We have given up. Last year, we purchased a “commercial grade” email system that claimed to integrate with our SQL database with ease. Yet it has been getting progressively slower and slow to the point that each hour’s send-list was taking over 80 mins to get out the door. Ok, so each slot might be going out to 200,000 opt-in people but all this app had to do was create the individual emails. Sending is taken care of by the absolutely wonderful Lyris mail engine (never failed).
So … techies to the rescue : cue one home-written email application coded inside of 3 days and now sends the entire hour’s job lot in under 15 mins. Not exactly rocket science [sigh] and makes the $3k+ app look a little sad.
And the issue? Well, I have been fighting a rearguard action to convince others that we should be using our scarce resources to better effect than re-inventing the wheel each time we see a problem. Don’t you know it – the wheel we then go and buy is not only flat but square!
How about buying into hosted email delivery systems?
Sadly, once you reach 200,000+ emails a day, the cost per email starts to get prohibitive. One popular service lets me email 100,000 people for about $500 six times. Hmm .. that $2000 per site per month. Not feasible.
Back then to the latest in re-invented wheels … shiny new alloys with split rims anyone?
Posted by seowithin 