First, I know that you guys are doing something totally different, than what I'm asking about, but nevertheless, this is the only place on the internet, where I can ask such questions. OK, I went through this forum's search and through another one(not mailer orientated) and still can't understand shit. Here's the deal; I buy media for various cpa offers and want to put a squeeze page before the offer and even make the optin page the last one, with no front end monetization. Then I want them on a predefined email sequence. When doing my reaseach, I ended up finding two routes: 1) Getting dedicated servers and finding IPs, buying full blown MTA and learning to mail, which seems to be a full time job, which I can't really afford, because media buys are a full time job too. So I left that idea and did not dig any further. 2) signing up with an ESP. Aweber, locks you out of your lists, if you get banned, mailchimp does not like affiliate offers, so i'm left with icontact, constant contact and getresponce. A few problems arrive when using these. First, they don't allow single optin, which is ridiculuos. All the people say that double optin will not cut out too much, but I don't believe that. These guys are in the IM guru bullshit niche and I'm not. Second, they have ridiculuos spam complaints limit. Now, I've stumbled upon sendgrid.com, which seems to be a completely different system, but I really fail to see how it works. It seems that it gives me a lot more control than ESPs and is not so complicated as an MTA. Can I add IPs that I have? Does it deliver well? Will they shut me down after 5 complains/1000? Am I mistaken about what it does? Basically, is it a good option for what i'm looking to do? Is there any other way to do it? Any other service? Or I just have to learn to mail myself or pay someone for drops(is that expensive?)?
they're decent, flexible, as far as ESP's go. if you're buying media, and have 1st gen data, as long as you send something relevant, complaints shouldn't be an issue, just identify your brand and remind them of where they opted in at. you will need to warm with sendgrid for at least 30 days I've been told learn yourself through sendgrid, the experience will be priceless, just start off slow good luck
With a branded newsletter, given a static group of subscribers, the graph of complaints over time looks like this: \ Most ESP's allow single opt in newsletters if you are upfront about it with them. If you have large volume requirements they are willing to work with you on a ramp up plan etc. The ESP's you mentioned above will definitely work with you on spam complaints initially if you sign up for a large volume account and talk to your rep about it. Sendgrid and amazon aws are good if you want to build a custom injector platform to do very advanced targeting options and/or creative customization on a per user level. But don't want to be bothered with direct ISP relations.
So I use sendgrid and its ok until you try and send 40k emails in a day as that is over one IP and its just hard not to get deffered by yahoo. In my opinon something like aweber will do better in delivery to a large list on a major ISP. Plus you have to run it through a cleaner like BrightVerify or Bridge first or you will get so many bounces and spam traps that you will fry your account. If you do either of the two above you will keep their internal send score high enough to be fine. I have used interspire with it and there are some small problems. I have two Ips with sendgrid (they give extra to you at 20$ a month). However with interspire there isn't a way to balance between them automatically. You can add about 20 to 30 minutes per mailing if you want to do it manually. An even bigger hassle if use an autoresponder. if you are going to use the api to import your leads it can be a little easier but still plan on creating your emails in duplicate for every IP you have with them.
