Is it possible to increase the speed at which my e-mails are sent ? This is a question we receive from our users on a regular basis. Our answer is yes it is, but it depends on a few factors. Today we would like to focus on them.
The “weight” of the message
Each e-mail message that SendBlaster sends, like any message sent through e-mail, has a “weight”.
What is “message weight”? The term “weight” is improper, but it is commonly used to describe the size of a file (a text, a picture, filmed content, or in our case, an e-mail message).
The size of the file is measured in bytes, though for convenience the terms Kilobyte (KB), Megabyte (MB), Gigabyte (GB), etc., are used.
The weight depends on the quantity of information in the file. This increases with various factors such as the length of the text, the size and quality of an image, or the length of a film, to give you a few examples.
Simply speaking, we can say that a text, even if it is long, is generally not very heavy. Images and films, however, are decidedly heavier than a simple text. For example, an e-mail message “weighs” 3 KB, and an image weighs 1 MB. E-mail messages consisting of only text, even of considerable length, are usually very light, while those containing graphics such as pictures are heavier.
The speed of your Internet connection
How does the weight of the message affect its delivery speed?
There are different types of Internet connections on the market, which vary in terms of speed. There are lines that can receive and send the bytes we mentioned above, more or less rapidly in a given amount of time.
An Internet connection over a traditional telephone line is very slow in receiving and transmitting data. We recommend that you avoid this if possible, since the delivery of numerous messages, even if they are small, can take a long time and be expensive.
An ADSL line (or another type, but high-speed nevertheless), allows you to send your e-mails very quickly and economically. Keep in mind that all ADSL lines have a data transmission speed that is much lower compared to its data reception speed. There are offers on the market now that provide up to 20 MB in reception speed and 1 MB in transmission speed.
When you send e-mail using SendBlaster, you should obviously consider the data transmission speed rather than the reception speed.
We still suggest, however, that you do not excessively weigh down the message with pictures or other elements. A high message weight could tip off anti-spam filters, especially if you have a high number of e-mails to send.
The quality of the SMTP server
We suggest to use a well performing, well administered and trusted SMTP server. Most undeliverable mails come from poor SMTP services, which often lead to being blacklisted: make sure your SMTP service’s staff is ready to help if you are blacklisted by mistake.
For this topic, we recommend that you read the appropriate section. We believe that “good email marketing needs good SMTP service”. Make sure to choose the best solution according to your priorities!
To summarize, e-mail delivery speed depends on the weight of the message, the speed of the internet connection with which you are sending it, and the “goodness” of the SMTP server being used. Sometimes even the use of an antivirus program can influence e-mail delivery speed, because it takes a few seconds to scan each message.
With a good Internet connection (ADSL or similar) and a good SMTP server, keeping the message size at around 10 KB, you can send about 7,000/10,000 e-mails within an hour.
If you absolutely must include images of a certain weight, we suggest that you put them on a Web server and insert them in the message using a link. This way, the message remains light while allowing for the correct display of images.