Home/ Questions/Q 976489
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-16T03:45:16+00:00

[Our website] is very dependent on being able to successfully send email to its

  • 0

[Our website] is very dependent on being able to successfully send email to its members. We are currently having trouble reaching all our members, especially hotmail users.

What do you recommend we do to improve our sending of email?

We are sending heavily user customized emails. So a third party solution would need a good api
to support this.

Possible solutions:

Update:
Some good comments on how to improve and test our own email sending capabilities. Another option would be a third party solution.

We’re sending updates on your networks activities, registration emails, new comment emails, new follower emails these type of things. Especially your networks activity is highly individual and problematic with most third party emailing solutions. Would need a very flexible email solution.

Are there sufficiently capable solutions out there?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’d in general be pessimistic about the IP reputation of platform-as-a-service type offerings. Testing Google AppEngine is on my to-do list, but I’ve there’s been much talk about Amazon EC2 presenting a real problem — these products are not very efficient preventing use by spammers, and reputation is taking a hit.

    As for the practical steps of setting up outbound email, Jeff Atwood has a very nice and nearly comprehensive article on his blog.

    What I’d certainly suggest is:

    • Make sure your sending IP has a reverse DNS.
    • Check your IP reputation for example at senderscore.org (though that’s heavily US centric)
    • Make sure bounces are handled on your side, and postmaster@your.domain is reachable
    • Set up SPF and DKIM. SenderID if you want to.
    • Sign up for all feedback loops at major mailbox providers / ISPs and act on spam complaints — if your user complain, you’re doing something wrong. Also, set a “friendly name” on your From: address, as some mailboxes will only display the local part — ” Update” is friendlier than only seeing “automatic” (Gmail does this).
    • Watch the volume you send. If it’s high from the start (>1000s/day to each major ISP) you may get blocked outright.

    You’ll find a lot of deliverability tips, most of the time from interested parties (email service providers). A relatively reputable resource is deliverability.com, backed in part by Return Path. Of course, going with a commercial email service provider might be a solution for you, but your use case is quite specific and you’ll need real-time individual messaging, not marketing newsletters, if I understand you right.

    I worked for a company that re-sold Return Path’s tool — so take this with a pinch of salt: It’ won’t help you get delivered. It can, however, be a valuable tool tracking down where your problems are. It is on the other hand expensive, and hiring a specialist that can go through your specific case might be more affordable. Or reading a lot and experimenting a lot yourself.

    • 0