Email marketing - the benefits of using SaaS solutions
Today, e-mail is one of the main tools for communication between people. More and more companies are resorting to this way of communicating with their customers. There is a great variety of various services for sending marketing newsletters, transactional mail, message tracking, conversion tracking ... Often, companies have to build a cascade of integrations between their software and similar solutions. So is it worth using SaaS for email marketing? Definitely worth it! Why? Welcome under cat.
An SMTP server is fine, but today it is not enough just to send mail. People want to be sure that their mail has reached, they want to know that their mail has been read, they want to measure how effective their mailing was. Modern services of email tracking make it possible to track events related to the sent email message, to find out if the letter reached the addressee, to understand when the addressee followed the link in the letter.
PostMark summary example
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In addition, you probably wonder how much time a person spent reading an email message, which platform he uses. Such information can be used in the future to target mailings, thus increasing their effectiveness. For example, it is rather strange to advertise your new cool iOS application to Android users.
In addition, if you need to create personalized mailings, and there is no technician who can implement them, ready-made SaaS solutions can help you with this. Often they provide the functionality of the template of letters. For example, in MailChimp, you can add recipient data from the downloaded address database, such as last name, first name, etc. One of the most popular mass-mailing SaaS solutions is MailChimp .
MailChimp email template editing interface
Unfortunately, such services are often perceived as tools for sending spam, but this is not always the case. There are a number of mechanisms that allow spammers to be eliminated - validation of requests to the services API, checking letters for typical spam content, double-opt-in mechanism (confirmation of the subscriber’s address), etc.
In addition, emailing services simply do not work well with spammers, since ISP providers (Google, Yandex, Mail.ru and others) will very quickly add the IP addresses of these email services to their blacklists.
In the event that you use a reliable emailing service, it is unlikely. However, you will have to comply with some requirements for the content of the letters. For example, email services do not allow sending emails without adding a link to unsubscribing to an email. In addition, ISP providers require that the letter must contain information about the reasons for receiving a particular letter.
Many emailing services offer double-opt-in to their users. Most often, in this case, you just need to place on your site a widget of the subscription form to the email-newsletter. After the person signs up for the newsletter and confirms his email address, you will have his verified consent to receive your emails.
It is also worth noting that all mass mailings without exception should use email authentication (DKIM + SPF). Most often, SaaS solutions are signed by DKIM with all the letters sent. If you use your own SMTP, you will have to configure the DKIM signature yourself.
It's not a problem. Transactional mail is no less in demand than marketing mailings. Almost every application from time to time notifies the user about a certain event - completion of registration, the need to activate an account, a new personal message, etc. There are quite a lot of transactional mail services, here are the most popular ones:
These services have quite large communities of users and developers, and integration with them is not difficult, especially considering the fact that there are already quite a lot of libraries and adapters in various programming languages for this.
“Why do we need such services? I have an SMTP! ”
An SMTP server is fine, but today it is not enough just to send mail. People want to be sure that their mail has reached, they want to know that their mail has been read, they want to measure how effective their mailing was. Modern services of email tracking make it possible to track events related to the sent email message, to find out if the letter reached the addressee, to understand when the addressee followed the link in the letter.
PostMark summary example
')
In addition, you probably wonder how much time a person spent reading an email message, which platform he uses. Such information can be used in the future to target mailings, thus increasing their effectiveness. For example, it is rather strange to advertise your new cool iOS application to Android users.
In addition, if you need to create personalized mailings, and there is no technician who can implement them, ready-made SaaS solutions can help you with this. Often they provide the functionality of the template of letters. For example, in MailChimp, you can add recipient data from the downloaded address database, such as last name, first name, etc. One of the most popular mass-mailing SaaS solutions is MailChimp .
MailChimp email template editing interface
“All these ready-made mailing services do nothing but send spam!”
Unfortunately, such services are often perceived as tools for sending spam, but this is not always the case. There are a number of mechanisms that allow spammers to be eliminated - validation of requests to the services API, checking letters for typical spam content, double-opt-in mechanism (confirmation of the subscriber’s address), etc.
In addition, emailing services simply do not work well with spammers, since ISP providers (Google, Yandex, Mail.ru and others) will very quickly add the IP addresses of these email services to their blacklists.
“My letters won't get spammed?”
In the event that you use a reliable emailing service, it is unlikely. However, you will have to comply with some requirements for the content of the letters. For example, email services do not allow sending emails without adding a link to unsubscribing to an email. In addition, ISP providers require that the letter must contain information about the reasons for receiving a particular letter.
Many emailing services offer double-opt-in to their users. Most often, in this case, you just need to place on your site a widget of the subscription form to the email-newsletter. After the person signs up for the newsletter and confirms his email address, you will have his verified consent to receive your emails.
It is also worth noting that all mass mailings without exception should use email authentication (DKIM + SPF). Most often, SaaS solutions are signed by DKIM with all the letters sent. If you use your own SMTP, you will have to configure the DKIM signature yourself.
"I do not need promotional mailings, I want transactional letters!"
It's not a problem. Transactional mail is no less in demand than marketing mailings. Almost every application from time to time notifies the user about a certain event - completion of registration, the need to activate an account, a new personal message, etc. There are quite a lot of transactional mail services, here are the most popular ones:
These services have quite large communities of users and developers, and integration with them is not difficult, especially considering the fact that there are already quite a lot of libraries and adapters in various programming languages for this.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/299442/
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