[kellenw]

Is there a way to adjust the rate that the built-in newsletter email queue sends out emails?  I assume there is a setting in a configuration file for this somewhere, but I have been unable to find it.  It sends out emails at such a fast rate that it often triggers automatic spam/flood prevention on larger hosts like yahoo, gmail, hotmail and at&t mail.  This causes a large number of emails to be rejected, as well as hurts spam reputation with these service providers.  Thanks!

[tbirnseth]

Nope. They are simply sent in a loop  You could add a delay, but then you'd run the risk of http timeouts since it is run from the browser.

[The Tool]

Addons->Manage addons->Newsletters->Newsletters sent per step:

 

I forgot what the time interval is per step but it's in the code itself.

[tbirnseth]

Just a footnote....  It's always better to use a 3rd party email blaster app such as mailchimp rather than sending out from your store.  They do this for a living and the odds of your stuff ending up in a spam bucket is much lower with this type of service.  Major providers give them more leeway due to their reputation.

[markhedley]

Just a footnote....  It's always better to use a 3rd party email blaster app such as mailchimp rather than sending out from your store.  They do this for a living and the odds of your stuff ending up in a spam bucket is much lower with this type of service.  Major providers give them more leeway due to their reputation.

the leeway is created because of DMARC, DKIM and proper IP Whitelisting these providers have and adhere to. DIY Email sending is a road to blacklists.

[eComLabs]

app/addons/newsletters/controllers/backend/newsletters.php

 

You can try to add the sleep php function to this file

 

http://php.net/manua...ction.sleep.php

 

Use the code for the batch_send mode

[kellenw]

Addons->Manage addons->Newsletters->Newsletters sent per step:

 

I forgot what the time interval is per step but it's in the code itself.

 

Of course, the most obvious place.  THANK YOU.  I've been looking all over for that, and didn't even think to look in the most logical location.  I really appreciate your help man.

 

Also, thanks to everyone else for their advice and input.  Much appreciated!

[kellenw]

Just a footnote....  It's always better to use a 3rd party email blaster app such as mailchimp rather than sending out from your store.  They do this for a living and the odds of your stuff ending up in a spam bucket is much lower with this type of service.  Major providers give them more leeway due to their reputation.

 

Good point, and definitely worth mentioning.  In most situations I would recommend the same.  This store is a bit unique though.  It's pretty small scale in terms of revenue, and they only send maybe 4 or 5 newsletters a year max (mainly very occasional new product announcements).  At 13,000 subscribers, that's a cost of $150/mo if they went with mailchimp.  It really wouldn't provide much of an ROI for them.  Otherwise, I'd be pushing them more aggressively to an outsourced solution and save the headache on my part. I also like the templating features of mailchimp and others.  Can be a real time saver.  

[tbirnseth]

Let's see...

If you set the step rate to 100 emails, then you'll be sitting there clicking "next" buttons for 130 cycles.  Given maybe 1sec/email you'll be sitting there for 13000 seconds or over 3 hours....  And at the same time hoping you're complying properly with the industry spam requirements and that your server is setup properly to send batch emails in that quantity without being dropped by the big providers.  Not sure what your customer's time is worth, but clicking next for 3 hours might get a tad tedious....

[kellenw]

Let's see...

If you set the step rate to 100 emails, then you'll be sitting there clicking "next" buttons for 130 cycles.  Given maybe 1sec/email you'll be sitting there for 13000 seconds or over 3 hours....  And at the same time hoping you're complying properly with the industry spam requirements and that your server is setup properly to send batch emails in that quantity without being dropped by the big providers.  Not sure what your customer's time is worth, but clicking next for 3 hours might get a tad tedious....

 

That's not how it works any more.  While it is browser based, it auto-refreshes all on its own at whatever time interval CS-Cart devs assigned to it.  Once you hit "save and send" it goes until it's done without any other user intervention.  The number of emails "per step" that is configurable in the newsletter addon simply determines how many emails it fetches to process per "refresh" (step).  It's a "set it and forget it" situation except you have to leave your browser open for it to cycle through the entire subscriber list you assigned to the newsletter you're sending.  Even still, I can imagine this would get extremely out of hand for a store with subscribers in the 100s of thousands, but even with 13,000 subs in this situation, it's a relatively painless and quick process.  My actual concern is I feel it's too quick, and often triggers delivery throttling with major email providers' servers, which is why I'm working on modifying it (slowing it down) in this case.  It would be lovely if this was a configurable setting through admin rather than having to go code diving, but such is life.

 

You absolutely have to have properly working reverse DNS and TXT/SPF records at the very minimum, but more focused DMARC, DKIM and the like really should be done properly as well for best practices.  This often is beyond the scope of the more casual CS-Cart store owner, so I understand your concerns with that.  I share them too.

 

I may eventually push them to Amazon SES.  It's extremely cheap, no monthly fees... just pay for what you use.

 

Take Care!

[CartBooster]

Just to add to this topic,

 

We've moved all out email services to Amazon SES,

 

We simply put the SMTP details into the cart,

 

Amazon verifies DKIM and SPF through our DNS records,

 

We're looking to use this method to send out email newsletters to over 150,000 subscribers in our cart.

 

There are significant savings over MailChimp in this scenario, and no reason why it shouldn't work as effective.

 

Stephen 

[tbirnseth]

Just to add to this topic,

 

We've moved all out email services to Amazon SES,

 

We simply put the SMTP details into the cart,

 

Amazon verifies DKIM and SPF through our DNS records,

 

We're looking to use this method to send out email newsletters to over 150,000 subscribers in our cart.

 

There are significant savings over MailChimp in this scenario, and no reason why it shouldn't work as effective.

 

Stephen 

Hi Stephen, SES is transport only, right?  I.e. no segmentation info collected, no template integration, list management, etc.  I.e. it's not an email marketing site like Mailchimp or Klaviyo, right?  Though for transport, it does look pretty good for the vast majority of cs-cart merchants who manage their own marketing campaigns.