I read and re-read the different CRONJOB configuration pages, and still am doing trial-n-errors runs to configure for optimum use.
I understand that much of the Mautic cronjob settings depends on the machine and services you use, but by now there should be a community agreed, best-use settings for the different scenarios.
For example, what would be the recommended machine build and cronjob settings to send out emails (marketing or transactional) as robustly as possible without jeopardizing spam rates.
0 - 50,000 contacts
50K - 100K contacts
100k - 500k contacts
500k+ contacts
etc.
… with services Amazon, Sendgrid, Mandrill, Twilio, etc.
Hi,
It is really hard to make something this, be cause Mautic can and should be fine-tuned if you have more then 5000- 10000 contacts depending on the followings:
How many visitors the website has, and are you tracking at all?
If you send out 500.000 emails, you’ll need to be able to process clicks and opens. If you cound with 20% open rate, that is 100.000 opens in 2 days. You combine that with 5% click rate, and you have 125.000 events. That adds to the tracking.
How many segments are you using? Do you need to update them frequently?
Let’s pretend you have 5 segments, and each of your 500.000 conatcts are in at least 2 segments. That is 1.000.000 segment memberships to be recalculated. Maybe you have 30 segments with each contactc being in 5 different segments. That is 2.500.000 segment memberships. You’ll need a speedy mashiene to recalculate them all in every minute / every 15 min or every hour depending on your needs. Maybe you need to do it only 1x a day. That is a different setting.
How many campaign steps you need to process - are you using them at all?
If you need to process campaign steps for your 500k contacts, then your campaign cronjob has to be processed after the segment update script, meaning they might have to wait for eachother making your process a lot longer. The cron setup has to reflect that.
Do you prefer to send emails faster or slower? (Inboxing considerations)
How often do you need to blast out your emails? Once a month during a 2 day period, or you have to send it 2x a week within 5-6 hours? In the first case you are fine sending slow and steady, and you don’t need a large instance to accept opens. In the second case you need spooling, multi-thread email sending and ability to accept the open events on large scale.
Do you prefer Mautic to update fast or rather run fewer longer scripts? (Mass campaigns vs very personalized workflows)
Maybe those 500.000 contacts are mostly dormant, but if an event triggers (ebook donwloaded for instance), you need to process it fast. In this case you can do the one minute cronjob. That is a different route where you can create a script to process all your events after eachother very fast.
Do you use mautic for internal communication?
Again, you need fast pace cron settings with no email spool folder, but rather immediate send.
Do you accept webhooks from other system and send your own?
You will need to prio webhooks above other events to make sure the synch happens faster then other events to keep data uptodate in both systems.
Like I said, it is hard to offer a haircut that looks amazing on all celebrities.
Thank you Joey for the response. You really are a font of knowledge.
No doubt there will always be a need for fine-tuning.
Your analogy to a celebrity haircut is perfect. What I’m looking for is something a step above my current military cut.
Crazy Proposal: An on-line calculator where you enter your machine settings with your particular Mautic requirements and the calculator spits out the different cronjobs?
Not that it will be perfect, but to get you closer to the celebrity ideal?
Finally, I would submit that the different resources to fine-tune Mautic’s cronjobs could be better presented in the official docs.