In our previous post my friend Steve Henderson from Email Service Provider Communicator wrote an article exclusively for Port25 and PowerMTA users.  In part I we looked at how email filtering using sender reputation has brought about a change in sending behavior necessitating admins to rethink email delivery best practices and configurations.  In Part II, we’ll take a look at some different ways to optimize PowerMTA to work with the challenges introduced by reputation-based delivery.

Typical Setup
Regardless of whether you use dedicated or shared IP addresses you typically assign a sender to an IP address using a VirtualMTA (VMTA). The data used in email campaigns, the sending patterns and the recipient responses for the sender or senders generate the IP’s reputation.  You then monitor and optimise the delivery settings for that MTA based on the delivery and bounce information which is collected. Reputation-based delivery means that active and targeted data are easier to reach inbox delivery, than non-targeted and less-active data. A regular email sender will usually have mix of “good”  data and bad data; and send acquisition, retention, targeted and non-targeted campaigns.

Sending the active, inactive, targeted and non-targeted email all from a single IP and a single VMTA will mean that the IP reputation will be based on an average of all the campaign and data types. The sending optimization for these different data and campaign types will also be an average and sub-optimal.

Reputation and scenario-based VMTAs
Instead of chasing a moving target and trying to optimise delivery for one or more email senders who send a variety of campaign and data types; defining a range of scenario-based VMTAs customisation lets you flip this concept on its head and work a bit smarter.

Here is an example to illustrate the concept:

Instead of just having two IPs for marketing and notification emails we define four VMTAs in PowerMTA. The marketing campaigns still go from one IP and notifications from another; but we use the extra VMTAs to optimize the delivery based on our understanding of sender reputation delivery albeit behavioral data.  Splitting the marketing emails across multiple VMTAs allows us to prioritize and configure delivery for each scenario. For the above situation you may have the following code:

 A setup like this allows you to define different queue sending speeds, priorities and expiry times.  This is different from the typical setup because instead of having to reconfigure an email sender’s VMTA based on the campaigns they send and the data they use, you can pre-define the VMTAs and then just assign your emails to the appropriate VMTA by adding the x-virtual-mta header to your emails.

While sending emails in this way can lower the risk of sending to unknown or inactive data it can never replace good data practices. Even small amounts of inactive or poorly validated data can result in delivery problems, so this approach should be used alongside good data hygiene and sending best practice.

Taking things further
Delivery queues in the PowerMTA Management Console,  show responses from recipient domains.  Separating different campaign and data types over custom VMTAs  helps identify data, delivery and reputation issues with more accuracy; and also allows you to manage those queues directly.  The above example just shows the start of what you can do. By defining a range of VMTAs for each of your sending requirements,  you can assess your campaign and data prior to sending and assign emails to the appropriate VMTA and help get the best delivery for that campaign.

Here are some scenarios which might benefit from being sent from customised VMTAs:

• New, untested data, or data from unknown senders
• Recent openers
• Data from trusted senders
• Acquisition mailings
• Retention mailings
• Notifications and alerts with a short lifespan
• Re-engagement campaigns and inactive data
  

The post Sender Reputation Part II: Splitting Email lists across VirtualMTAs appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

Here at Port25 Solutions, Inc, one of the promotions that has resonated with our clients is our annual “holiday” Amazon Gift Card promotion.  We believe running such a promotion during the holidays is timely.

Here is how it works:

Click Here to recommend PowerMTA and join #PowerMTANation

The post Recommend PowerMTA : Receive $20.00 Amazon Gift Card Instantly appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

As 2013 wraps up, we thought we’d share a resonating metric that has become a cornerstone of our growth over the past decade.   This year, we’ve added more than 25 cloud based Email Service Providers and Marketing Automation Companies (MACs) to our network.  In an upcoming post, we’ll outline some interesting facts about Por25 Solutions, including the number of forum members added to our network this year.  That number will surpass 650 deliverability admins and engineers.

We’ve also had  a 74% increase in Evaluation Requests and a 63% adoption rate for our PowerMTA Management Console.   Other numbers included in our annual report shows that 76% of all decision makers for PowerMTA products are deliverability engineers.  The 2013 infographic report will be available on our next IP post in a couple of weeks. Below is a small sampling of Email Service Providers and MACs added this year:

• Bronto Software
•  Experian CheetahMail USA
•  Zoho Corporation
• Inbox Marketer Corporation
• Active Trail
• SailThru
• Inboxer LLC
• Gen3 Media
• Maropost

Additionally, from a content perspective, in 2014 you can expect a [New IP Post] on a weekly basis highlighting updates, features and directives that are commonly used to optimize digital messaging delivery along with more specific features you may not have yet discovered.  We’ll continue to provide big picture analysis of the digital messaging landscape and provide our vision regularly as to what you can expect in terms of mergers and acquisitions along with some analysis on valuations directly from our datasets in regards to digital messaging.

The digital messaging space will continue to grow consistently over the next 5 years as an increasing number of cloud-based ESPs and MACs invest in infrastructure, sales and marketing. We’re seeing ESPs and MACs invest as much as 30-40% of top line revenues into the sales and marketing line item, as VCs look for customer acquisitions and an increased number of users on a particular platform.  While profit is a priority, it’s considered less of a priority in the current business cycle.  As the technology solutions provider of choice, we’ll be here to help you sort through the noise.

The post 25 ESPs and MACs added in 2013 appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

For ESPs and MACs, two major events in the digital marketing space transpired this past week.  First Email Service Provider SailThru announced a 2oM dollar round of funding.  The series C round  will undoubtedly be used to invest heavily in sales and marketing and building on the 2 billion + messages they send monthly.  Scale Venture Partners who led this particular round also has led rounds previously with Hubspot and ExactTarget.  SailThru has doubled it’s revenues in 2013 from a year ago and is looking for another breakout year in 2014, hoping to grow a minimum of 50%.  If it can grow, 35-40% it will double it’s valuation.

Previous backers of SailThru include BenchMark Capital whose investments include several high profile companies including Uber and Dropbox.  SailThru also recently hired a good friend to run deliverability as they transition from open source Postfix to PowerMTA for their digital messaging infrastructure.  SailThru’s goal now is simple, deliver on the “personalized smart data” coin through every digital touchpoint and ascertain their is a balance among B2B and B2C clients.

Oracle buys Responsys: My Take

The voracious appetite for the cloud-based marketing automation space continued on the heels of the SalesForce + ExactTarget 2.5 billion dollar deal.  On Friday, Oracle announced that it has purchased Responsys for 1.39B on 194M in TTM revenues.  That’s 7.7x revs, (or earnings) which is a little less than Oracle paid for Eloqua in terms of a multiple.  As I understand through industry sources, there was a bidding war for Responsys by both Oracle and SAP and in the end Responsys chose Oracle.  The message from Oracle’s acquisition of Responsys is simple: It needs to double its Cloud Application sales to $2-billion level asap.

SAP is also looking to buy a cloud-based marketing automation company, and there will be only two clear choices.  Either Silverpop or Marketo. I have written about this before, and for investors who want to make a little pocket change before the deals goes down, I’m betting on Marketo as the bride to be.  Since Oracle purchased two companies, Eloqua for it’s B2B clients and Responsys for it’s B2C ecosystem, Responsys investors earned a 40% premium on the announcement at a share purchase price of 27.00 per share.  Marketo’s stock rose 11% to 36.62 per share on the news.  Look for a target buyout range of 45-50.00 per share for Marketo.  That’s a 25-35% premium to investors.  So if you have a little spare change, I think Marketo is a good play.

SAP is also looking at bulking up its cloud strategy with similar revenues.  If aggressive enough,  buying both SilverPop and Marketo to compete with Salesforce and Oracle is an option, but the price tag could be as much as 3.75 billion dollars for both companies and I don’t think SAP will pay that much, but they are hungry.  Marketo’s capitalization sits at 1.4B currently, so assuming a conservative 1.75B valuation for Marketo will put that at a 25%% premium for Marketo’s investors.

SAP needs to play this with kit gloves.  If they choose Marketo which is B2B heavy, they might shoot themselves in the foot, because Silverpop has a more balanced customer portfolio.  However, one great thing going for Marketo is that they have the inside track on healthcare messaging as they have several customer wins in healthcare using their platform.   Since healthcare has adopted the SMTP protocol, Marketo has more healthcare companies using their platform than any other ESP or MAC , which makes them very attractive.

Marketing to Healthcare

The healthcare industry accounts for 20% of the US GDP, as compared to the retail sector which makes up roughly 66% of GDP.  Communicating digitally within the healthcare industry through it’s various  regulations will be a complex task knowing that physicians, healthcare providers, and insurers will each engage differently with your marketing and transactional messages.  Automation for these three segments of an industry that’s in it’s infancy in regards to appreciating digital messaging will require the full extent of Marketo’s platform, including a security agent built within an SMTP server.  We need to remember that the healthcare industry has utilized faxes, personal visits and phone calls from reps, since the beginning of time to transmit messages.  They aren’t use to what we’ve been providing the retail industry with immersive smart data, personalization and dynamic content through the advances of email over the years.  So, always, be sure to test your automation tracks on a subset of this target audience.

Bottom, line,  it really looks like Marketo will the be the next ESP/MAC to fall.  But I wouldn’t be surprised to see both Silverpop and Marketo get gobbled up here before the first quarter of 2014 is complete.  Besides SAP, NetSuite is also looking to acquire a cloud-marketing automation play.  Finally, look for more international consolidation in this space as well.

The post Major Events in Digital Messaging this Week + Healthcare appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

If your are just joining us, below are links to the Top 10 IP Posts for 2013.  On behalf of everyone at Port25 Solutions, Inc., thanks for reading and sharing.

•  How to check an SMTP connection with a manual telnet session
• Five Essential PowerMTA Configuration Tips
• List of current Feedback Loops offered at ISPs
• Email Delivery is a Science: Latest Elements for IP Warm UP
• Turn-Key Email Solution based on Interspire and PowerMTA
• PowerMTA Efficiency: Manage Sending Configurations based on your Data
• The Top Four Email Deliverability Job Opportunities Right Now
• Examining Bounce Reclassification for Optimized Delivery
• Senderbase: Checking-In on High-Volume Senders
• Inbox Placement Rates, Evolving

The post Top 10 Posts for 2013 appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

During the 30^th session of MAAWG, recently held in San Francisco, I learned a valuable life lesson that I wanted to share with our readership and the industry in general.

Companies are always entertaining their clients.  Conferences and other such events are an effective way to meet your clients face to face and naturally build stronger relationships.  These events are about building a network, finding your place in an industry and learning to take advantage of the opportunities that come your way.

Don’t entertain clients, entertain your best friends.
It’s easy to entertain your clients.  When you recognize them for being your customer, they feel important, but where is the intrinsic value?

Entertaining clients differs greatly from entertaining your best friends.  When entertaining clients, there is an invisible threshold that you cannot cross because of the need to maintain professional boundaries.  The main benefit of professional entertaining is that it provides a “jumping off point” for businesses and clients to get to know each other, so that they can eventually form sound professional relationships.

Events that exude too much of a “corporate” vibe run the risk of seeming slick, cold, or calculating.  In contrast, think of a gathering of friends, where trust and appreciation occur naturally, with no strings attached.  It is important to remember that, even in the context of business, you are not entertaining an entity but rather a person with interests and opinions—some of which may be similar to yours. Taking an interest in them as individuals, can help you establish trust quickly and build relationships that transcend business goals. 

Last week at M3AAWG for example, we entertained 70+ guests for dinner at Chambers Restaurant in San Francisco.  It was a successful event, building budding friendships, where the conversation focused on other things than our product, and there was a real feeling of trust and camaraderie in the room.   The event sold out in 5 hours after the mailing was sent.  The one piece of advice I can give when entertaining clients is, simply, don’t.  Instead, try to plan an event for a group of friends who happen to have some common business interests.   And remember, always register early….:)  We’ve already begun work on our next event, in Brussels.  Stay tuned, it should be a great time!

The post A Life Lesson from MAAWG 2014 San Francisco appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

PowerMTA v4.0r15 is now available and includes the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug fix.  As always, the new version can be downloaded from the Port25 customer portal.  The PowerMTA Management Console does not include the OpenSSL libraries, and as such is not affected by this bug.  Given the general security risks in this bug, it is highly recommended to upgrade PowerMTA, and all applications that use OpenSSL, at your earliest convenience.

Summary

On April 7th^th, 2014, there was a bug found in the popular OpenSSL open source library that PowerMTA and most everyone on the internet uses to encrypt data.  This bug is commonly known as the Heartbleed Bug and is considered widespread, affecting open source web servers like Apache and NGINX.

From the Heartbleed Bug Site:

Additional information can be found on the Heartbleed Bug Site including a detailed FAQ.  Please feel free to contact us at support@port25.com with any questions.

The post PowerMTA, OpenSSL, and The Heartbleed Bug appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

Below is the 1st of two case studies that we’ll be featuring this month. This first, Sendloop, is an Email Service Provider, that joined our network in 2008.  Described below are the digital messaging infrastructure benefits for Sendloop which includes:

• Effortless set up on any operating system
• VirtualMTA technology provides “gated email streams”
• Ability to scale with a very small team
• Ability to distribute PowerMTA for thousands by Octeth Platform

Overview
Sendloop, an SaaS provider of on-demand email marketing solutions, started as an email service provider (ESP) in 2008.  It has since grown from zero sends to a sending volume of over 500M messages per month.  Since inception, it has used PowerMTA™ from Port25 Solutions, Inc. to administer its email infrastructure sends.  In an era of heightened dependence on digital messaging data, Sendloop is one of hundreds of ESPs using PowerMTA, which enables flawless execution of numerous email streams using its VirtualMTA technology.

The Challenge
SendLoop faced the challenge of managing a large volume of email with a small team while achieving high inbox placement rates.   They also needed to coordinate the execution of different email streams and automated workflows.  Sendoop required an enterprise level MTA that was also easy to configure.

Migration Factors
SendLoop was previously using open-source software such as Postfix and Exim that made it difficult to optimize sending patterns across a varied customer base while also requiring continuous monitoring and management by server administrators.  Migrating to PowerMTA has allowed SendLoop to monitor vital deliverability data across many disparate ISPs in real time, such as potential blocks, ISP throttling, and/or junking which helps to preserve sender IP reputations.  The granular deliverability data available for each ISP was one of the deciding factors for Sendloop (See PowerMTA Management Console).

Apart from the vast amount of deliverability data easily accessible to Sendloop engineers, users were also impressed by PowerMTA’s effortless installation and configuration process on any platform.  Sendloop also praised Port25’s friendly customer service team, citing their ability to answer questions methodically during ramp up.  PowerMTA’s innovative VirtualMTA functionality helped SendLoop manage its growing customer base by allowing for “private” or “gated” email streams per client.  This creates enhanced and prioritized deliverability and the ability to manage sending streams more effectively.

“We use PowerMTA on our on-demand email marketing platform, Sendloop,” said Cem Hurturk, SendLoop’s President.  “In addition, we recommend PowerMTA to thousands of customers on our other business, Octeth, where we develop and distribute email marketing software,” Hurturk continued.  “(We’re) looking forward to PowerMTA’s upcoming version this summer.”

Summary of Benefits
Sendloop accrued several benefits from switching to PowerMTA from open-source software,  including it’s ability to scale to 500M email messages with a small team.  Additionally, migrating to PowerMTA helped Sendloop monitor vital deliverability data from many disparate ISPs in real-time.  Integration was easy and with their savvy to distribute email marketing software on the Octeth platform made for a sensible solution in PowerMTA.  You can download the full case study here. 

About SendLoop
Sendloop is an easy-to-use on-demand email marketing and list nurturing service that powers up thousands of businesses all around the world. Sendloop’s easy-to-use interface allows any one –no matter what technical skills they have– to send awesome emails and nurture leads on their websites.  Download the Case Study here.

About Port25 Solutions, Inc.
Port25 Solutions Inc. provides specialized email infrastructure software products that address the increased unique demands of client communications and digital messaging apps.   PowerMTA™, Port25’s flagship product, has a global footprint that is recognized in over 50 countries, with over 4000 installations. It provides senders with superior performance and advanced features to proactively manage their sender reputations. PowerMTA is utilized by hundreds of Email Service Providers worldwide and many leading enterprise level clients. Port25 is a member of the Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) and M3AAWG. Founded in 1999, Port25’s mission is to help realize the potential of email as a platform for legitimate and effective customer communications. Visit Port25 for a fully featured product evaluation.

The post Case Study: Email Service Provider Sendloop appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

May 8th, 2014—Ellicott City, MD - Today, Salsa Labs and Port25 Solutions, Inc. jointly announced that Salsa Labs will utilize PowerMTA™ for its digital messaging infrastructure. Salsa Labs is a unique and easy-to-use SaaS marketing platform that helps nonprofits, green communities and political campaigns of all sizes to fundraise, advocate, communicate and organize online.

Clocking in at 3 billion digital messages sent annually with a peak delivery rate of 15 million emails per hour, Salsa Labs cited many important factors that influenced their switch from a more expensive and overly complex messaging system to PowerMTA™. The challenges with their prior platform included management, simplicity, performance, reliability, higher cost, and fail-over complexities in case of server loss.

Scalability and cost were also influential concerns. Salsa Labs sought to deliver more messages with better performance and predictably scale while keeping costs linear. Additionally, Salsa Labs was aiming for a much higher ROI and a lower total cost of ownership for email infrastructure, coupled with a sensible budget for developmental and standby instances. These additional licenses were to be employed in a QA sending environment which required enterprise level throughput availability.

Because digital messaging infrastructure investments vary widely, Salsa Labs conducted extensive due diligence before selecting PowerMTA™. One specific deliverability feature that aided Salsa Labs’ decision to switch to PowerMTA™ was VirtualMTA pooling. PowerMTA™ supports the creation of VirtualMTA pools that can be used to load-balance message delivery for clients across several different VirtualMTAs. This deliverability method is used for time-sensitive campaigns, and is a great fit for many Salsa Labs clients, especially non-profit and politically based campaigns where donations are encouraged. Other important PowerMTA™ features that appealed to Salsa Labs included: detailed delivery and bounce data, advanced bounce characterization, flexible DKIM signing, and dynamic delivery adjustments based on real-time SMTP responses received by remote gateways.

Salsa Labs praised PowerMTA™ as an infrastructure solution that made sending large volumes of email simple and highly efficient. Making granular delivery setting adjustments and migrating were straightforward. The thousands of users who administer and deploy PowerMTA™ are always impressed with its effortless installation and configuration process on any platform. Salsa Labs works with more than 2,000 non-profit and political organizations, and they require a digital messaging platform that is simple and user-friendly but still powerful enough to meet the needs of their clients. By commissioning PowerMTA™, Salsa Labs found the perfect balance of performance and value. PowerMTA™ allows them to effectively deploy, communicate and scale their digital messaging infrastructure with restored confidence.

The post SalsaLabs Switches, Selects PowerMTA™ for Digital Messaging Infrastructure appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

July 16, 2014—Ellicott City, MD—Globally recognized Email Service Provider Adestra, with offices in the UK and US, and American firm Port25 Solutions, Inc., jointly announced today that Adestra has chosen Port25’s flagship product PowerMTA™ for the outbound digital messaging infrastructure of its platform, MessageFocus. In a statement released by Adestra today, CEO Henry Hyder-Smith said,

“We are currently sending a rapidly increasing volume of digital messages, and we expect that trend to continue. PowerMTA™ is a great fit because it takes the worry out of managing queues and allows our deliverability staff to focus on other important responsibilities, which helps ensure our clients’ messages are getting to the inbox, on time, every time.” Hyder-Smith added, “Port25 certainly understands the needs of an ESP’s technical and deliverability teams. They gave us the freedom to evaluate PowerMTA™ in our own sending environment, and all the support we needed to get up and running in a timely manner. They also helped us complete the implementation very rapidly, which was essential, considering the rate at which our business, and therefore our digital messaging throughput, is growing.”

Hyder-Smith noted that Adestra’s previous open-source solution—because it does not maintain independent queues of messages for specific domains or hosts—would struggle under the load of very large outbound queues, often requiring manual intervention to ensure timely delivery disbursement. PowerMTA™, in contrast, excels in this regard, optimizing injection rates and radically diminishing queue sizes with little manual intervention required.

Adestra has also benefitted from PowerMTA™’s PowerQueue technology, as it delivers well over 10x more messages per hour than leading open source alternatives such as Exim and Postfix. This has made it a perfect solution for handling Adestra’s growing email volumes:

Besides PowerQueue, there are other technical aspects of PowerMTA that impressed Adestra during the decision-making process. These include proactive rate-limiting features, such as granular delivery control on separate VMTAs for compliance among gateways, and the ability to throttle complementary delivery streams. Adestra mentioned other specific reasons for choosing PowerMTA, including cost effectiveness and customized licensing options. They are also benefitting from more efficient queue management, including fast injection rates, and more efficient use of hardware, while maintaining their high deliverability standards.

Adestra and Port25 Solutions, Inc. are pleased to jointly announce this mutually beneficial partnership, and look forward to working together for a long time to come.

About Adestra
Adestra has been providing enterprise-level digital marketing technology solutions to organizations around the globe since 2004. Our clients trust our proven email, automation, social, and mobile marketing technology to deliver successful and cutting-edge marketing programs to their valued customers. We were founded on the principle that marketing success takes more than technology, and that’s why customer service is at the heart of our business.

The post Email Service Provider Adestra selects PowerMTA from Port25 Solutions appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

August 22, 2014—Ellicott City, MD- Port25 Solutions, Inc. announced today that Email Service Provider Forfront, based in the UK, has selected PowerMTA™ from Port25 Solutions, Inc., for its digital messaging infrastructure.  Launched in 2001, Forfront’s email marketing solution, e-shot™, has just released their latest version.  The e-shot™ technical team, based in Surrey, collectively possesses over 100 years of development experience and has processed  billions of emails over a 16 year period.  The technical team is also fluent in more than 16 different programming languages.

The central issue driving Forfront’s selection of PowerMTA™ included a need for more flexibility and better performance from their existing MTA appliance.  While there are many challenges involved when using an appliance, the team concluded that bounce log management and fine detail to VirtualMTA configuration settings were required when sending large amounts of email.  Forfront’s email marketing solution, e-shot™, now sends more than 10 million emails per hour using multiple instances of PowerMTA™.

PowerMTA™ also possessed other specific technical features that complemented e-shot™, such as throttling at a domain level.  PowerMTA™ has the ability to distinctively throttle your sending patterns at a domain level.  This granularity allows senders to proactively manage and easily configure high volume sends with ease of use.  One of the most common reasons why ESPs and Enterprises make the switch from other more complex systems, as well as open-source alternatives, is ease of use.  Forfront now achieves high volume sends at a greater rate than ever before.

“With PowerMTA™ in our arsenal, we can reliably send the amount of transmissions our clients expect from a prominent ESP.  Its ease of use and powerful controls help us grow as a company, with the assurance that PowerMTA will keep pace.”

One of the main goals of Port25 Solutions, Inc., is to give clients a voice.  Client input helps us navigate the development process of each release.  Currently at v4.0, PowerMTA’s proficient development team faithfully uses clients’ feedback as a roadmap for perpetual success.  PowerMTA™’s next version is slated for release in early fall of this year.  That version will include an even wider variety of new, advanced, innovative features and functionalities that will allow for even greater elasticity and email delivery control. With its enhanced VirtualMTA rate limiting and the ability to create holding queues for future email release, PowerMTA™ maintains its position at the front of the pack, offering more per email campaign delivery features than any other solution in the marketplace.

About Forfront
Forfront’s mission is to provide a holistic and cost-effective approach for all digital business challenges, and to offer simple, efficient solutions that address our clients’ evolving marketing demands.

The post Email Service Provider Forfront taps PowerMTA for Messaging Infrastructure appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

October 7th, 2014—Ellicott City, MD–Satmetrix, based in San Mateo, CA, announced today that it will utilize PowerMTA™ from Port25 Solutions, Inc., for its digital messaging infrastructure requirements. Satmetrix will utilize PowerMTA™ to control and administer digital messaging for its industry leading cloud-based Customer Experience Management Software.

Satmetrix is the world’s leading provider of Net Promoter® software. It is the only self-service, cloud-based solution designed specifically for small and mid-sized businesses interested in developing customer experience management (CEM) programs based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS®) methodology.

Previously, Satmetrix used sendmail, an open-source general-purpose email routing utility that supports many kinds of mail-transfer and delivery methods, including the (SMTP) used for email transport. According to Satmetrix, this arrangement caused acute challenges in several areas, including messaging performance, scalability and configuration complexities. Satmetrix chose PowerMTA™ principally to improve delivery performance and to simplify mail deliverability configuration. PowerMTA™ makes managing email streams simple with VirtualMTA technology. VirtualMTAs allow for granular segmentation of traffic patterns, while offering precise mailing delivery control with options to, for example, enable or disable DKIM-based sender authentication for a specific email stream. Additionally, they possess a unique utility to create independent queues for different mail streams. During the evaluation period, SatMetrix was impressed with PowerMTA™’s ability to configure these streams (VMTAs) easily. Scalability was another major area of concern, and PowerMTA™ proved that it surpassed competing solutions in this area.

Brian Curry of Satmetrix said, “Our cloud product required granular controls and high performance and scalability from an email deliverability solution. We evaluated several email deliverability solutions, and PowerMTA™ finished ahead of the pack. We’re quite pleased with the results.”

With PowerMTA™, users are able to set up and install a robust and highly flexible digital messaging infrastructure immediately and with ultra confidence. Usually, when a sender outgrows its open-source alternative, as occurred with SatMetrix with Sendmail, the mismatch is due to factors such as overwhelming volumes and configuration complexities. PowerMTA™ also excels in total cost of ownership, as it is designed to leverage existing hardware investments while its competitors offer needlessly complex delivery infrastructure components at cost-prohibitive price points. Given these attributes, it’s no surprise that PowerMTA™ powers more than 75% of global email service providers (ESPs). These ESPs are by far the most demanding senders in the world, but PowerMTA™ has proven time and time again that it is up to the challenge.

About Satmetrix

Satmetrix is the leading provider of cloud-based Net Promoter® software for companies of all sizes. As developer of the industry-leading Net Promoter® methodology along with Bain & Company, its applications deliver increased customer loyalty, reduced attrition, improved referenceability, and a clear competitive advantage. With experience on more than 1,000 deployments in 40 languages, Satmetrix accelerates the success of customer experience efforts using Net Promoter. Satmetrix is headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., with offices around the world.

The post Silicon Valley Based Satmetrix selects PowerMTA from Port25 Solutions, Inc. appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

This is a brief post before we convene at the 33rd Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group conference held in San Francisco this coming week. Certainly, each one of these talking points needs a detailed post of their own, which will be forthcoming.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at #m3aawg.

With the acquisition of Port25, ESPs and Enterprises will inherit the ability to engage with the most comprehensive messaging product line on the market today.

For customers who want on-premise messaging software, they will be able to choose from the easy to use and highly reliable PowerMTA™ (both standard and enterprise editions) and the ultra-scalable Momentum which is capable of sending billions of messages a day for the largest senders in the world. For those who don’t want to run their own hardware and messaging operations, Message Systems offers cloud-based services with SparkPost and SparkPost Elite which will allow a one-of-a-kind user experience for any sized digital sender. Agencies today, that already deploy PowerMTA or Momentum will be able to offer multi-dimensional hybrid digital messaging solutions to some or it’s entire customer base.

Additionally, with this acquisition, Message Systems makes huge advances into international markets offering global resellers of PowerMTA unparalleled expansion opportunities and unmatched support, enriching sending environments worldwide. This was the next logical step for Message Systems, to make headway internationally. Now with a globally recognized brand like PowerMTA, it is able to formally introduce it’s full product line to this $1B-2B addressable market.

The goal for Message Systems is simple. It is to perpetually develop and provide the most cohesive messaging technology stack that balances and compliments your customer requirements at every stage of their messaging journey. Whether your a startup with aspirations to scale or a large agency that wants to offer and deploy a hybrid solution, Message Systems becomes the most sensible provider with the most options for messaging.

Note: Nothing will change for the foreseeable future of both Port25 and Message Systems companies. It’s business as usual. Port25 now becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Message Systems, and there are no plans to merge the product lines or to dissolve PowerMTA. In fact development of the PowerMTA product line will be even more robust.

It’s also important that we recognize and appreciate the leadership team of both companies that worked tirelessly to put this deal together. Collectively, Message Systems and Port25 have will house the brightest minds in the digital message space, from, developers and engineers to CEOs and Co-founders. This is truly a extraordinary achievement for Message Systems and sets the stage for a vibrant future for it’s entire product line. Digital Messaging aficionados can now rejoice.

This post was inspired by more than 170 employees at both Message Systems and Port25

The post What to expect from the Message Systems buyout of Port25 appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

GetResponse declares itself “the world’s easiest email marketing provider.” The company helps 350,000 customers in 182 countries and delivers as many as 100M email messages per day, sustaining send rates of 4.2 million messages per hour, and has approached 1.5 billion messages per month. Customers include small, medium and enterprise B2B and B2C businesses located primarily in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. The company has recently experienced a growth surge in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

THE MESSAGING INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGE

For a decade, GetResponse used IronPort for its mail servers before selecting PowerMTA™ from Port25 Solutions. IronPort, acquired by Cisco in 2007, has limited command line batch capabilities. The GetResponse IT people love command-line-driven Linux, which made it a challenge to integrate IronPort’s technology with the GetResponse platform. GetResponse selected PowerMTA because its powerful command-line features made integration simple. PowerMTA made it easy to configure and deploy multiple sending environments via text files, while optimizing delivery streams using message headers to significantly reduce the amount of outbound connections needed. Further, GetResponse didn’t require investments in more stout hardware.

THE SOLUTION

PowerMTA quickly overcame the limitations of the IronPort solution and opened up new opportunities for optimized mail management. “We are doing more with the same hardware by virtue of the PowerMTA approach to best practices,” said Simon Grabowski, CEO “At the current growth rate, the software will pay for itself in less than three years.”

GetResponse developers love the dynamic configuration options. “PowerMTA creates a new efficiency, with rather awesome options to filter messages, send messages via multiple channels, control the number of outbound messages per ISP and ‘warm up’ IPs by sending sample mail-outs,” said, Irek Rybinski, Deliverability Manager for GetResponse.

GetResponse is able to manage rapid growth with fine-grained PowerMTA™ features such as VirtualMTA technology and the option to define or label traffic for individual ISPs. Rybinski added, “PowerMTA can queue large volumes of email data, and these days we’re sending 100 million emails on a busy day.”

GetResponse, CEO Simon Grabowski, says PowerMTA’s features remove barriers that prevented the company from offering customers a high level of service without growing pains.

“To maintain high email high deliverability rates, we need to pace (throttle) mail volume. The PowerMTA system gives us unprecendented visibility to real-time traffic on each device and detects deliverability issues within individual mail channels.”

GetResponse aspires to be the best-in-class platform for email marketing, landing page optimization and marketing automation. With rock-steady support and a great track record from PowerMTA, GetResponse is on track to become an all-in-one tool for marketers worldwide to promote their products and services online.

ABOUT GETRESPONSE

GetResponse serves more than 350,000 active users from 182 countries, engages more than 1 billion subscribers every month, and delivers 10 billion permission-based emails per year with an average deliverability rate of 99.3 percent. In 2013, the ABA honored GetResponse with a total of seven Stevie Awards, and Inc. magazine ranked GetResponse as one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. with a three-year growth rate of 169 percent. Clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Marriott, Intercontinental, Men’s Health Magazine, University of Arkansas, Vemma, Carrefour, and thousands of fast-growing businesses and professional firms. For more information, please visit www.getresponse.com. You can download the full case study here.

The post Case Study: Serving 350K Clients, Email Service Provider GetResponse Scales with PowerMTA appeared first on Port25 Solutions, Inc..

One of the noteworthy features in PowerMTA’s new v4.5 release is IP based Rate Limiting. The feature, enabled via the new per domain “source-ip-max-msg-rate” directive, is designed to give delivery engineers/admins additional control. IP based rate-limiting allows for throttling the number of attempted recipients on a per-hour, per-minute and per-second basis separately for each IP address for each domain/VirtualMTA. This feature will be primarily used by senders that define multiple IPs in a single VirtualMTA and that want to limit the attempted delivery rate for each IP address in the VirtualMTA to the respective domains.

In addition, IP connection rate limits can now also be controlled via the “source-ip-max-connect-rate” directive, which allows one to specify the maximum number of connections to be attempted during the specified time period per IP per domain/vmta.

Backoff Insight

In previous versions of PowerMTA the only method to know why a queue entered backoff mode was to check the log file or to setup the backoff-notify directive. Now PowerMTA will show the “error” that caused the queue to go into backoff mode in the individual queues of the web monitor as well as in these commands:

pmta show queues domain/vmta
pmta show topqueues domain/vmta

IP based rate-limiting and Backoff Insight, are just two features of the latest release of PowerMTA v4.5, which is available now for download.

IP Monitoring Service

If you receive an alert from your IP based monitoring service, such as excessive bounces or complaints, one of the most critical elements to preserving your IP reputation is the ability to quickly throttle at the source IP.  The best tool I’ve seen has recently just launched by Postmastery. They offer IP reputation monitoring based off of SNDS Status and Sender Score. They also cross-reference your IP to a database of blacklists.  You’ll receive real-time notifications via email based off of any decreases in any of the metrics above.  Notifications are sent on an “as needed” basis- you’re notified at the beginning of a potentially forming IP reputation issue. So, if there’s any decrease in IP reputation or a high number of complaints, you’ll know about it very quickly.  There’s also a weekly email with a summary of all IPs being monitored and their current rep/status.  Postmastery also has the ability to use SNDS API keys to aggregate data from that as well, showing complaints from SNDS domains.  Contact Maarten Oelering at www.postmastery.com.