How to enter your mail server settings into MaxBulk Mailer

How to enter your mail server settings into MaxBulk Mailer - Server settings are an important part of successful email delivery. Among other things you have to make sure you are not abusing your mail service and similarly you are not annoying your audience.

Therefore you need to understand well the meaning of each setting and above all, you have to make sure you are using the best delivery options.

So, indeed, in order to send messages with MaxBulk Mailer you have to enter your mail server settings correctly into the software.

You will find all the mail server settings in the 'Settings' panel. In addition, the 'Settings' panel allows you to create as many mail accounts as you need. You can also choose from a wide range of delivery options.

How to enter your mail server settings into MaxBulk Mailer

Mail server settings

Typing the settings is actually the hardest part since you have to know several server related data such as the SMTP server/host address, your user ID, your password, and the authentication scheme you have to use.

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP), your web hosting company, or your bulk mail server service will provide that information upon request. You are very likely already using those settings with your other email software.

Note that MaxBulk Mailer lets you open several simultaneous connections to your SMTP server. With a fast internet connection this can speed up email delivery quite significantly, but with a modem connection, you should keep it to one or two connections only.

You should also double-check your agreement with your ISP as to how many SMTP connections you are allowed to use at once. Note that using 20 connections is not necessarily faster than with 5 connections because of your system resources and your connection bandwidth.

That said, let see how to enter the server settings. You will find below a detailed description of each field.

SMTP server access

- SMTP host: Your SMTP host address and port if different from default (address:port).
- SSL: To establish a SSL v2, SSL v2/3, SSL v3 or a TLSv1.2 secure connection.

The typical server address uses to start with 'smtp' or 'mail' followed by a domain name and an extension (TLD). For instance: 'smtp.icloud.com' or 'mail.authsmtp.com' are valid mail server addresses.

Since some ISP may block the default mail port 25 sometimes you have to add an alternative port number, for example: 'mail.authsmtp.com:2525'. Usual alternative ports are 26, 587, 2525, 2526, and 3535.

The SSL settings are for establishing a secure connection between you and the mail server. By far the most popular SSL scheme is TLSv1.2. For you to understand, it is like when you visit secure HTTPS:// web sites but for mail servers.

MaxBulk Mailer offers two variations of TLS, TLSv1.2, and TLSv1.2Exp.

- TLSv1.2 scheme establishes a secure SSL connection on port 465 directly by default.
- TLSv1.2Exp scheme establishes a regular unsecured connection and asks the server to switch to SSL.

Authentication

Select an authentication scheme. Possible choices are None, POP, ESMTP, and APOP.

Authentication schemes are mechanisms to verify your identity prior to being granted to send a message through a server. It is usually done by providing a User ID, a Password, and by selecting an authentication method.

The most popular authentication scheme nowadays is ESMTP:

The ESMTP Authentication only needs:
- Your account ID: Your account ID.
- Your Password: The password to access this ESMTP account.
- An authentication type: From Login (Default), Plain, MD5 Challenge-Response (or OAuth2).

Tip 1: Most servers use your email address or the part before '@' of your email address as the account ID.
Tip 2: The most used authentication type is Login, the default. Gmail requires OAuth2 though.

The POP and APOP Authentication needs:
- A POP Server: The POP server address and port if different from the default.
- Your Account ID: Your account ID on that POP server.
- Your Password: The password to access this POP account.

Note that the Port parameter is also optional on the POP server address. Provide a port number only in the case you are not using the POP default port 110 (Secure SSMTP 465 and SPOP3 995 respectively).

The Authentication setting is almost always required and some server-side anti-spam software may look for an Authentication header to determine whether your message is legitimate.

Delivery

This part of the settings panel lets you configure how messages have to be delivered. You can choose the delivery method between the Singly mode and the Bulk mode. The delivery method defines the delivery pace and speed, distribute the sending between multiple delayed sessions, and set the address where delivery errors (bounces) should be sent.

The Singly option

If you don't use the personalization options of MaxBulk Mailer, you are missing out on one of its' most powerful features. However, you can speed up the processing and the delivery of your messages that aren't personalized by deactivating the 'Singly' option.

If you activate the 'Singly' option, messages are sent one by one, showing the recipient "To:" header and allowing the email-merge tags to be replaced by their corresponding values depending on each entry.

However, if you deactivate the 'Singly' option messages are then sent to all recipients at once. It is called Bulk mode. Note that in both cases your list is never sent to the recipients. In bulk mode, the Default 'To' header is automatically set to 'Undisclosed-Recipients'. You can change that text to whatever you prefer.

In bulk mode, it is highly recommended to use small groups rather than 'All at once' to avoid 'Insufficient storage' SMTP errors. The precedence option can slightly impact the delivery priority by informing the server about the nature of the message.

Note that in Bulk mode MLM will not work. As a result, you will not get opening nor click-through statistics.

The Singly and Bulk modes are explained here in detail: What is the 'Singly' option for?

Group Mails and Interval

Your server may limit the number of messages that can be sent during a session. You can easily match your server delivery threshold requirements by using the Group Mails option to specify how many messages have to be sent on each session and by setting an Interval between each batch.

In other words, MaxBulk Mailer will send to a number of recipients, the group's settings then will disconnect from the mail server, will wait for the interval, and then will reconnect to send to the next group. MaxBulk Mailer will do that until it reaches the end of your list.

Therefore, the bigger is your group setting and the smaller is your interval, the faster you will finish but the more likely you're ISP will flag your message as possible spam.

MaxBulk Mailer shows an estimation of your delivery per hour and per day depending on the Group and the interval you have selected.

Delivery errors (bounces)

The Errors field is optional. It lets you set an email address where Delivery errors (bounces) have to be sent. This option allows you to get the errors sent to a different email address.

To header and Precedence

The 'To Header' field lets you enter a default string/list/address when using the bulk mode as explained above. If you let this field empty MaxBulk Mailer will set it to 'Undisclosed-Recipients'.

The Precedence setting allows you to tell the server and the recipient mail software what kind of message you are sending. For Instance, if you set this setting to 'List' an unsubscribe button/link will appear on Gmail for example. As a result, your recipient will be able to unsubscribe from your list.

Sender information

Finally here is where you enter the sender data, the sender name and email address.
- From: The sender email address in the form myname@domain.com
- Name: The name that will appear in the 'From' header along with the sender email address above.

In addition, you can also add a 'Reply-To' email address if you want to get replies sent to a different email address. This is totally optional but handy when your server forces you to use a given sender email address.

- Signature: The signature is a piece of text that will be appended to your message. We recommend you to consider using it to indicate how your recipients can unsubscribe from your list. It is also worth considering reminding people of why they are on your list and/or how they subscribed to it, particularly if you only use it once a month or less. Note that you can paste styled text to this field!

- DKIM: This is for signing your messages. It is explained in detail here: How to setup DKIM in MaxBulk Mailer. DKIM is advanced stuff that is however well worth a read.

Saving the account settings

Finally, once you are finished entering and adjusting your settings you can save your account by selecting the "Save new account as..." menu from the account pull-down menu or by clicking on the 'Save' button.

You can save as many settings as you wish. They will all be available from the account pull-down menu.

Burst Mode

MaxBulk Mailer offers the possibility to open several simultaneous connections to as many different servers as you wish. Burst Mode is simply the possibility to use more than one server at once. All you need is at least two servers.

You can activate this option by selecting the 'Burst Mode' menu from the Server pull-down menu and by checking the servers you want to use from the list.

MaxBulk Mailer will then use the servers you have selected with their corresponding settings.

Note that this feature is closely related to the 'Connections' setting thus using 10 connections with 2 servers will open 5 connections per server.

Checking the settings

The best way to check your settings is to send a message to yourself. You can do that by writing a sample message with a sample subject in the 'Message' panel and add your email address to the list in the 'Recipients' panel. Just click on the 'Send' button and see the sending process in the 'Delivery' panel.

If you get no error and you receive the message in your mailbox, you are all set! Check your settings and retry otherwise.

Where can you get your server settings

The best way to get your server settings is by visiting the server support page or by contacting the server support.

In addition the maxprog support pages include the settings of the most popular mail servers like AOL, AuthSMTP, Amazon SES, Earthlink, Comcast, Gmail, Hotmail (Live), GoDaddy, Yahoo!, SBC Yahoo, Yahoo-Verizon, Yahoo-AT&T, Office365, iCloud, Verizon and Bell Sympatico.

If you have any questions please contact me here.

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