Anyone with an electronic messaging program should consider outsourcing it. The escalating spam war has made it much harder to do the job correctly with in-house resources. To assist with the decision process, we’ve listed 47 questions unique to email distribution that you’ll want to add to your usual due-diligence questionnaire. And we HIGHLY recommend MarketingSherpa’s “U.S. Buyer’s Guide to Broadcast Email Distribution Services.” It contains a couple dozen pages of advice and more than 400 pages of vendor responses to its 210-question due-diligence survey. More than 50 vendors are profiled (see Table , below). The guide, published in Nov. 2002, is available for US$200 at www.sherpastore.com .

Table 1

Established Email Distribution Vendors*

Accucast/Socketware
ActionMessage
Avalon Digital Marketing Systems
Bigfoot Interactive
Bluestreak
BoldFish
Britemoon
Cable & Wireless USA, Inc.
CC Communications, Inc.
CheetahMail Inc.
CoolerEmail, Inc.
Customer Paradigm
Digital Connexxions
Digital Impact
dockside.net Inc.
DoubleClick
e-Dialog
EmailLabs
ExactTarget
Experian (Exactis)
Ezine Manager
Fishbowl, Inc.
FreeRun Technologies
GotMarketing
iMakeNews
Inbox360
L-Soft international, Inc.
Lyris Technologies
M4Internet
Mailer Mailer, LLC
Neighborhood Email
NewWorldIQ
Outrider
Postfuture
PostMasterDirect (Netcreations)
Responsys
Silverpop
SKYLIST Email Solutions, Inc.
SparkLIST
STEdb
SubscriberMail (Create-It)
TailoredMail
TargetX
TMXinteractive, Inc.
Topica, Inc
Topik Solutions Inc
VerticalResponse, Inc.
Warp 9 Inc.
WhatCounts, Inc.
Whitehat Interactive
Xpedite
Yesmail

Source: www.MarketingSherpa.com , 2/13/03  *To be included on this list, the company must meet all the following criteria: been in the email distribution business for at least 1 year; be U.S. based; host the technology themselves; mail services must be a significant portion of the company’s revenues; have a full-time spam/privacy officer; have at least 7 employees; send at least 5 million messages per month or have at least 25 clients

System

1.       How many servers send email and at what volume?

2.       How is email prioritized among clients?

3.       How long after hitting submit will it go out?

4.       Can we send multipart/alternative (text/HTML) messages?

5.       Can we send plain text without HTML?

6.       Can we send HTML without plain text?

7.       Can we schedule the email to go out at a certain time?

8.       Can we use our own domain in the FROM address, or are we limited to one of yours?

9.       Can we configure the return-path to be our domain?

10.    Can we configure the REPLY TO address to go directly to our customer service?

11.    Do you have to know in advance what type of email format the recipient can receive?

12.    Does the system make assumptions about format, or does it send multi-part or mimed messages that help you deliver HTML to more recipients?

13.    Can we send rich media messages?

14.    Can you auto-detect rich media plugins so we automatically send the highest level the computer can support without requesting the recipient accept a plug-in or download?

15.    How many fields can we personalize in a mail-merge message?

16.    Can we set up variable content based on data in a database, e.g., branch-specific information to customers of that branch?

17.    Can we send messages based on action, inaction, time period, specific user requests, and so on?

18.    Do you have a full-time person handling blacklist and spam problems?

19.    Are you whitelisted with the major ISPs (Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, etc.)?

20.    What happens if we get spam complaints?

21.    What happens if an ISP blocks our messages?

22.    Have you ever terminated a client for spamming?

23.    How fast do you typically get removed from a blacklist?

24.    Do you host the list or do we update it
each time?

25.    Do you provide automatic unsubscribe capture?

26.    What are the options for downloading data to append to other databases or import into reporting tools?

27.    Do you provide de-duping services?
On what basis?

28.    How many data fields can you store?

29.    What are the options for splitting the list for A/B testing?

30.    Is it stored at the aggregate level or can you produce a report of each individual who clicked on something?

31.    Can you track links using meaningful names, not just the gibberish the system appends to the link?

32.    Can you track the same destination URL multiple times from the same message, so we know, for example, if the user clicked on the button or the link?

33.    Do you help us track HTML opens?

34.    Do you provide bounce reporting?

35.    How many times do you try an address with non-permanent errors?

36.    Can we configure the interval for resends?

37.    How do you manage bounces so you can recover addresses?

38.    Do you flag bounced addresses so they are not counted as valid emails sent in reports?

39.    What are the options for sorting and/or forwarding mail going to addresses you own or manage?

40.    (If the firm hosts the list) Do you help with sign up forms?

41.    Can we build custom questions?

42.    Do you track referrals?

43.    Do you link the referee to the referred?

44.    What is the referral process for the end-user?

45.    How many forwards does the system track?

46.    How are referred names flagged in the database?

Are referred names protected, so they are not emailed without permission?