How To Send Bulk Emails?

I am trying to send blocks of emails via mail merge out of Act! Database (~8000 emails in one go a few times a month) and am looking for some kind of mail server option that lets us send this amount quickly.

Ideally I am looking for no change locally so the database and mail merge stays the same only the mail server I upload to runs quicker.

Using a standard smtp mail server that comes with the web hosting I have, I can send only about 1 every 10sec (sometimes longer) , so it takes a long time

Ideally the perfect solution would be to have a new mail server address that I can upload the mail to instead that can send this volume fast, is this possible? or is there another option available, hosting my own mail server on my server?

(Just incase you fear that I am sending unsolicited spam, these clients are expecting these email, as they requested it and wont be happy if they don閳ユ獩 receive one)

Hope you can help and give me some ideas towards a solution

How To Send Bulk Emails?

Ok first try using your ISP%26#039;s SMTP server to send the emails as this may have a higher throughput than your hosting provider can offer.

Failing this you may need to move to a server side solution to offer faster throughput.

You do need to be careful not to send anything unsolicited and to offer an opt-out of future emails else your ISP may get funny about it but other than that you should be OK

How To Send Bulk Emails?

Sending out that many emails without a carefully thought out strategy is going to get you on the anti-spam lists. Or worse, suspended by your ISP and/or web host.

Here%26#039;s how I%26#039;d go about it...

1) Get a web hosting account with PHP and MySQL, if you don%26#039;t have one already (a decent one will be about $10 a month).

2) Install the PHPList application (it%26#039;s free)

3) Export the data from Act into CVS or some other delimted format.

4) Import the same into PHPList.