Bulk Email Tutorial & Email List Generate

[Raydar]

Hi,

Is there a tutorial we can read on how to use the bulk email system please? From what I can see there are two systems available, the existing Bulk Email system and then Mandrill. I guess Mandrill has more features. 

And how can I generate an email list please? I have a bulk email sending program on my computer that I can limit the amount of emails sent per hour. 

I'm just trying to work out which option would suit me better.  

Thanks

Ray

[opentype]

19 minutes ago, Raydar said:

Hi,

Is there a tutorial we can read on how to use the bulk email system please? From what I can see there are two systems available, the existing Bulk Email system and then Mandrill. I guess Mandrill has more features. 

There is just one bulk mail system. Mandrill is just an alternative way to sent out the mails, which doesn’t use your server. 

 

19 minutes ago, Raydar said:

And how can I generate an email list please? I have a bulk email sending program on my computer that I can limit the amount of emails sent per hour. 

The Download Memberlist section can do that. 

[Raydar]

Thanks for the response Opentype. Can we limit the number of emails going out per hour with the standard bulk mail system? 

For example, inside the bulk mail system, when I go to create a new email, a text editor page appears. At the bottom of that page it says save. Does hitting 'save' start to send out the email to all members, or will there be more pages to configure such as hourly send limits? I don't want to hit the wrong button until I know exactly what happens. Any tutorials on this would be great?

Otherwise a quick way for me to make a decision would be if the bulk mail system can't limit emails per hour, then I'll be choosing either Mandrill or my bulk mail software on my PC. 

If emails sent from Mandrill come up as sent from somewhere else and not my forum domain, then I'll be using my bulk mail software. But if Mandrill does send emails as if they were sent from my forum then I need to learn more about Mandrill to weigh it up.

Thanks again for your help. Any feedback or insight greatly appreciated. 

Ray

[opentype]

I suggest you just create test bulk mails limited to yourself or the admin group to get familiar with the process of sending out bulk mails. 

The emails are sent out in certain chunks, but I think there is no setting to control that. Why are you asking? If you want to send more emails than your hosting provider allows, than this is where you want to switch to a service like Mandrill. Of course it will send out the emails from your email address. 

[Raydar]

Thanks Opentype. 

Reason I mentioned how Mandrill will send out the emails, is because sometimes I get emails from companies I do business with and their emails come from mailchimp. Even though I know it is not spam I think it is more professional to send out from your own domain. 

Reason I am asking about how many I can send per hour is because my ISP only allows a specific number of emails per hour, so when I used vBulletin I couldn't limit my newsletters and only a few would go out before the server would shut me down. Mandrill wouldn't have this problem, nor would my bulk email software that I use. 

Your suggestions have helped heaps, I'm going to do a bulk email to admins only to see how that goes. Thanks.

Ray

[Raydar]

Okay, I get this universal message that comes up before sending

"Please be aware that bulk emails are sent in batches. This bulk mail will not be sent to all recipients immediately upon proceeding."

So Invision are onto bulk email limits. Question is, how many emails in a batch? If the batch is lower than my email limit then all my dreams would have come true at once. 

This email system looks really easy to use. I love how it automatically places the forum logo into the top as well. 

Ray

[opentype]

57 minutes ago, Raydar said:

So Invision are onto bulk email limits. 

No, the batches are not about the limits your hosting provider might have, but simply about how long it takes to send out many mails at once. 

Also keep in mind that there are different limits regarding mails. What is your provider limiting? PHP emails? Mailbox emails? For example, my hosting provider just started to limit how many mails I can sent out with my POP3/IMAP accounts, but that doesn’t affect my newsletters at all since they sent from PHP, not a mailbox.  

[Raydar]

If I send from my home computer using outlook, I can send an unlimited amount of emails per hour or day. If I send from my host I can send 500 emails per hour. 

Would there be code that could be tweaked to enable a limit of say 400 an hour?

Ray