Mass Mailing.

[Extra_Cover]

Hi All

Using Office 2013.

I have just finished a Mass Mail App for a client and I wish to hand this over next month. It allows the user to create header and footer text and embed an image to the body of the email. The mail is send via Outlook (Currently I am allowing Programmatic Access but will probably use the Redemption dll)

However, I am concerned about the possibility of them being blacklisted by their ISP. I have spoken to the ISP who say it is a problem for the company's IT support. So I spoke to them and they cannot give me a definite answer to how many emails could be sent. They have said that you could get blacklisted if invalid email addresses are used or emails are undeliverable.

I have found a routine that checks for invalid email addresses and this removes them from the mailing list (so far this has worked very well).

I have also put a routine in, via an inbox import from the mail account, that puts customers on hold if a mail address is undeliverable. This also sends an email to the user to alert them of undeliverable mail addresses.

The maximum email addresses that could be used is about 3000.

Speaking with their IT support I did say that it is not just one email with 2000+ addresses in the 'To' field but that the app loops through a mail list and sends one mail at a time. "Ah" they said "You could be alright there". They suggested I try with increasing numbers. I have risked up to 200 and have encountered no problems so far.

Has anyone else encountered a similar dilemma?

Any advise gratefully received.

 

[isladogs]

Yes but it was a few years ago.
The main problem was sending out batches of emails that were below the limit that is flagged up as spam and then blocked.
I normally use CDO to send email from Access rather than doing it through Outlook but the issue is identical however you do it

In the end I purchased an inexpensive multimailer program to handle mass emails. Once the emails were prepared, it sent them out in batches with a small delay between each. It worked perfectly

 

[Minty]

As a bit of advice, use the BCC address to send from if you are collating addresses.

I'd be mighty grumpy if my email address was visible to 1000+ other people I don't know, and could easily be harvested by a spam bot on an infected machine in any of the 1000+ recipients.

 

[Extra_Cover]

Yes but it was a few years ago.
The main problem was sending out batches of emails that were below the limit that is flagged up as spam and then blocked.
I normally use CDO to send email from Access rather than doing it through Outlook but the issue is identical however you do it

In the end I purchased an inexpensive multimailer program to handle mass emails. Once the emails were prepared, it sent them out in batches with a small delay between each. It worked perfectly

Thanks for the reply.

I did try mailchimp. I have set up an export to csv function so a mail list could be uploaded. However when I uploaded the mail list of 400 mailchimp would not allow me to as there was a high possibility the mail would be bounced back as spam! I used my app and sent batches of 50 with no problem.

Perhaps sending say 50 mails and then pausing for a few minutes could be an answer.

 

[Extra_Cover]

As a bit of advice, use the BCC address to send from if you are collating addresses.

I'd be mighty grumpy if my email address was visible to 1000+ other people I don't know, and could easily be harvested by a spam bot on an infected machine in any of the 1000+ recipients.

Thanks for the advise. I do not collate addresses but send one mail per address.