Newsletter/autoresponder options?

[Henrik Flensborg]

I'm about to re-launch an "old acquaintance", my Growth Focus newsletter - and various spinoff-lists, and was looking into the options I have for running it.

Is Aweber still a solid choice or have other autoresponder services emerged that I should look into?

I'm also looking for solutions that are self-hosted - and if they could be managed from within the WP framework then that would be a plus.

[Kayla Fay]

I keep hearing Aweber. As for self hosted plans, after using it for years I'm just switching over from Site Interactive's Subscribe Me. As my list has grown, it's just not reliable - sending emails twice, not completing a send. Bleh. It also has no autoresponder option, and tracking is not nearly so robust as Aweber.

[cindybidar]

Aweber is the gold standard to be sure. There are "white label" versions that are less expensive, but don't have all the bells and whistles. There are also some providers - like MailChimp - that offer free services for lists under 500 subscribers (but be sure to read the TOS, because MC doesn't allow affiliate marketing). And then there is the option of self-hosting.

But here's the problem with that - if you host on a shared server (like most of us do) you're sharing an IP address with possibly hundreds of other sites. If one of those site owners does something to get his domain blacklisted by the big email providers then YOUR domain may be blacklisted as well, because it shares an IP. The result is that all your email becomes undeliverable.

Aweber goes to great lengths to make sure no one is sending spam from their servers, so your email is almost guaranteed to get through.

[AlexNewell]

A white label aweber may well give the best options for quality and price. Lately I've seen quite a few mentions of mailchimp.

All The Best

Alex

[Henrik Flensborg]

Thanks for the feedback - guess it looks like Aweber is still a solid choice.

[Henrik Flensborg]

MailChimp seems interesting though with segmentation, interest groups and A/B split tests

[lynette]

I never advise people to host your own list. No matter how good your software is, deliverability is a MEGA pain. That alone is a full time job and can keep you super busy jumping through hoops with Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc etc.

But that's not all. As your list grows the rejects/returns etc also grows this can bring even a dedicated server down to a crawl. Besides, most shared hosts have some kind of fine print regarding mass mailing. Could get your web hosting account deleted - happened to me.

Not recommended at all.

[Henrik Flensborg]

I finally went with MailChimp for the re-launch of the Growth Focus Newsletter - http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/members/group.php?do=discuss&gmid=957

[chesterpyke]

I too use Aweber,i find it very amazing thanks a lot lol

[bryansmith1]

I'm about to re-launch an "old acquaintance", my Growth Focus newsletter - and various spinoff-lists, and was looking into the options I have for running it.

Is Aweber still a solid choice or have other autoresponder services emerged that I should look into?

I'm also looking for solutions that are self-hosted - and if they could be managed from within the WP framework then that would be a plus.

Can you explain me how to create a newsletter

[angienewton]

Can you explain me how to create a newsletter

Bryan,
If you get a mailing list manager like Aweber (http://sswt.aweber.com) (Lynn's aff link), you can do a newsletter through that. Aweber has tutorials that show you how to do various things with mailing lists.

What exactly do you want to know about starting a newsletter?