What is the experience of email marketers using Amazon SES for bulk sending?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from G2 Crowd reviewer says that a potential downside to using Amazon SES is the lack of readily available customer support. SES primarily focuses on the technical aspects of sending emails, and users looking for more hands-on assistance might find other platforms more suitable.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that Amazon SES requires more technical expertise to set up and manage compared to other email marketing services, and that other services have more user-friendly interfaces and features.
Email marketer from SendGrid explains that Amazon SES has a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which can be cost-effective for some users, but the costs can quickly escalate with increased sending volume. They suggest comparing SES pricing with other providers.
Email marketer from Mailtrap explains the importance of gradually increasing sending volumes to 'warm up' IP addresses, improving sender reputation and deliverability. This avoids being flagged as spam by ISPs.
Marketer from Email Geeks says that Amazon SES is fine for marketing. If you go dedicated just run them through blocklist + senderscore to see if they were previously assigned to bad actors and maybe request a new one if so. Also recommends putting your best foot forward to warm up and ensure low complaints.
Email marketer from Postmark recommends analyzing sender and domain reputation and monitoring email authentication to ensure best practices for deliverability are followed.
Email marketer from StackOverflow describes that some users have reported experiencing issues with bulk sending, such as emails being throttled or rejected due to exceeding sending limits or reputation issues. Suggests monitoring sending limits and maintaining a good sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that SES deliverability depends on your reputation and sending practices. Warming up IPs is crucial to avoid being flagged as spam.
Email marketer from Digital Ocean shares that setting up Amazon SES involves several steps, including verifying your sending domain, configuring DNS records, and requesting production access. This can be more complex than setting up other email marketing services.
Email marketer from Email Vendor Selection shares that, while cost-effective, Amazon SES lacks many of the marketing-specific features found in dedicated email marketing platforms. SES is primarily a transactional email service.
Email marketer from Quora explains that Amazon SES can be extremely cost-effective, especially when sending large volumes of email. Its pay-as-you-go pricing model means you only pay for what you use, which can be significantly cheaper than some other platforms.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks shares experiences of clients sending through SES successfully, ranging from 30K to 20M emails per day, with spikes to 100M. Suggests setting up rDNS for dedicated IPs.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that Amazon SES was easy to set up and use, and they were very happy with it after switching to it when they had issues with their own hosted MTA.
Expert from Wordtothewise.com emphasizes the importance of proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) when using SES for bulk sending. Failure to authenticate correctly can lead to deliverability issues.
Expert from Spamresource.com explains that your sender reputation directly impacts your deliverability with SES. Maintaining low bounce and complaint rates is essential for continued success.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that Amazon SES provides tools for monitoring your sending reputation, including bounce and complaint rates. High rates can negatively impact deliverability.
Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that it is important to properly authenticate your emails using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve deliverability and sender reputation when using SES.
Documentation from Amazon Web Services highlights the option to use dedicated IP addresses for sending emails through SES. This allows senders to build and maintain their own reputation, which can be beneficial for high-volume senders.
Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that Amazon SES has sending limits that are initially low but can be increased by requesting increases through AWS support. This is to protect their sending reputation and avoid spam.