AppEngine/General Cold/Bulk Email Advice

[Kaan Soral]

Hi everyone

Over the years, I collected emails from facebook app users, I intended to use email as a part of app logic, but I never did, so I've never emailed anyone

Now I'm wondering whether it would be technically possible and generally appropriate to email users announcing a new product

My first concern is the general appropriateness, I will explain in the email that this is a one time thing and the source of the email

My second concern is spam filters, I'm concerned that after a couple thousand emails, all of the emails could be marked as spam by filters

I would really appreciate some advice

(I'm either going to use appengine/aws's email service, ease email sending, increase the volume over time, or use a service like sendgrid, the success is the main concern)

Thanks,

Kaan

[Vinny P]

As you noted in your post, when it comes to email there is a very thin line between informative, helpful emails and annoying promotion messages. In the case you outlined, I would say go for it as long as you clearly mark an unsubscribe link and where the email came from. For instance, "This email was sent to exa...@example.com since you're a registered user of FACEBOOK_APP. If you want to change your notification settings or unsubscribe, click here." 

As for success, I'd use SendGrid/another outsourced mail provider. Mail sent using AppEngine's mail facility seems to get marked as spam at higher rates than other services. Obviously there is no way to guarantee that all mail is delivered, but you can configure appropriate SPF records and so forth to encourage mail servers to trust you. You can also use services such as http://www.mail-tester.com/ and http://isnotspam.com/ to make sure your emails don't "look" spammy to filters.

 

 

-----------------

-Vinny P

Technology & Media Consultant

Chicago, IL

App Engine Code Samples: http://www.learntogoogleit.com

 

 

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[Kaan Soral]

Thanks again for your insight Vinny, I will certainly make use of such services from now on, previously I manually checked each item myself, it never occurred to me that there are products that do this

I also contacted SendGrid, it seems 3rd party emailing services require very explicit opt-in's, in my scenario the opt-in's aren't explicit (it's not technically a newsletter service, the email providers are more optimised for clear email newsletters/usages)

I decided to not send any emails for now, but the experience is certainly beneficial for future email usages

[Kaan Soral]

It seems my DKIM DNS entry isn't as valid as I thought, gmail passes it tho

Also the appengine mail IP's are in 3 blacklists

This is from another app that sends functional emails as app logic

It would be great to see the results of others

[Kaan Soral]

Turns out I never added the DKIM necessities to my DNS

After improving the emails a bit too, the score became 8.5/10

It's not possible to improve it further, as the 1.5 is deducted by some appengine ip's being blacklisted by some lists

Anyway, nice utility, thanks again for suggesting it

[Alex Vine]

Hi, If you still need some advices about cold mailing, I would say that what is the most important is good personalization at your CM. People should not feel that they found SPAM in their inbox, but an offer that was prepared just for them. Then, to make it work, think about automatization, check quickmali.io - I use it also for my follow ups. Then there is a great website coldmail.ai, where you can easily check whether your CM is written well.

Good luck!