Sending out a lot of mails (30K users) through Xenforo?

[Lykke]

Hi there
I am working on a game forum, with around 30K users.

They have a very large wish to be using the installed Xenforo mail system to email their users with news letters - perhaps once every second month.

Does any of you have any experience with a large amount of users - when sending out mails from the system?

Normally there are restrictions on mail systems to prevent spam - but what about this case?

Anything I should be aware of?

Thank you
Lykke

 

[Jake Bunce]

The only possible problem is limits on your mail server. You will likely want to subscribe to a mass mailing service to avoid limits. XenForo allows you to specify the SMTP server:

Admin CP -> Home -> Options -> Email Options -> Email Transport Method

Some people use Google:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/setting-up-google-as-smtp-server-for-your-xenforo.6180/

I have also seen Amazon SES recommended.

 

[Walter]

You should either use a professional service for sending mails or use a professional software.

Believe me, we are sending >100,000 mails per month for newsletters and you need a professional way to handle bounce mails and unsubscribes or the ISPs will simply ban your mail server and you won't get your newsletters out. If the site is already sending a newsletter, you will be surprised how many bounces you already have.

Contact me if you need more details.

 

[TheBigK]

@walter: Could you recommend a mail sending service? I've used interspire email but their software is the crappiest!

 

[Lykke]

Thank you for all your input

I am actually looking at Mail Chimp atm - but have no experience + it looks rather expensive. The thing is I need to send out to a total of 60K users (20K from each of 3 countries). But I might only have to send them one mail per month.

 

[Digital Doctor]

emails

Deebs outlined a method : EXIM.
Not sure if it has bounce management though.

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/limit-number-of-emails-sent-per-hour-email-throttling.6486/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/site-timing-out-when-posting.24609/#post-304773

http://www.exim.org/

Exim is a message transfer agent (MTA) developed at the University of Cambridge for use on Unix systems connected to the Internet.

http://www.exim-new-users.co.uk/
http://www.exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/index.html (Revision 4.77 - 10 Oct 2011).

 

[Andy.N]

Thank you for all your input

I am actually looking at Mail Chimp atm - but have no experience + it looks rather expensive. The thing is I need to send out to a total of 60K users (20K from each of 3 countries). But I might only have to send them one mail per month.

I have been using mailchimp for few years with great results. They are not cheap but top notch service. I was having monthly plan but switch to pay-per-credit because we don't send out monthly.
For transactional email, we use Amazon SES. We use mailchimp for newsletter, announcement.

You would be surprised to know that a good number of your 30K userbase will have a bounced email. Bounce management in mailchimp is very good.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I guess the question is ... what is a good email list worth ?
Is email still relevant ?

 

[Andy.N]

I guess the question is ... what is a good email list worth ?
Is email still relevant ?

A lot. If you are a business and each email can lead to a sale.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Is paid emails a key source of ROI for a gaming forum ?

 

[Lykke]

This is a childrens game - and we send out very rarely news letters. But it's important to keep the users up to date (especially because there are a lot of offers for kids today).

I was thinking of Amazon too - it seems a lot cheaper. But we need to create mail groups etc. and send mails with different content to each - and I'm not sure what the different systems offer (or how they work). In Xenforo you can create the usergroups and then select from there - but I have never tried MailChimp or the Amazon (or any other systems) before.

 

[Walter]

Is email still relevant ?

Email is very relevant.
It helps you to stay in contact with your users. Not every user is daily on your site so if you send a monthly newsletter the user won't forget about your site, revisit it and eventually becomes active again.

If you don't send newsletters the mail address will become invalid and you won't be able to reach the user again.

 

[cmeinck]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do a one time, mass email to users? I need to notify them of access to other forums in our network, so it's more of a one-off admin email, rather than a newsletter.

 

[Jake Bunce]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do a one time, mass email to users? I need to notify them of access to other forums in our network, so it's more of a one-off admin email, rather than a newsletter.

You can of course use the mass mailer in the Admin CP, but for large mailing lists it is easy to exceed limits imposed by most mail servers. It is best to check with your mail host first.

 

[snoopy5]

Has anybody tried already to integrate phplist with xenforo for sending out emails to users, who are registered in the forum?