Sometimes You WANT To Pay Someone Monthly Fees
Yesterday I had to upgrade a bunch of websites running certain software (or scripts) because of a security hole. A bunch of other people’s websites have already been defaced because of these holes. Which brings me to one very important lesson I learnt not too long ago, sometimes you want to pay someone monthly fees to use a service on their web servers.
Not long ago, I decided an autoresponder is a must have (every marketer tells you that right) but I was too cheap to use a monthly service. Being the geek that I am, I decided to just get a script to install on my server and ended up with this really cheapo no frills but does the job script that was oh… maybe 5 years old at least – a dinosaur in Internet years. I happily installed it, everything ran fine like 99% of my installs and happily went off to bed.
The next morning, I got 2 emails from my web host. The first said, “we believe you’re using your account for spam, your site is sending out 1000 emails in 10 seconds, we’re disabling your site until you fix it”. Whoa! The 2nd email only minutes later said, “sorry dude we shut down your account” read YOUR WEBSITE IS DELETED because your account is still sending so many emails. My heart dropped to the floor. It was like being served the death sentence. I’m being labelled a SPAMMER, my days working online are doomed etc etc. To cut a long story short it was not fun at all. Turns out the culprit was my handy dandy autoresponder. You can call me a lousy installer or whatever (incidently, I do this for a living so I do know what I’m doing), I swear the instructions were followed to a T but truth is, you just never know what is contained in the software you download off the Internet, even when you purchase it. So… the big lesson is when it comes to email related scripts, it pays to fork out some money for a good script and don’t settle for the $20-$30 ones OR use a paid service as long as you can afford it because:
- These businesses are established and their ISP’s and webhost companies know that is their business so they will have more bargaining power than you do when it comes to being accused.
- When there is an accusation being made at least your whole website won’t be shut down!
- Your risk is offloaded to them meaning, you don’t have to worry about anyone trying to manipulate a security hole in your newsletter or autoresponder software for their own evil spamming deeds
- You don’t have to maintain your software so that the next kid can come around and inject some malicious code
- Often email services can send out newsletters a lot faster than your own web host can. This is especially true if you’re sharing a web server and you have a large list. Most web hosts put a cap on how many emails you can send like 100 an hour.
I’ve done extensive research on newsletter scripts and customer feedbacks, if you’re really adverse to monthly services, then these two are the only server based ones to look at, Auto Response Plus and ListMail Pro.
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Hi Lynette,
So sorry to hear about all those emails problems.
Will follow your advice on monthly autoresponders
when the time comes to have one set up.
Thanks for your always enlightening advice.
Marie
Hi Lynette,
So sorry to hear about all those emails problems.
Will follow your advice on monthly autoresponders
when the time comes to have one set up.
Thanks for your always enlightening advice.
Marie
Thank you Marie.
Thank you Marie.
Lynette,
I’ve been a fan of yours since about a year ago after listening to Wahm Talk Radio. You do things right!
This article is one of the best I’ve ever read about internet marketing. We need more like this one.
By the way, your blog tips are awesome.
greg cryns
owner
wahm Search Engine
Lynette,
I’ve been a fan of yours since about a year ago after listening to Wahm Talk Radio. You do things right!
This article is one of the best I’ve ever read about internet marketing. We need more like this one.
By the way, your blog tips are awesome.
greg cryns
owner
wahm Search Engine
Why thank you for the compliment Greg. I really appreciate it 🙂
Why thank you for the compliment Greg. I really appreciate it 🙂
Hi Lynette,
I am dropping to tell you hi and to thank you
for the great tips!
I’m sure that there is a lot of people -not so “techno inclined” who will be grateful to follow your tips and advices.
Talk to you soon. 🙂
All the best and take care,
Elitsa Asenova
Hi Lynette,
I am dropping to tell you hi and to thank you
for the great tips!
I’m sure that there is a lot of people -not so “techno inclined” who will be grateful to follow your tips and advices.
Talk to you soon. 🙂
All the best and take care,
Elitsa Asenova
Why thank you Elitsa for those kind words. You make my week 🙂
Why thank you Elitsa for those kind words. You make my week 🙂
Lynette,
How are you? Being that this blog post is pretty old, I realize that I may not receive a response and/or that you may never even read this post in the 1st place. However, your article and personal experience are extremely relevant with the issue that I am currently having. I actually have a very good, well written script to handle my e-mail lists, auto-responder messages, etc. However, the only reason I have been hesitant to install is because I am worried about potentially experiencing something similar as to what you went through. The main reason is because I have many very fresh leads, but that are opt-in co-registration leads. The quality of the leads are very good and not like some other lists I am sure you have seen sold out there at times. Now, if I decide to go ahead and install this script on my server, a major benefit is that I know I can upload all of my existing leads, as well as other opt-in subscribers and customers without any issue and/or limitations. As you mentioned, there are certainly many benefits to installing a script on your own server, which are far beyond the monthly fees you would otherwise pay. Overall, what I like most about having a script installed on my own server is that I have complete CONTROL of my e-mail marketing campaigns, my lists, customization, etc.
However, as I am sure you have already guessed, I fear that even if I send out a mailing to legitimate leads that have registered to receive the newsletter, there can always be someone who reports this as receiving spam. Any and all co-reg leads that I have, I also have complete information on as well. This includes, name, email address, phone, IP address, day they opted in, etc. With this information, do you believe that I will be well-protected enough to avoid having my web host shut me down? I would never and have never sent spam and considering their are few services that you can pay monthly that will even allow you to upload leads, I feel my options are also very limited. Even the very few companies that allow you to upload leads, even in large quantities, create a fairly large additional expense.
I noticed the two scripts that you recommend in your article and was curious what your opinion is about why these are any safer for someone in my position, as opposed to other available scripts. I appreciate any feedback from you and/or anyone else who may have an opinion and/or suggestion. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my rant, lol. This is an issue I have really been on the fence about for quite some time though and I really need to get on the ball and make a move one way or another. Thanks and I hope to hear back from someone on this issue at some time in the future. Have a great day!
Regards,
Howie J
Innovative Action Marketing LLC.
PS – I don’t know if you (Lynette) and/or anyone else has checked this out, but I have been using this service to monetize my sites that has allowed me to earn MUCH MORE Revenue on my sites on a daily basis. I actually use this as an alternative to AdSense and even regular affiliate marketing. Anyway, figured that everyone involved with Internet Marketing surely monetizes their websites in one way or another and this is a method that allows you to provide your customers something they want totally free, pays more than many affiliate sales do, and much more than PPC. Check it out if you want:
http://www.innovativeguide.com/ppc-monetize
Lynette,
How are you? Being that this blog post is pretty old, I realize that I may not receive a response and/or that you may never even read this post in the 1st place. However, your article and personal experience are extremely relevant with the issue that I am currently having. I actually have a very good, well written script to handle my e-mail lists, auto-responder messages, etc. However, the only reason I have been hesitant to install is because I am worried about potentially experiencing something similar as to what you went through. The main reason is because I have many very fresh leads, but that are opt-in co-registration leads. The quality of the leads are very good and not like some other lists I am sure you have seen sold out there at times. Now, if I decide to go ahead and install this script on my server, a major benefit is that I know I can upload all of my existing leads, as well as other opt-in subscribers and customers without any issue and/or limitations. As you mentioned, there are certainly many benefits to installing a script on your own server, which are far beyond the monthly fees you would otherwise pay. Overall, what I like most about having a script installed on my own server is that I have complete CONTROL of my e-mail marketing campaigns, my lists, customization, etc.
However, as I am sure you have already guessed, I fear that even if I send out a mailing to legitimate leads that have registered to receive the newsletter, there can always be someone who reports this as receiving spam. Any and all co-reg leads that I have, I also have complete information on as well. This includes, name, email address, phone, IP address, day they opted in, etc. With this information, do you believe that I will be well-protected enough to avoid having my web host shut me down? I would never and have never sent spam and considering their are few services that you can pay monthly that will even allow you to upload leads, I feel my options are also very limited. Even the very few companies that allow you to upload leads, even in large quantities, create a fairly large additional expense.
I noticed the two scripts that you recommend in your article and was curious what your opinion is about why these are any safer for someone in my position, as opposed to other available scripts. I appreciate any feedback from you and/or anyone else who may have an opinion and/or suggestion. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my rant, lol. This is an issue I have really been on the fence about for quite some time though and I really need to get on the ball and make a move one way or another. Thanks and I hope to hear back from someone on this issue at some time in the future. Have a great day!
Regards,
Howie J
Innovative Action Marketing LLC.
PS – I don’t know if you (Lynette) and/or anyone else has checked this out, but I have been using this service to monetize my sites that has allowed me to earn MUCH MORE Revenue on my sites on a daily basis. I actually use this as an alternative to AdSense and even regular affiliate marketing. Anyway, figured that everyone involved with Internet Marketing surely monetizes their websites in one way or another and this is a method that allows you to provide your customers something they want totally free, pays more than many affiliate sales do, and much more than PPC. Check it out if you want:
http://www.innovativeguide.com/ppc-monetize