Hi Jesper!

Thank you for taking the time to look at the package! Great questions! I would like to make clear that this is software so feature that's wanted from the community will have good chances to make it into coming releases.

- Is stats data stored in separate db. Configurable?
No, right now all stats data are stored in the same db as the newsletters and Umbraco content and there is no support for swapping that out and put it somewhere else. The db do grow, and the amount depends on how many subscribers you are handling.

- Any figures on how stats data grows and any recommandations on sql db versions?
The package will only run with MS SQL Server and works with 2005 and 2008. As mentioned the db grows because of the click tracking and stats and it depends on the number of subscribers. With around 15k subscribers the tracking will grab around 5-10mb per newsletter.

- is it possible to specify multiple smtp servers?
No right now but this could of course be added if that's something many users would like.

- If app pool is restarted while sending out a newsletter how is this handled? Restart/Continue?
The background-thread will be restarted and will continue to send the rest of the emails.

- Is it possible to use mergefields in subject, body, etc?
No, not in the current release, but I'll make sure to include this in a upcoming release. EDIT: Of course it's possible in the message body but currently (V1.0) no support for merge fields in the subject.

- Any support for textversion?
Nope. A lot of no's here =D. To make things simple we've excluded this feature in the first release to see the response from the users. But if this is a requested feature it will be includes in the future.

What's your reactions? Is anything of this critical to you?

Hi Markus,

Thanks for your anwers. No theres nothing in the above that will prevent me from trying. I think the most important one is mergefields in subject as this get the "open mail" rate up. It might  even help mail pass spamfilter but I've got no figures on that.

Best

Jesper

Hi Markus,

Just a few more :-)

Google analytics support is critical to us. It's vital that we can see in the Google Analytics stats which newsletter the visitor used to get to the site. I went throught the docs and didnt find it?

How do I test it with 5k subscribers? 

best
Jesper

Hi again!

Nice to hear! The "merge fields" in the subject will be added very soon! About name in the subject that sounds like a good thing.

When it comes to Google Analytics support I'm not sure what you mean by that? Is that something like this: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/03/tips-for-tracking-email-marketing.html?

The free version is limited to 20 subscribers but I could probably hook you up with a temporary license for your developing environment.

Hi Markus,

Google Analytics support - spot on. 

Dev license - sounds good. I've got a client who sends out a newsletter each week to 4.5k subscribers. I think they could be interested. They should be. But before persuading anyone I would like to test it (against a local smtp server).

Suggestion: Add a local mode to NewsLetter Studio which just dumps everything to a folder. Maybe injecting a text into the newsletter "DEVELOPER MODE". Without any limits.

best
Jesper 

Great!

I'll dig into how to integrate that into Newsletter Studio! Please send me an email at markus "at-sign" enkelmedia.se and I'll make sure to hook you up.

About the "dev mode" if it's possible to send unlimited emails as "localhost" that may be abused by someone who only access the back office as though the localhost-domain and then have access to the full software. And adding "developer" in the message may not be a something that you would like to send to a real list of subscribers?

I think I'll stick with some manual licensing for the moment. =D

// M

Hi Markus,

How about allowing emails to be sent unlimited to your own domain name or to [email protected]

Obviously the above email address would not work, but for testing purposes when you are using SMTP configured to use the local drop directory, then it wouldn't matter.

Looks great and wish you lots of success :)

Best regards,

Chris

I think I have reconsidered the "DEVELOPER MODE". Adding some string to the subject and body of the message sounds like smart way to enable testing! Anything else that comes to mind about the package?

If you want to try to send locally, you could simply use the built-in features in .NET to output the emails to a folder.

<system.net>
    <mailSettings>
      <smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
        <specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="C:\MyOutputDir" />
      </smtp>
    </mailSettings>
  </system.net>

Thanks Stephan!

The current implementation doesn't use the default SMTP that's used on other parts of the site. I wanted this to be configurable. It seems that some people requests the ability to have multiple SMTP's so I think we'll put all that config setup in a custom config-file.

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