Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the most popular email communication protocol. Sending emails would be impossible without SMTP servers. You can set up your own server; however, it’s often advisable to choose an external SMTP service provider because of the many benefits it offers. Let’s take a closer look at some of these benefits.
1. Reliability
A lot of work goes into maintaining a mail server. If you were to do that yourself, get ready to set aside significant money and manpower to ensure your servers are up and running 99.99% of the time. Alternatively, you can simply delegate that responsibility to an external provider whose full-time job is maintaining their servers. This would remove potential distractions and free up resources for your own business.
2. No Sending Limits
Your internet service provider (ISP) may offer an SMTP service for free; however, it will have a strict daily or hourly limit on the number of emails you can send. When using an external SMTP provider with a contractual arrangement, you are free to send as many messages as you need. Of course, the higher your limit, the more you’ll pay, but most commercial SMTP providers offer very flexible pricing options.
3. Speed
Dedicated providers support a high number of simultaneous SMTP connections. This lets them split your email-sending tasks, avoiding clogging and delays. It is not uncommon for an SMTP provider to send tens of millions of emails per hour on behalf of a single customer. To be able to build such robust infrastructure by yourself, you’d need to spend a whole fortune.
4. Support
Understanding email technology can be challenging, especially for non-technical users. How would you implement email authentication? What ports do you use to send your emails? How can you configure your SMTP settings for optimal results? These are the kind of questions you’ll ponder on, and finding answers by yourself can be difficult.
An external provider takes care of these complex tasks as part of a service to their customers. If you have any issues, you can simply contact the support team to get help rather than taking the long journey to figure it out by yourself.
5. Reporting and Analytics
External providers give you detailed reports about your email usage. You can monitor important metrics such as bounce rate, deliverability rate, opens and clicks, etc. This detailed analytics helps you improve your customer relations and identify any issues before they morph into something serious.
What If You Don’t Want An External SMTP Service?
If you don’t want to use a third-party provider, you can operate your own mail servers. However, there are several things to consider, including:
- IP Reputation: Mailbox providers assign reputation scores to email senders with relation to their IP address and domain. Senders with low scores will likely get their emails bounced or placed into the spam folder. Hence, you’ll have to spend much time gradually building up your IP reputation before sending messages on a large scale.
- Security: Hackers and other malicious actors are constantly looking for vulnerable servers to take over and use for nefarious purposes. You must ensure your servers incorporate sophisticated security features to prevent interference.
Considering these two factors, it’s advisable to choose the best SMTP provider you can find, one that has already established a strong IP reputation and is experienced with security. It will remove a lot of stress and let you utilize email communication as efficiently as possible.
