Alternatices to Constant Contact?

[Jazee]

My first question is whether people think it is better to outsource the management of e-mail lists to a third party server instead of handling on your own server?
If you have rather large lists, one benefit would that you would be offloading the server and bandwidth usage to someone else. More importantly, if the third party ends up being blocked, it is their server that is blocked not yours which could be a disaster if you run an e-commerce site that needs to send out order status e-mails and such. (However, how many ISP's also block servers registered to the domain in the return address also? - Probably not many since anyone could spoof someone else's domain to intentionally get them blocked right?)

This leads me to my next question. Who's the best third party e-mail list management service out there? I have one client currently using Roving's Constant Contact service. They've become increasingly hassled by them for spam complaints despite the fact their list is made of of customers who have purchase products from them and non-customers who opted in. Obviously they could send out opt-in messages to their customers but they feel an opt-out approach with existing customers is reasonable. (Everyone has their opinions about that, and that's not the focus of this thread, but I get a ton of catalogs in the mail each day from businesses I've bought from before so I don't see why e-mail is any worse, especially considering e-mail doesn't fill up my recycle been and it is disposed with a click of a button.)

Anyway, Constant Contact's spam threshold is no more than 1 spam complaint out of every 5,000 e-mails sent. Are you kidding me? You'll get at least that may complaints just from people that forgot they opted in (maybe by accident or just forgot, maybe the business changed their name, etc. all kinds of reasons.) I encourage Constant Contact to control spam in this way, if they get blocked and their customers e-mails don't get through, they won't have any customers any more. But 1 in 5000? Give me a break.

If, you agree it is better to outsource e-mail list management to a third party service, who are the best services in the industry that are not currently blocked by the major ISPs, are good about preventing spam originating from any of their customers, but have just a little bit more relaxed threshold. It's a game of balance between not pissing off the ISPs and not pissing of your customers. I think Constant Contact is out of balance and pissing off a lot of customers with reasonably 'clean' lists.

[John Glube]

Originally Posted by Jazee

My first question is whether people think it is better to outsource the management of e-mail lists to a third party server instead of handling on your own server?

You have answered the question in part. As a general statement it is likely more efficient in today's environment to leave the task to a third party.

This leads me to my next question. Who's the best third party e-mail list management service out there?

There is a wide range of 3rd party services available. Within the price range of Constant Contact, there are two services I would recommend:

* Aweber and Ultimate Marketers Resource.

Aweber is the service of choice for many marketers and gets high marks in terms of service, support and ensuring delivery.

UMR offers a complete set of tools and is a bit more flexible than Aweber.

However, both these services are premised on the concept of prior consent and so may not be suitable for your client.

I say this because you write:

They've become increasingly hassled by them for spam complaints despite the fact their list is made of of customers who have purchase products from them and non-customers who opted in.

Your client is upset with being 'hassled.'

However, marketers need to understand the consumer is 'fit to be tied' with UCE.

(The effort by the DMA to draw a distinction between good spam and bad spam is to put it mildly 'slicing the ham to thin.')

Being an opt-out regime, the Can-Spam Act of 2003 does not have an 'implied consent' or 'prior business relationship' exemption as found in opt-in regimes.

The point?

Either your client has 'affirmative consent' as defined under the CSA, or your client is sending unsolicited commercial email in bulk, aka spam.

Mind you, even with 'affirmative consent' this will not prevent 'spam complaints,' but ... it sure makes it easier to resolve an issue.

John Glube
Toronto, Canada

[edited to correct typo error]

[Duncan Pollock]

Jazee: You might take a look at IntelliContactPro ( http://www.intellicontact.com/index.pl ).
I selected them a few months ago in preference to Constant Contact (and a few other possible choices) and have been bothered with only one subscriber spam complaint out of five mailings to about 1500 names each time. Certainly I've had some 3% "removes" and I won't be surprised by more in the months ahead. This, though, is one of the problems with the obsessive concern about spam nowadays and something you simply have to accept.
Otherwise, I think you have to make sure that you aren't mailing people too frequently and seeing to it that your transmissions are worth opening/reading each time they go out. Easier said than done perhaps, but this, too, is one of the prices of doing business in our current environment.

Duncan
PS. This is an unsolicited testimonial!

[obuwebco]

WayPoint Technologies http://www.mywaypoint.com Along with AviMail http://www.avimail.com is launching a product called NextTouch Online. It is a online and express version of thier NextTouch CRM software which incorporates AviMail (Audio,Video,Interactive) Email campaigns.

Inquire at either site for more information.

Essentially Customizeable Flash Email campaigns with CRM logic.

Enjoy