David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

When I took out my hosting package, I noticed a small condition that limited the amount of emails I could send out to 250 emails an hour.

That's not a problem until you want to set up a mailing list but after 2 days of coding, I've come up with a solution.
 
before I go into the solution, here's why there is a limit.

1. To prevent known spamming - i.e. deliberate spamming by the web space owner
2. To prevent Unknown spamming - i.e. spam as a result of a hacked account

That's about it really. Perhaps there is a server issue if too many emails are sent. I don't know for sure though.

So, my solution is a custom built email beast!

I've built it with ease of use in mind, and with me in mind (of course). I wanted something that could be personalised, send out plain text emails and stay within the limit.

Here's how it works.

Admin

The admin panel is plain and simple with a few links and some subscriber stats. From here, I can add and edit messages to send. Each email that is sent is stored for future use.

I can also schedule emails so if I want to send out a message about Widgets to my subscribers, I simply choose the message and click OK.

Every hour, the server sends out anything that is queued, up to the limit set, with priority given to new subscribers.

You see, to comply with relevant laws, I've made a double opt-in system but to keep to the email limit, verification emails also have to be added to the queue. To ensure new subscribers don''t have to wait over an hour for their subscription email, they are given priority over messages I send to my mailing list.

User

The user fills some details in a form (which can be embedded into any PHP code) and once validated, they are shown a page which tells them to check their email. This page also includes an affiliate offer.

In the email, there is a link that when clicked, activates their account and shows them another affiliate offer.

That's it.

They will receive emails as often as I send.

If they choose to leave, they can do so by clicking a link in any email I send to them. This unsubscribes them and shows them a 3rd and final affiliate offer.

Problems Overcome

I did purchase an email script before from someone and whilst reasonably OK, there was no spam protection and no email limit.

The email limit has been overcome by queueing all the emails and sending them out in batches of up to 250 (variable limit to make the system scalable).

The spam problem has been overcome by including a simple maths question on every form and some basic form filtering to remove any HTML. Whilst it is probably not infallible, it does help as it changes the question every time the form is loaded.