Configure your send process

• Introduction
• Using AcyMailing Starter
• Using one of our commercial versions
• Hosting limitations and corresponding AcyMailing configuration
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • My sending limitations are 300 e-mails per hour and I use your commercial version, how do I configure AcyMailing?
  • I don't have any limitation, what configuration do you recommend with your commercial version?
  • Do I have to keep the window open during the send process or can I log out?

Introduction

Most of hosting companies (almost all of them) apply some restrictions to the send process so you won't be able to send a lot of e-mails at once (this limitation is usually around 300 e-mails per hour). This article will explain you how AcyMailing sends your e-mails and how you can overcome any server limitation.

First of all, AcyMailing always uses a queue to send your e-mails.
So, if the message can not be sent immediately (time out, limitation of a shared hosting environment, memory limitation, etc.), AcyMailing will keep it in the queue so you will be able to send it later.
If you are reading this article because you saw a lot of errors during the send process and the process stopped, don't panic! You will be able to easily resume your send process and you won't loose any message.

In some cases, the mail server does not return a failed status to AcyMailing so AcyMailing will consider that all your e-mails have been sent properly and won't be able to stop the send process automatically. In that case, it's very important to configure AcyMailing to respect your sending limitations.

You can see and manage your queue of messages by clicking on the queue menu on the AcyMailing back-end.

Using AcyMailing Starter (free version)

If you use AcyMailing Starter or our commercial version (without the Automatic Only option) and you send a Newsletter, AcyMailing will open a popup and start sending your Newsletter to your users.
It will send one batch of e-mails then make a pause and then refresh the page and send an other batch of e-mails and make a pause and refresh the page... until the end of the process.

If AcyMailing detects errors during the process, it will either automatically refresh the page (to avoid a time out for example) or stop the sending process (if a hosting limitation is detected). In both cases AcyMailing should display you a clear message about what's going on and if AcyMailing stopped the send process, you will be able to resume it by clicking on the Process button on the queue page.

Using one of our commercial versions

Using one of our commercial versions (AcyMailing Essential, Business or Enterprise), you will be able to configure AcyMailing to automatically overcome any server limitation and you won't have to keep your internet connection opened during the send process.
We even recommend you to use this method if you have a dedicated server as it will lower your spam score, it spreads the load on the server and also the traffic that's being generated from the newsletters.

If you use AcyMailing to send e-mails from the front-end, it will always use the Automatic process but you should still configure a cron task to trigger AcyMailing regularly.

• Go on your AcyMailing Configuration page and click on the tab Queue process
• Select the option Queue processing : Automatic Only
  

  

• Using this option, if you send a Newsletter, AcyMailing won't even start the send process but will simply add all your e-mails in the queue and display you a confirmation message.
• Now we will need a system to automatically trigger AcyMailing and enable it to automatically send your e-mails, this is what we call a cron task.
  So each time AcyMailing will be triggered, it will send X e-mails.
  That way, you will be able to configure AcyMailing to send 200 e-mails per hour or anything else which suits your hosting limitations.
• The frequency you can see on the automatic send process configuration is a security parameter for AcyMailing.
  It's set by default to 15 minutes as our own cron service enables you to create a cron task with a 15 minutes frequency.
  This parameter is only there to avoid having someone else triggering your send process more often than it should be.
  You should set this parameter with the same value as your cron frequency.

• On this same "Queue process" tab, you will see below an area "Cron"
  
• On this interface you will be able to see the last report of the cron task, you will see your Cron URL (which is the url you should trigger every X minutes if you want to create your own cron task), you will see the last run time, etc.


• Now the only thing you have to do is to configure a cron task.
  You can handle it on your own server or you can let our server do the job for you (We created a free and easy service on Acyba.com to avoid you spending time on that part as it can be technical depending on your hosting company).
  

   

Hosting limitations and corresponding AcyMailing configuration

Depending on your hosting limitations, you can optimize the AcyMailing send process.

We recommend you to keep 5% of e-mails for your other components (send passwords, registration confirmation...) so if your limitation is 250 e-mails per hour, you should not use more than 240 e-mails for AcyMailing.

Each batch should not send more than 250 e-mails.
It's always better to increase your frequency than increasing the number of e-mails per batch.

Here is the optimal configuration you should use based on the hosting company you are using for your website :

Your Cron frequency and the frequency displayed on the configuration should be the same.
Please do NOT take this information for granted, as your email account provider or hosting company can change its email policy without any prior notification.
It is always a good idea to contact your email account provider or hosting company and ask about the email send rate, before proceeding with a mass email campaign.