bad addresses

[lesplan]

How do I know if MBM was really successful or not in delivering an email?

In the old program I used to use, (Emerge) there was an icon and report status that told me it didn't go through (and I would try to send the message again.) In MBM I sent some messages to some purposely 'bad' addresses, but the program told me that the message had been delivered OK and nothing had come back six hours later to say otherwise?

Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[stanbusk]

When a message to a given recipient is accepted for delivery, MaxBulk Mailer marks it as sent. It is then the responsibility of the server to route that message properly to its destination. You can read the following FAQ entries:

How does E-mail get delivered?
Understanding the SMTP protocol (connection log)
Why does it take sometimes hours for an email to reach a recipient?

Anyway, to get information about a delivery, you have to look at the Delivery report. It is sent by email to you and it is also available on the Delivery panel.

Not sure if that responds to your question. Let me know.

 

[lesplan]

Hi Stan

I read the links that you flagged, but I'm still not sure I understand.

I also did a test -- I created two addresses, one is my own, and one is obviously NFG i.e.

[email protected]

I sent the two emails, and MBM indicated that both were sent OK. The report I got says:

**********************************

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
MaxBulk Mailer Delivery Report [#195] - 10/12/06
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mailer version: 5.0b-US (102) US Pro - Registered
Machine OS/speed: Mac OS 10.4.8/1.8Ghz

Streams: 25 [1 Used] Single Server
Delivery mode: Singly (Tag processing ON)

SMTP server address: shawmail [Port: Default] SSL Off
Authentication: None | s010600112480ad10.gv.shawcable.net
Groups: 30 [Interval: 00:02]

Delivery start date: 10/12/06 at 11:00:35 AM
End date: 10/12/06 at 11:00:39 AM
Total duration: 4 second(s) - Retries: 0/30
Rate: 0.75 recipient(s)/second

to a total of: 2 recipient(s) [2/2]
Sent: 2

Mail subject: Complimentary Copy of What in the World?
Mail priority: Normal
Return receipt: No
Mail format: Styled Text [ISO-8859-1]
Mail size: 954 Bytes (Doesn't include attachments)
Attachments: none

 

[stanbusk]

Yes, this is correct. What do you expect?

 

[lesplan]

MBM doesn't tell me that one of the addresses is no good. I was thinking that it would flag emails that did not go through so that I can double check that the info is correct.

 

[stanbusk]

Actually it is not possible to know if an address is good or not relaying thru your ISP server. The only way to know if an address is good or not is using recipient MTA (recipient mail exchanger server). However using MTA is most of the time seen by the server as a spam delivery causing a great amount of rejections. It is better explained here Using your own SMTP server, advantages and drawbacks (Note that using your own server is the same as a direct delivery using recipient MTA). Some bulk mailers offer the choice of performing direct deliveries. We will offer such feature as well but before we have to develop a solid system to detect rejections and use your ISP server as an alternative. Right now such system would have to handle a 30% rejections. In other word 30% servers would reject such delivery. Another problem is port 25 blocking. Most ISPs nowadays don't allow the use of SMTP port 25 for outbound connections.

 

[lesplan]

Hi again Stan and thanks for all the info.

You state earlier:

What do you expect?

Well, I guess what I was expecting was some kind of notification if an email had not been delivered successfully. You say:

It is not possible to know if an address is good or not relaying thru your ISP server. The only way to know if an address is good or not is using recipient MTA (recipient mail exchanger server).

I don't really understand all of the technical jargon but other programs provide this info.

When I was using Emerge, there was a message status field (similar to the sent mail icon in MBM), and if the email did not go through, a 'failed' indicator would appear beside that record. Also when I send a email from Eudora that is going to a 'bad' address, I invariably get a 'Message has been delayed' or 'Message had not been delivered' report. So this tells me that there is a problem and I try to contact our customer to see if their email has changed, etc. etc.

So I'm just wondering how this all works in MBM? Can you please advise?

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[stanbusk]

You get bounces. MaxBulk delivers the message to your ISP server, that server will accept everything, good or bad, it will never give you that information because it has no idea. When a message can't be delivered you get a bounce. Then you can then use eMail Bounce Handler to process those bounces and clean your list of dead addresses.

Emerge perhaps has an option for direct delivery. Delivery thru recipient MTA. That system was good 5 years ago. Now, with so many spammers or dummy computers sending junk emails using recipients MTAs, there are a lot of chances your good addresses stop accepting your messages. Following my tests around 30% of your good addresses will never accept a message delivered directly because of spam filters. A message is supposed to be delivered using your ISP SMTP server and that server will connect to recipient MTA. Antispam rules just want you to do that.

 

[willymmm]

Hi-
I am a new user, and was hoping to use recipient MTA. Could you set it up to have two lists, one a master list sent with recipient MTA, then send all the bounces via the ISP server, then remove those bounces from the list? that way you would get the delivery info for most of your messages?

Thanks,

Bill

You get bounces. MaxBulk delivers the message to your ISP server, that server will accept everything, good or bad, it will never give you that information because it has no idea. When a message can't be delivered you get a bounce. Then you can then use eMail Bounce Handler to process those bounces and clean your list of dead addresses.

.... Delivery thru recipient MTA. That system was good 5 years ago. Now, with so many spammers or dummy computers sending junk emails using recipients MTAs, there are a lot of chances your good addresses stop accepting your messages. Following my tests around 30% of your good addresses will never accept a message delivered directly because of spam filters.

 

[stanbusk]

And what about those MTAs accepting messages and returning a bounce several hours later (or 5 days later)? and those MTAs accepting messages which never return a bounce (AOL for example)?

Did you know that the most used spamming technic is MTA delivery? Just ask you one question, why not a single desktop mail software use MTA delivery? currently only spamware does.

MaxBulk Mailer was designed to make sure messages get delivered. The best way to achieve that is to follow Internet messaging rules. I agree that if you have a huge list and don't mind if 30 o 40% will not go thru, an other product would be better however it is not our market.

I personally recommend to calm down, follow your ISP rules, stagger your deliveries using the Group and Interval settings, send your message by night with a slower rate. That way, your message will be delivered properly and your ISP will be happy.

 

[willymmm]

Ok, just trying to understand what is possible and what isn't. I fully understand your reasons for not using MTA, and know the value of "following the rules" and avoiding the appearance of SPAM.

End of story for me.

Bill

 

[stanbusk]

Note that perhaps MaxBulk Mailer will include this feature in a future but I need to find a way to make it reliable first. Right now it seems a bit difficult.