Hi,
I’m new here and this is my first post.
I have just discovered this product and it looks amazing. Looking forward to testing it out.
I am wanting to start an email marketing business and looking for some advice. From what I have gathered, I am going to require the following
VPS with the recommended tech stack to host Mautic
A domain name
Amazon SES
Email service provider? (is this required to create email addresses?)
As I’m just starting out, my list is zero. What size VPS would you recommend? I have seen the minimum requirements somewhere to be 2 core, 4 gig of ram. Is this a good starting point?
What size storage would be a good starting point?
If I’m using Amazon SES to deliver my mail, I’m still going to need an email service provider to create my email addresses correct? I’m not 100% sure about this as it’s not clear in any of the YouTube videos or documentation I have read. If so, any recommendations for service providers? Looks like Amazon have WorkMail as a product. Does anyone use this?
Firstly good luck To answer some of your questions:
To start with you can go with a pretty light server, something from AWS or Digital Ocean. I find it is worth paying the $5/mnth to DO you get more bang for you buck, and with what you are looking at it should be enough for the first few months of business. You can always scale up. If you do go DO please sign up with my referral link (https://m.do.co/c/1443f9d1d3f4) you will get $100 in free credit for your first two months.
Yes you will need a domain
You can go with Amazon SES or any other ESP that is integrated with Mautic. I usually use Sendgrid.
You will need to have a “sender” email address you are sending from. The ESP is your delivery service, it is the company that takes the mails from mautic and delivers them to your contacts.
When you purchase a domain, from go daddy for example you can also create an email address from them, or you can signup to g-suite, or alternatively if you go for hosting you can set one up yourself.
Best advice is be persistent. Don’t be afraid to spend some money to learn.
Don’t go to GSuite or Yahoo if you intend to monitor incoming emails, as it is documented that inbox monitoring won’t work. Use native email hosting from the provider (webmail) or Outlook (Office365):
I do not know gsuite, and not sure if it will work for sending, but if you setup web hooks and it is passing back bounces to Mautic, mautic will then be able to flag email 1 as bounced, and it will not send again to that address
Some email services overwrite the return-path header with that of the account’s email (Gmail, Amazon SES). In these cases, IMAP bounce monitoring will not work .
But also says:
If sending mail through Gmail, the Return Path of the email will automatically be rewritten as the Gmail address. It is best to use a sending method other than Gmail , although Mautic can monitor a Gmail account for bounces.
If you select an Unsubscribe folder, Mautic will also append the email as part of the “List-Unsubscribe” header. It will then parse messages it finds in that folder and automatically unsubscribe the contact.
Thank you so much for trying to help, but I’m not a developer, what does this all mean in plain English?
This is what I think it means:
Some email services overwrite the return-path header with that of the account’s email (Gmail, Amazon SES). In these cases, IMAP bounce monitoring will not work .
Means:
Mautic can'thandle bounces with Gsuite
If sending mail through Gmail, the Return Path of the email will automatically be rewritten as the Gmail address. It is best to use a sending method other than Gmail , although Mautic can monitor a Gmail account for bounces.
Means:
Mautic can can handle bounces with Gsuite
“If you select an Unsubscribe folder, Mautic will also append the email as part of the “List-Unsubscribe” header. It will then parse messages it finds in that folder and automatically unsubscribe the contact”
Means:
Mautic can handle unsubscribe messages , even with Gsuite.
I’m a Canadian living in Thailand with a hearing disability, so I can’t show up in person, can’t cold call…so I use cold email to try to make a living.
With covid getting work is even harder, Gsuite is basically free at $5 a month and it’s the only solution that works, that and possibly Outlook or office 365, send grid is $80 a month, I tried it and it all went to spam…
Do you have any suggestions for something better than Gsuite?
My customers aren’t opt in, I contact businesses with non responsive and defective websites, these are all cold leads.
Needed for incoming SMTP email processing, used to fetch emails from a predefined account and folders within this email account, only required if you are using the SMTP Folders mode to receive bounces, unsubscribes, etc.
Could this work? I can use my mail web hosting mail server to receive emails
Yes indeed.
Setup and email account on your server. Enter the credentials into the email section of the configuration tab. Set the specific folder you wish to scan for bounces, unsubscribes and replies, and then set the mautic:email:fetch cron job. To test, run the command via SSH and make note of the output to see if its working. also check the logs of your mautic install.
Great tip is to set-up some pop-up on your website that can collect data of your clients so you can make your email campaigns directly to them. You can use some free pop-up builders so you dont need to hire a developer to integrate it in your website
As for free pop-up builders, I personally use claspo, previously used opti monk. You can find another builders also, but if they have paid subscription, it is better to check free trial first.
To answer some of your questions:
