I pay them for that, why would I bother self hosting or dealing with it myself?

However, with the above example of 5k emails per day...I wouldn't self host. No way at that kind of volume. Thats dirt cheap to outsource. Even if it only eliminates an hour of work a week, its worth it.

I rather use aweber

Dirt Cheap Autoresponder is a self hosted autoresponder I use. Never had my mailing list hacked and sold to spammers - unlike what has happened to Aweber a few times.

Hosting your own AR will just add another time drain to your work load. Let the pros take care of your AR, then you can focus on making money with your IM.

My 2 cents...