Friday, December 14, 2018


How to choose an Email Service Provider


Setting up an ESP involves economic as well as time investment, so marketers have to choose one which satiates their current requirement while being future-ready. While choosing any Email service provider, always consider the following conditions:


Costing:


In the domain of Email Service Providers(ESP), there is one for every type of budget. There are easy-to-use ESPs like MailChimp who offer user-friendly email editor, premium looking Email template library, Email automation workflows and email campaign analytics for almost nothing provided that you send out less than 2,000 emails per month. While it looks like a sweet deal, the email template is not yours and the footer will carry Mailchimp banner. Plus, you can send only 10 campaigns per month. This is a perfect option for someone who has just started out or on a tight budget.


Deliver-ability Standards:


you send emails that are scanned by an Internet Service Provider at the user-end before being delivered. If the IP that you send your emails are blacklisted, the ISP filter won’t allow your emails to pass through. Since you will be using an ESP to send your emails, you need to protect so they provide you with good deliverability. Check for approved authentication methods such as SPF, Sender-ID, Domain-keys, DKIM and DMARC. Ask for a probability of dedicated IP, using this protections you are not blocked because someone else sent a SPAM using the Internet protocol you share with them. You can ask about the different types of reputation support such as white listing and feedback loops.


API integration support:


Sending emails is a process that is improved constantly based on previous campaign performances. This integration support requires the involvement of 3rd party applications/plugins to monitor certain metrics that your ESP may not be providing. So you can check whether your email service provider has the API integration support for the tools you use to conduct the analysis.




Scalability:


Since you have a mailing list of fewer than 2,000 subscribers, you can decide to choose the free model of the ESP. Will your ESP have the capability to send emails when your mailing list erupt to greater than 20,000 subscribers? Is it support adding more users in your plan? Check how scalable your Email service provider is based on email volume, speed, lists and etc.


Customer Support:


Just Imagine if you scheduled an email to be sent early morning but due to ESP server downtime, the campaign could not be delivered. Is your email service provider server to customer support at odd hours? Research on the frequency and pattern of downtime and enquire about the ESP’s emergency management plan in case of downtime.


Ease-to-use:


Are the specified features free to use? Is the FAQ section will easily accessible? How speedily does customer support respond? Do you need any technical knowledge to operate the platform? is your ESP provide digital hand-holding when required?


Migration possibility:


Some relations are work forever and some break down early. If your current ESP is no longer able to fulfill your needs, how speedily can you export your data? How easily you can import the data into your new ESP? How ease will the experience be?


GDPR compliance:


How to choose an Email Service Provider If you trail with sending emails to EU residents, your ESP it acts as a data handler and it will be fined heavily during times of data leak or theft. ensure your ESP employs enough security towards data safety and obeys to the GDPR guidelines.





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