opt-in mail list best practice

I’ve created an email script that retrieves email addresses from a mysql
database. Currently I’m grabbing the email addresses and putting them in the
mail header’s Cc: or Bcc: section in comma delimited format. I do have
sendmail on the current server so I’m using the mail function to send the
email.

This works fine for a few test emails. What I would like to know is what is
considered best practice considering the following things:

- This could be hosted on shared hosting server.
- Opt-in list could be less than 100 or in the 1000’s.
- May need a way to track sending success.

I’ve been googling all day and have found mailing classes, libraries, and
scripts none of which seem to be documented very well or let me build my own
template for html mail. I understand there are going to be memory/shared
usage limits to my current method. Should I be looping through possibly 1000
’s of email addresses calling the mail function each time? Can someone
please enlighten me a little as to what is considered best practice here or
a least point me toward more definitive information on the subject?

Thanks,


Todd Trent

Hogfish Design
2550 26th Street West
Bradenton, FL 34205

Tel: 941-749-0144
www.hogfishdesign.com

Scott Haneda wrote:
....
> I use it to create HTML emails, send them to 1000's of people. I think I
> did a test to 30K or so, it handled it fine using mail locally.

HTML emails [shudder]

> As for tracking, what we do is embed a image bug in the html and track when
> that loads, it is getting less reliable in todays anti spam world, but in my
> case these are paying subscribers so they generally want to get these
> emails.

[shudder]
The above paragraph is why I abhor HTML emails, and why I am glad that
Mozilla lets me block all remote images (and click to view if I *really*
want to see them).

>
> To track your users, at least the bounces we set the bounce address
> (return-path) to mysql_user_id@domain.com and POP check domain.com every few
> seconds. We then scan for the bounce address and mark that user as bouncing
> x times, if they go over y we cancel the account.

Now this is interesting... so you're telling me that all I have to do to
get you to stop emailing me, is to bounce back all of your messages?
Sure I'll have to forge a few headers to make it look like the mail
server daemon didn't recognize my address... but THAT sounds like time
well spent!!!

OK, OK, I'm being a little harsh here. Because after all you're sending
emails to customers that have at least opted-in (or so I hope). But
there are so many shady ways of getting someone to opt-in, or making it
hard to opt-out, or just plain harvesting emails and ignoring the wishes
of the users.

So yeah, sometimes when I hear about these things it just rubs me the
wrong way. To anyone reading this: please use these techniques
judiciously if you use them at all.

--
Teach a man to fish...

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