What are the Pros & Cons of setting up an Autoresponder on your own Hosting/Domain?

Lance, one thing to check is how many emails you can send at once. Hostgator, for example, limits you to sending 500 emails per hour. So you have to throttle the delivery.

For smaller lists, it's no big deal. For a large enough list, it could mean some members get the email a day or two earlier than others.

Hey Lance!

I got tons of experience here.

I recommend going with a VPS or dedicated server to lift the message sending limits. Also, get a dedicated IP. The dedicated IP is necessary because, on a shared server, the IP can easily get blacklisted by some other spammy domain...thus impacting your deliverability. So dedicated IP all the way...even if you use Hostgator.

You'll also want to setup SPF and DomainKey records to make certain email penetrates the inbox. You can outsource this easily on Rentacoder I'm sure.

Finally, make sure you get on the feedback loop for AOL. It basically means they have a contact person to forward Spam complaints to. It's a simple application you fill out and wait to get approved.

Although this is a paid list, do not underestimate the "silliness" in people (for lack of a better word). Many will still report "spam" despite paying for your information and you need to keep your butt protected.

That's about it. It's not difficult at all.

Oh....backup your database...frequently. If your server dies, you want to have a recent backup of all subscribers.

Lance...I'm sorry about this.

Kevin...What does your reply have to do with Lance's question?

This seems like a cut 'n paste response created for the purpose of spamming your sig. This isn't the 1st time you've done this, either.

Please revisit this practice. It's shady.

Kevin, no doubt that model works. Tried and true indeed.

But this list isn't for the make money crowd. Or any browser/consumer crowd for that matter. It's a B2B service.

It's for busy offline business owners in a specific industry. Most traffic will be generated by finding poeple offline and bringing them online to sign up (or signing them up in person).

They'll be at a competitive disadvantage if their local competitors are on the list and they are not. Either they want on the list or they do not. If they do, they pay. If they don't, good luck and thanks for stopping by.

If they don't see the power of what I'm offering, I'm not going to spend time chasing them.

They'll know where to find me when they figure out that their competitors (the ones who are constantly winning bids that they didn't know existed until it was too late) are using the service.

Don't get me wrong, eventually I'll probably incorporate some sort of "warm-up" or "pre-sell" material. But right now, I'm just wondering about the pros & cons of hosting the autoresponder myself rather than using a 3rd party solution.

Email deliverability is not my are of expertise, but for my
small list generated from my copywriting website I run
a free script from my own domain with little problems.

If you have a large list I think it's best to go with a
paid service like Aweber, but these services sell you
on the fear that you can't do it on your own.

Not true.

-Ray Edwards