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news letter


socom

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Hi Guys we would start like to use the news letter function in our email

 

only issue we have about 2000 people signed up for it and when we got to use it our server blocks it due to spam? 

 

is there any way around this with out going via mail chimp etc?

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It is probably because they are being sent out to quickly.  If so, I think there is an addon that allows you to control the timing between emails -- I think it was mentioned in the Newsletter Manager thread.  I'm interested in this too so lets keep in touch.

Dan

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Most hosts have limits ("caps") on the rate at which you can send out emails, to discourage spammers from using their services. There may be daily, hourly, and/or minute caps that you have to obey, or be restricted in some way.

Many mail services watch for "excessive" numbers of emails coming in from a single server, and may decide that they're being spammed, and blacklist your server (you and everyone else on the server). Keeping down your send rate can help avoid this. If possible, try to randomize sending among target domains, so (e.g.) gmail doesn't get 500 straight emails from you in one hour and blacklist you.

There are a number of non-osC newsletter mailing services, some of which are free, which can regulate the rate at which they send out emails. Some run on other servers, while some are software you install on your site. They may or may not be well integrated with osC (to grab the customer list from the database) -- some may require that you go into the database and export the customer mailing list as a CSV file, while others might directly read.the database. A good mailing service can send different emails to different classes of customers, based on database entries, and can customize salutations, etc. based on customer data (such as their name). Look around.

Finally, when sending out newsletters and such mailings, you should only do this for customers who have explicitly given permission to do so. Many countries have laws against spamming. Remind the customer that they signed up to receive this mailing, and give easy-to-follow instructions for removing themselves from your mailing list. Otherwise, they are likely to report you as a spammer (as the easiest way to drop your emails). Note that a customer with an established relationship (e.g., has placed an order) might be considered to have given implicit permission to send mailings to them, but check the law. Emails concerning the shipping of a specific order, problems fulfilling the order, payment problems, recalls, followups, security breaches, etc. are generally exempt from such laws -- it's sales material such as newsletters and sales circulars that is regulated.

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There is an addon called mailbeez that works with oscommerce. It has two versions a free one and a paid one. Both do different things so its best to look on their website to see the differences. It is also possible to export newsletter subscribers addresses to various external systems and providers. I personally use Mailchimp, but there are others. Again there is a free and paid version. Free you can have up to 2000 subscribers I think it is.

All of them are better than the standard newsletter system provided with oscommerce. Using an external sender also reduces the risk of your domain being registered as spam.

REMEMBER BACKUP, BACKUP AND BACKUP

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  • 4 months later...
On 11/24/2017 at 3:59 AM, 14steve14 said:

Using an external sender also reduces the risk of your domain being registered as spam.

Just out of curiosity, are the mailings externally labeled as "From" a Third Party, rather than from you? I would think that customers would find it offputting to be getting "junk" mail from someone other than who they signed up with. Even if you remind them of this during newsletter signup (explicit opt-in), they're bound to forget.

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@frankl @socomtactical.net I've often wondered about using that addon and Mailchimp.   Are you able to manage transactional emails with it as well as bulk mailings? If so, how does that work?

Dan

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Comes from the email you set in the account. 

 

yes can do transactional emails not worked out how yet still playing with it all. 

 

https://www.oscommerce.com/forums/profile/69-burt/ i think is gary behind the link app and have to say £49 or what ever it was i think will pay for it self very quick once i have learnt how to fully take advantage of mail chimp it seems to have alot of features to play around with. and easy to trail if you have less than 2000 people who have signed up for your account. 

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8 hours ago, Dan Cole said:

@frankl @socomtactical.net I've often wondered about using that addon and Mailchimp.   Are you able to manage transactional emails with it as well as bulk mailings? If so, how does that work?

Dan

You need to use the Mandrill option which is extra. Minimum cost is $20 per month for one block of 25,000 emails. I've done everything I can to use as many of those 25,000 emails each month, including progress emails for orders and Gary's key system to get reviews. I'll also be implementing abandoned carts and product notifications once I can figure those out :-)

Edit: Apparently you may be able to use Mailchimp for transactional emails too, but the article seems ambiguous https://kb.mailchimp.com/mandrill/about-transactional-email

osCommerce user since 2003! :thumbsup:

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Further to using Mailchimp for transactional emails, there needs to be a MailChimp E-Commerce app written for osCommerce otherwise it's a non-starter https://kb.mailchimp.com/integrations/connected-sites/about-connected-sites.

If @burt wants to write one I'd be happy to work with him, it's not something I'd want to do alone though.

osCommerce user since 2003! :thumbsup:

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@frankl Thanks Frank....I thought as much.   It also looks like you need to pass your order details to them as well.  I'm not sure I'd be keen on doing that. 

I'm not familiar with Mandrill....can you pass emails to them just for processing?  Is that what you're doing?

Dan

 

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@Dan Cole

I works like this. You create a template in Mandrill with placeholders for data (this one is extremely simple, but you get the gist):

<h1>{{CompanyName}}</h1>

Hey {{firstName}}, thanks for ordering a wonderful selection of our products.

<!-- BEGIN PRODUCT LOOP // -->
   {{#each products}}
   <tr class="item">
        <td valign="top" class="textContent">
            <img src="{{img}}" width="50" height="75" class="itemImage" />
            <h4 class="itemName">{{name}}</h4>
            <span class="contentSecondary">Qty: {{qty}} x ${{price}}/each</span><br />
            <span class="contentSecondary sku"><em>{{sku}}</em></span><br />
            <span class="contentSecondary itemDescription">{{description}}</span>
        </td>
        <td valign="top" class="textContent alignRight priceWidth">
            ${{ordPrice}}
        </td>
    </tr>
    {{/each}}
<!-- // END PRODUCT LOOP -->

Then you just send the information (CompanyName, firstname, and name, qty, price, sku, and description for products)  over using the Mandrill class. Mandrill inserts the info into the template then sends the email.

osCommerce user since 2003! :thumbsup:

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I have a Mandrill system which I coded for a client, but do not have the ability to share it per the clients request, sorry.

From my recollection I made a copy of tep_mail and called it mandrill_mail.  I then changed all the instances of tep_mail to mandrill_mail and passed through the relevant mergeable vars.  At the Mandrill end the client set up a number of email slugs just like what @frankl has posted above.

It's not difficult, but was time consuming to get right.

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Thanks @frankl and @burt that sounds like a great way to manage our emails.  I'll have to dig into it a bit more.   I like the sounds of it and it would avoid a lot of the issues involved in managing emails on our server.   To bad that client isn't willing to release that module.   

Dan

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21 hours ago, burt said:

I have a Mandrill system which I coded for a client, but do not have the ability to share it per the clients request, sorry.

 

Perhaps you could approach them with a proposal to sell the system (assuming there's no copyright issues with Mandrill itself), and pay your client a royalty on each? It's worth considering, as extra income for the both of you.

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23 hours ago, frankl said:

Then you just send the information (CompanyName, firstname, and name, qty, price, sku, and description for products)  over using the Mandrill class. Mandrill inserts the info into the template then sends the email.

@franklFrank did you develop something to handle this or is it a manual process?

Dan

 

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13 hours ago, MrPhil said:

Perhaps you could approach them with a proposal to sell the system (assuming there's no copyright issues with Mandrill itself), and pay your client a royalty on each? It's worth considering, as extra income for the both of you.

It's a nice idea, but fraught with difficulty.  Have done this previously with something else and would never try to do it again.

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  • 2 months later...

Has anyone heard of security problems with Mailchimp? Another user on my host is getting the following warning:

whenever I send an email to my clients using gmail, the following text is being inserted in the body of the email in red text


***redacted*** Web Hosting has detected definite fraud in the website at "mailchi.mp". Do not trust this website:

it happens with mailchimp and amazon links

Before I suggest that their site might have some malware, is there anything known going on?

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