SMTP or Direct Send?

If you choose Direct Send, SendBlaster uses its built-in SMTP server, which runs locally. When a email has to be delivered, the following happens: your SendBlaster installed bulk email software queries DNS servers in order to find out the recipient’s mail server address based on its domain. Then it connects to the recipient’s mail server and delivers the message through port 25.

If you use an external SMTP server SendBlaster bulk email software connects to the SMTP server and relays the email message; any port can be used, as long as the SMTP server can listen on that port. The SMTP server itself will then delivery the message.

As you can easily see, while Direct Send has the great advantage of not requiring any third party service, it has some major drawbacks:

• It involves more operations and therefore takes more time for each message to be sent
• It involves communication with multiple servers, with varying response times (some may be very “far”), therefore again it takes more time
• It is forced to use two exact ports: if the Internet provider is blocking one of those, no direct delivery is possible

For these reasons, the best choice is using an external SMTP server (and it’s the only option if you’re with AOL or another provider which blocks port 25).

Common SMTP configuration

• servername:port format

Example: smtp.provider.com:579

SMTP Username: your service provider SMTP username

SMTP Password: your password for SMTP service.

If no port is specified, default port (25) is used for Smtp connections.

You can use it either alone or in a mixed configuration with Direct Send (SendBlaster is one of the few softwares which allow this: you can use either of the two options as your primary method, and the other as a “backup” in case of error).

When I send a message to several recipients, can they all see everyone else’s address?

No, SendBlaster sends each email message separately: the recipients’ privacy is preserved. Using SendBlaster to manage multiple email sends is therefore useful to prevent accidentally showing of other people’s e-mail address, which would be a violation of privacy rules.

How can I filter a list?

Using the sorting/grouping functions in the Bulk emailer Manage Mailing lists section, and temporarily enabling/disabling a group of addresses, will allow you to send a message to a subgroup of the addresses in the current list.

How can I insert in the message body a link to unsubscribe from the mailing list?

SendBlaster can manage its distribution lists by downloading messages from a dedicated e-mail address, different for each list (see Manage Newsletter Subscriptions). Therefore, by using tags, it is simple to insert an unsubscribe link into the HTML code :

<a href=”mailto:#managingemail#
?Subject=Unsubscribe”>Unsubscribe</a>

The HTML code will need to be inserted in the HTML section of the message by clicking on Show code, otherwise it can be inserted as a link using the Link button in the message format bar (in which case the text:

mailto:#managingemail#?Subject=Unsubscribe

will need to be inserted in the link window and, once the link is created, the displayed text can be modified to something like “Unsubscribe” or a similar text).

When I send a message to a mailing list, some of the messages don’t get delivered and are returned with an error.

When sending to lots of addresses it is normal that not all of the messages go through: some of the addresses could have become inactive or be temporarily jammed, e-mail servers could be overloaded, the connection could be momentarily interrupted or slow.
If the percentage of sent messages is very low, or even no message is sent, it is necessary to check the Send newsletter Settings.
Actually, it could be necessary to change the send mode (direct or through SMTP) and, if your SMTP server uses antispam filters, lower the number of connections and raise the pause between messages. The SMTP server could have restrictions that will prevent you from sending more than a certain number of messages within a specific time span (for instance a given server may not allow sending more than 50 e-mails per hour); in such case, after the first send, the operation will be completed at a later time using the Emailing History functions.
If the SMTP server antispam restrictions can’t be overridden and sending operations will go through only with very slow settings, you can try with the direct send or by using a more tolerant SMTP server (on the Internet it is possible to subscribe, even for a low price, to very efficient SMTP services).
If the problem arises while using the direct send mode, it may be necessary to manually specify the IP address of the DNS server.

I’ve lost the password and I can’t access the program anymore. What can I do?

You need to be aware that it won’t be possible to recover lost data. The following procedure will only enable you to regain access to the software.

1. Uninstall the software from the Windows Control Panel.
2. Manually remove the installation folder (i.e. C:/Program files/SendBlaster), including all the subfolders; for security reasons, in the event the software gets uninstalled, the database will not be automatically removed (this is why you need to delete it manually).
3. Install the software again.