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I've a authenticated database of one million e-mail IDs. I need to send a single email to all these email IDs.

I've a PHP web application using simple PHP mail() function. But i found it is not reliable when sending a very large number of emails in a short span. Now I'm trying to build an application with PHP-PEAR Mail_Queue.

  • Before spending too much of time on this new application, please let me know whether this Mail_Queue will support sending bulk mails ranging one million in one or two day. (Assume i've 4 core SSD server to perform this operation)

  • I found this Mail_Queue using SMTP authentication to send emails. Since my 'From' email address associate with Google apps. So by using the same address, will I able to send the entire emails?

  • Is there any better solution to send the entire emails in a short span (not Like Mail Chimp)

Jyothish
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  • for mass SMTP access look into products like smtp.com or smtpauth.com. I favor using Zend_Mail (part of Zend Framework). What you need to remember is any solution is going to run too long to be a webpage so your looking at using command line php. – Orangepill May 16 '13 at 14:25
  • Out of interest, where did you get your database of email addresses? In what way are they "authenticated" - do you mean proven to exist? – halfer May 16 '13 at 14:25
  • Also: if you really have this number of emails to send, _really_ **really** don't do it yourself. There are too many pitfalls to do it properly and ethically - use MailChimp, or some other third-party service. – halfer May 16 '13 at 14:26
  • @halfer , If am going with mail chimp it costs $4,623 . I've 70% Knowledge how to send using a PHP application then why should I go with mailchimp ? – Jyothish May 16 '13 at 14:37
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    @JyothishSebastian being blacklisted is one reason :-) – Nicholas King May 16 '13 at 14:39
  • Yep, what @Nicholas said. Are these addresses opted-in to a service for which you have IP address and timestamp confirmations? If not, I predict a lot of spam complaints heading for your ISP! – halfer May 16 '13 at 14:47
  • I am trying for a one time email trigger and is not periodical. I have ensured all the Possible Spam Out methods like, Keeping address and headers, Optout/unsubscribe and the DB is from an authenticate source. What I am looking for is whether there is any upper-limit restriction for SMPT based about the number of mails other than the SPAM issues you all pointing ? – Jyothish May 16 '13 at 15:01
  • "DB is from an authenticate source" <-- If you didn't collect those opt-ins on your own website, or if you can't prove that you did, then mailing to those email addresses can reasonably called spamming. Legitimate, permission-based marketing is a lot harder than buying a CD off the internet, unfortunately. – halfer May 16 '13 at 15:03
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    In short: You may use standard PHP mail() for mass mailing **AFTER** tuning your php and sendmail daemon pair. 1) No fork at once and deliver in background sendmail configuration 2) smarter than usual sendmail queue processing. ====> IMHO it MTA configuration question. – AnFi May 16 '13 at 18:59

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I've dealt with this in the past, and I can honestly tell you that there is no guaranteed answer to your situation. Newsletter services have spent a long time building reputation and getting white listed with mail servers around the world. They send things incrementally so as not to flood mail servers, and raise suspicion. Still, even at that, there are spam reports and things they have to deal with.

The solution I had come up with was to setup a cron that would run every 10 minutes, sending out 1,000 at a time. Over time we were able to increase that amount as we became more trusted. It was a newsletter we were mailing out.

Although in the end, we just signed up with a mail service.

There are solutions out there for SMTP only. They cost a bit, but might solve what you're looking for.

http://www.authsmtp.com/

That's a pretty good one. There are others as well.

Good luck... this is a slippery slope.

halfer
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Dan Joseph
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  • Thank You @Dan . If an email address associated with Google Apps, then is it possible to send bulk emails (> 500 ) using any of the php application with SMTP auth ? – Jyothish May 16 '13 at 14:44
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    Its not so much being associated with google apps, or any other entity, but just having a clean IP to send from (non blacklisted). That's the purpose of SMTP auth really. They're a more trusted source and can fix things easier than you could on your own. Let's say you send out your first newsletter. Yahoo or Google gets a lot of spam requests, blacklists you. You have to do all the leg work, forms, begging, to get unblacklisted, where with an smtp service, they'd just take care of things. Also, I'd check with them before using them to send out 1 million emails. They might have restrictions. – Dan Joseph May 16 '13 at 14:47