Hybrid In-House Email Marketing Software vs Email Service Providers

Hybrid In-House Email Marketing System vs Email Service Providers

Having a good and reliable email platform for email marketing isn’t just about being able to send emails; it’s having the ability to manage email subscribers, design nice email messages, test email placement before email campaigns and measure the effectiveness of the email after it’s been sent. With that said, you should take a smart approach to choosing the best solution for your business.

There are cloud-hosted and in-house email marketing systems out there. A cloud-based email system is an email service provider where you have an account and login to manage your email campaigns. It is ideal for start-ups and newbie online marketers who prefer to lay the entire sending process out to the 3rd party that will send the emails, make sure they reach their destination and handle all subsequent things such as bounce, unsubscribe, and complaint management.

However, many businesses are looking to gain complete control of their sending activities and considering a hybrid in-house solution as a great alternative to the cloud-hosted email services. A hybrid in-house email marketing system implies the installation of software on your own computer or server to which only you have access, and management of every detail and nuance of the sending process yourself.

A hybrid in-house email system works as a powerful front-end to email delivery services and On-Premise email solutions and transforms them into fully functional in-house Email Service Providers with the highest level of data security not depending on external systems.

In comparison to cloud-hosted solutions, hybrid in-house email systems have some very clear advantages which come down to the following main points:

1. Security

Any cloud-hosted platform potentially leaves you open to exploitation. The moment you upload data to the 3rd party database, you are open to potential security breaches and privacy violations.

So, as your business grows you may want to gain total control over the security aspect of your email marketing. This is exactly what a hybrid in-house email system allows you. A hybrid in-house email program provides the highest level of data security not depending on external systems, so you are genuinely guaranteed the security of your mailing lists and email messages because you are storing them on your own computer or server.

In addition to that, EasyMail7 can automatically create data backup and save a copy of the backup file to a local folder or a cloud file storage folder such as OneDrive, DropBox etc. Thus, you are protected from data damage or loss.

2. Sender Reputation

When you choose an email service provider, you’re going to share the sending IP address with other users. This means that your sender reputation is permanently tied in with them which limits your scope to build and maintain your own reputation online. You don’t have control over the delivery rate for your email campaigns and you’ll never be able to generate the metrics that a self-hosted solution would allow you.

If you use an in-house email system, you have everything in your hands. You are the only person who uses the sending IP address so you can protect that IP and build a good email reputation. Thus, you control your email deliverability and can take steps to improve it.

3. Cost

Most email service providers offer great incentives for signing up with them, including free trials and low prices for small size lists. So, when you start in email marketing, these solutions are perfect.

But what happens when your business grows and your mailing list expands? To capitalise on this, email marketing services ask for either a monthly subscription based on the number of subscribers or a pay-per-email fee. As far as your business grows, these costs can escalate at an alarming rate.

With a hybrid in-house email solution you pay a one time fee, and sometimes, a small yearly renewal fee, and you have no sending restrictions. You can send as many campaigns as you want, increasing the recipients and frequency at no added cost.

For example, with MailChimp you have to pay $240/month for sending unlimited emails to 50,000 subscribers, or $500 for one time sending of 50,000 messages.

A hybrid email system EasyMail7 with SMTP services are a lot cheaper to use than ESP companies by a long shot. With EasyMail7 you pay $149 for the first year and you can send unlimited campaigns to an unlimited number of subscribers at no additional cost using your own infrastructure, or use a 3rd party email delivery service, for example, Amazon SES which allows you to send 10,000 messages for just $1. Sounds good, right?

4. Subscription Confirmation

When you sign up for a 3rd party email service, you may be asked to prove that your mailing list is fully optin. This way their protect from spam and potential troubles with ISPs. If your list is not opt-in, you may not be able to even upload it to their database.

With a hybrid in-house email solution, no questions asked. You can upload any email lists into your in-house email system and send emails to them. Just remember – a fully confirmed opted-in list is important. It is a general prerequisite for sustainable email deliverability and conversion rates.

5. Reliability

When it comes to reliability, remember that with a hosted email provider you can never be sure that your user account will be always active and you can always send emails. No matter how trusted and respected your service provider might be, it may suffer any outages or suddenly decide to delete your account or ban you for whatever reason. Thus, you may not be able to send email campaigns on time and may lose profits.

A in-house email system eliminates this problem because you do not depend on any 3rd party and have absolute control over your email system. It allows you to easily switch email sending services without losing your contact list. You simply change the SMTP service to another one while you are working out any problems with the original one.

6. Flexible SMTP Relays Routing

Though the best ESPs have very high deliverability rates (above 96%), they may have different deliverability rates to different ISPs. Certain ESPs, typically the major ones, can more consistently offer better deliverability to leading ISPs like Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL (if the email marketer is using best email marketing practices). Others can offer expertise in certain niches (e.g., online retail, gambling). So by best matching segments to ESPs, marketers can increase deliverability, email marketing performance and revenues.

Hybrid in-house email systems allow you to use more than one email delivery system at a time and categorically optimize your email marketing performance.

While it takes some technical knowledge to install and setup a self-managed solution, marketers looking to gain full control and a guaranteed insight into delivery rates choose this route over hosted email services.

These days email is one of the important parts of the marketing strategy of most businesses and often is the only way to communicate with the company’s customers and clients. That’s why it’s critical for you as a business to consider different options and make a smart choice of an email marketing system for email hosting and delivery.

To help you choose the system that will perfectly serve you and your business, here’s a quick summary of the pros and cons of a cloud-hosted and self-managed email solution:

Cloud-Hosted

Pros:

• Quick and easy setup.
• No need to maintain relationship with ISPs.
• Guaranteed delivery levels.
• Easy access to email analytics.
• Easy integration with other platforms.

Cons:

• Expensive for big lists.
• Limited scope to manage online reputation.
• No control over security.
• Not guaranteed reliability.
• Restricted Terms of service.

In-House

Pros:

• No monthly fee.
• No extra cost for growing list.
• No restrictions on list size or emails.
• Safe and secure data storage.
• Automatic data backup.
• Full control over reputation and delivery.
• Flexible SMTP Relays routing.
• No account cancellation or ban.
• More customisation options.

Cons:

• Requires minimal knowledge of installation and setup.
• Requires an SMTP server or 3rd party email delivery service.
• Need to maintain relationship with ISPs to monitor sender reputation.

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