Hello all! For building an opt-in mailing list, I'm deciding on whether to use a paid service like www.constantcontact.com or to make my own using MySQL backend with PHP mail() on a shared host. On one hand, those paid services allow a lot of add-ons like bounced email checking, etc. Yet, they seem less flexible for list/code manipulation, not to mention the COSTs. I'm leaning to the paid one since I've heard a hugely looped mail() function on your own shared servers can be a bit unreliable. What do you guys think? Any experiences? Appreciate your opinions!!!
If your going to have a proper go of building a large mailing list and selling to them, then the small monthly fee associated with managing the subcribed mailing list shouldn't be too much of a concern. I've used aweber.com before without a problem.
Also I should add, if your just experimenting so to speak, checkout this cool little free mailing list script called Dada Mail. It works great and it makes it very easy to manage your list. The only drawback is there is no personalisation in your emails, but hey its free!
If you are going to build your own, but are concerened that you will not be able to manage your bounced email, you can use a service like BounceRemoval.com (disclaimer disclaimer, I am a principle in the service): http://www.bounceremoval.com/ Which can integrate with your own mailing utilities, not only manage your "hard" bounces, such as "user unknown" but also your "soft bounces", such as "mailbox full" as well as many other types of "soft" bounces, and post your "hard" bounces back to a list on your own server so that you can remove them automatically using whatever tool you create to do so. If you want a free newsletter/mailing list tool which is already integrated with the BounceRemoval.com service, take a look at "Subscribe Me" (disclaimer disclaimer, I am a principal in this website/product too): http://www.SiteInteractive.com/subscribe/ ResidualGuy
I would be careful using the PHP mail() function. Many web-based (such as hotmail) and corporate email servers will send your emails to the junk-mail folder. You may want to install the PEAR mail package that should probably be available for free on your web host. That will allow you to send authenticated SMTP emails, and would avoid some of the junk-mail filters. However, even with proper SMTP authentication, other users at your web host's ip address may have sent out spam, and your emails could end up in the junk mail folder anyway because that web host's IP may be on spam lists. Also - the other drawback to using your own mailing script is that your web host may limit the number of emails you can send in an hour. I suppose this is to prevent spammers from sending stuff full-bore off their servers. For example, I use hostgator.com, and they limit emails to 200 per hour for shared accounts. Semi-dedicated and dedicated accounts don't have that limit, but are much more expensive. So if you start using your own script and you begin to drop emails because you are going over the limit or you have 1/3 of your emails end up in a spam filter or junkmail folder, the paid service may actually save/make you enough money to pay for itself.
By the way, I faced the same question very recently, and have decided to go with aweber.com. I haven't signed up yet, but I will post anything interesting that I learn.
I just signed up with streamsend.com. So far I like it, and the prices/rates are pretty affordable. For 50,000 emails a month it costs $49.99/month. Plus they can track everything for you, from views to bounces to click-thru rates on links.
DO NOT build your own system, you'll just wish you hadn't in the end when you learn what you're missing If you want php/mySQL, try PHPList, it's free. But you're better to go with a hosted service, and constant contact is a decent starter suite, and a good price