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Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

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Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#41

Post by webbie917 »

PatrolX wrote: post #7
hemancuso wrote: post #2

Projects like this seem like a great idea, but deliverability seems like a big concern that is hard to measure unless you have a reasonable amount of experience. What are best practices for using/selecting an ESP if you were to use a project like this and want to ensure reasonable deliverability?

Deliverability is a non-issue if you hook tools like this and Sendy up to Amazon SES with DKIM and verified MAIL FROM settings. I've been doing it for years and never once had a deliverability issue. I've also sent directly from EC2 instances without issues but SES is so cheap and reliable I've stuck with it.

Sounds like you have a good and established sender reputation, which is a big factor. When people start fresh (new sender identity) they tend to run into deliverability issues.

Also, the quality and size of the starting list matters too because a large list (like the OPs) or unengaged list can have a high bounce and low engagement rate, which factors into future deliverability.

Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#42

Post by webbie917 »

Pretty cool. Does the tool process bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes, e.g. auto removes from future mailings?

Have you considered using a hosted platform that uses Amazon SES rather then hosting Sendy or other tools yourself? I own BigMailer and our clients with established SES accounts (high daily rate limits > high limit per sec) see 1m emails go out in a little over 1 hour.

I always wonder why people choose to host email software in house and it seems like the requirement for direct integration with in-house system(s) is one of the biggest considerations when choosing in-house vs. off-the-shelf solution.

Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#43

Post by theIV »

samat wrote: post #30
jonifico wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing work, congratulations! I'm gonna give it a try, we have been using Phplist so far (we send like 500k daily emails). Are you guys using returnpath' senderscore or a similar certification to send that amount of emails ?

Could you please elaborate on how to use returnpath to deliver large quantities of emails? Isn’t it solely informational service?

Return Path has a certification service that certain providers use as a signal to the “legitimacy” of the sender (don’t know if that was the best phrasing...).

https://returnpath.com/solutions/email-deliverability-optimi...

Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#45

Post by thedufer »

webbie917 wrote: post #39
cat199 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Spam is unsolicited commercial email. if I sign up on a site, click the 'yes email me' button, and then mark the email as spam when I get it, I am the one acting incorrectly, not the sender who is literally doing what I instructed them to do..

Actually, cold emails (without permission) aren't spam. What makes an email spam is: 1) misleading subject line 2) misleading message 3) lack of simple (not requiring login or extra steps) unsubscribe link, and a couple other factors. People forget subscribing and hit "Spam", which has an impact on the sender reputation and affects future deliverability for that sender.

That's a very narrow definition of spam that you're only going to hear from spammers (your profile is utterly unsurprising after reading this comment). Unfortunately for you, end-users are going to mark as spam based on their own much more reasonable definition.

Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#46

Post by knadh »

webbie917 wrote: post #42

Pretty cool. Does the tool process bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes, e.g. auto removes from future mailings? Have you considered using a hosted platform that uses Amazon SES rather then hosting Sendy or other tools yourself? I own BigMailer and our clients with established SES accounts (high daily rate limits > high limit per sec) see 1m emails go out in a little over 1 hour. I always wonder why people choose to…

listmonk does have unsubscription and blacklisting, although not bounce processing (yet. todo.)

listmonk is a replacement for Sendy. You can connect your SES account to it using the SES SMTP interface.

Integration with in-house DBs was a top reason for us.

Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#48

Post by knadh »

good-idea wrote: post #38

This looks great and is maybe exactly what I'm looking for! I have a couple questions: I don't see anything in the docs about supplying an unsubscribe link. I don't see an endpoint in the API that could be used with an anchor tag in the footer of the email. Is this something that is supported? And: my client is concerned about email/spam regulations, which I'm very unfamiliar with. Is there anything I'd need to look…

Thank you :) listmonk supports unsubscription and blacklisting. The default template that ships with it has an {{ UnsubscribeURL }} tag in the footer. I just realised that it's not in the documentation (work in progress). Will add.

Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#49

Post by massaman_yams »

webbie917 wrote: post #40
massaman_yams wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other comments here don't quite tell the whole story; "I never had any problems" is anecdotal - there are plenty of legitimate senders who do run into deliverability issues. Using an ESP will generally simplify the amount of work necessary to achieve good delivery, but due to the complexities of domain reputation and fingerprinting, very occasionally they can also be the cause of delivery problems. General guidel…

I agree with all your suggestions, but want to expand on a couple points: 1) The shared IP pool at cheaper providers like Sendgrid, SES, and MailGun will have lower reputation versus a platform with a guarded (via cost, but also on-boarding mechanisms) platforms like MailChimp, simply due to customer pool and quality of emails sent. I have been hearing from my (BigMailer.io) customers about having deliverability issu…

Right. Split up by IP/subdomain if possible, preferably within one provider.

That said, you may be surprised by the number of large organizations that have a dozen or more services that send mail on their behalf, for various different purposes... it's not optimal, from a deliverability perspective, but it's also not usually going to cause deliverability issues by itself as long as everything else is in order.

Re: Show HN: Listmonk – Fast self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

#50

Post by webbie917 »

massaman_yams wrote: post #49
webbie917 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all your suggestions, but want to expand on a couple points: 1) The shared IP pool at cheaper providers like Sendgrid, SES, and MailGun will have lower reputation versus a platform with a guarded (via cost, but also on-boarding mechanisms) platforms like MailChimp, simply due to customer pool and quality of emails sent. I have been hearing from my (BigMailer.io) customers about having deliverability issu…

Right. Split up by IP/subdomain if possible, preferably within one provider. That said, you may be surprised by the number of large organizations that have a dozen or more services that send mail on their behalf, for various different purposes... it's not optimal, from a deliverability perspective, but it's also not usually going to cause deliverability issues by itself as long as everything else is in order.

Yes, agreed. Lotsa factors in play when it comes to deliverability, like a puzzle. What a well established brand (with high quality emails) can get away with isn't something that businesses with less resources should try to copy though IMO.

Just saw an email from Starbucks in the spam folder - all because of a few words that no doubt triggered the spam filter.

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