email blacklisting, spam, recommendations

herchenx · Post by **herchenx** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:46 pm

AbleCommerce can send out emails, but I have been recommending to the client that they use something like Constant Contact or Exact Target to send email to avoid potential spam issues, or having their server blacklisted.

Since there is opt-out option for email lists, I am wondering if anyone else is using this feature of AbleCommerce to communicate to users.

We may have tens of thousands of users at some point, so I want to know if anyone else has dealt with this.

AbleCommerce email lists or third party mass email solution?

Thanks,

John

jmestep · Post by **jmestep** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 7:32 am

I'm not speaking for Able, but this is what I recall.
One of the things brought up in the AC7 development forum was the bulk email issue. The email system in AC7 is better than 5.5, but it wasn't designed to be as full-featured as you can purchase elsewhere. If I remember correctly, the consensus was to spend the time making AC7 the tops as far as an ecommerce site software and not try to have the best of all possible features to the detriment of the important functionality. I might not be wording this right, but on things like a forum, a knowledge base, bulk email software--there are reasonably priced products out there that are full featured. If you are going to have thousands of email addresses, you will want to go with one of them to filter bounces, allow customer to change his profile, put tracking code on the links in the emails, schedule sending, etc. We use eNewsletterPro and it does all those things.

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:48 pm

Judy how do you tie ENewsletterPro into your site user database?

I plan to do extensive communication with customers via AC7, but not on the scale of tens of thousands per day. But I hadn't thought about automatic bounce handling.

jmestep · Post by **jmestep** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 1:38 pm

We don't really tie it in with our users in the store because in 5.5 there was no opt-in code and there are a lot of laws now about email spam. We do send one initial email for new gun buyers, etc. from our store customer list after we download the orders into our Access db CRM system. We also have several place on the site where the customer can subscribe to the mailing list, including one on the order confirmation page. They are then directed to this page:
http://www.anythingxtreme.com/mailinglist.aspx

We still have trouble with emails being blocked and have to periodically contact the ISPs and make sure we're not on a black list.