What Should You Know About SMTP Relay?

To get the most out of your email marketing costs, you should focus on achieving high campaign deliverability rates and email sending volume. Using a standard email account doesn’t allow you to get both of that.

But through using an SMTP relay service, you’ll be able to reach out to new prospects, convert leads, and keep a presence in your current customers. Find out how SMTP relays work, discover more benefits to using this service, and how to pick the best relay service for your business.

What Is SMTP Relay And How Does It Work?

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) relay is a type of email delivery service that relays messages from a sender’s server to a receiver’s server. It works in a way similar to a post office service.

Think of SMTP servers as post offices. You have your own server or post office to deposit your email campaigns. After that, your server will deliver your campaigns to the servers of your intended recipients. The servers of your recipients are then responsible for delivering your messages to their inboxes.

How Your Business Benefits From SMTP Relay

Using an SMTP relay service is common among seasoned email marketers. This is because doing so provides a variety of benefits that drives their businesses forward. Here are four reasons why you should use an SMTP relay:

1. Increased deliverability

SMTP relay services build their servers’ reputation to internet and email service providers (ISPs and ESPs) before opening them up for client use. As a result of this, the email deliverability rates of their clients increase. This gives the campaigns a higher chance of reaching the receivers’ inboxes without hindrances like bounces, ignores, blocks, or being sent to spam boxes.

2. Allows for high-volume sending

Free ESPs like Google put a 2,000 email sending limit for their users per day. They also have their own servers for delivering emails. However, using an SMTP relay service increases your daily sending volume beyond 2,000. This is great for keeping in touch with your growing mailing list while still reaching out to prospects.

3. Keeps your emails out of the spam folder

The way SMTP relay services keep your campaigns from being sent to the spam box is that most relay services provide a function that reduces spam complaints. Others require you to strictly set up your email authentication and address validation for added security.

Not only do you keep your customers safe this way, but you’re also protecting your business’s reputation by preventing cybercriminals from spoofing your campaigns.

4. Time-saving

Sending bulk emails through a free ESP takes too much time. You can notice that through the slowly-progressing bars when sending campaigns. Whereas by using an SMTP relay service, the process only involves you uploading a campaign to the relay server with instructions on who to send it to.

The relay servers will then do the rest of the work by delivering the campaigns to the servers of your recipients before they are delivered to the inboxes.

How To Choose An SMTP Relay Service

Every SMTP relay company is unique. One may have more function for a premium price, while the other may be geared towards novice email marketers with flexible features. It’s good to know what you should look for in an SMTP relay service so you can choose the best tool for your startup email marketing needs.

1. Know what features you need

The features for the SMTP relay you need depend on how you want to do email marketing. If you want enhanced security, go for an SMTP relay service that focuses on strict email authentication. If you wish for a relay service with a high sending limit for a low price, go for an SMTP provider that provides precisely just that.

2. Access to reports

Reports are essential in email marketing, especially when it comes to deliverability and engagement. You’ll want to know how many of your customers opened, ignored, clicked through your campaign, or made a purchase using the message you sent and how many of your messages were blocked, ignored, sent to the spam box, or bounced.

Pick an SMTP relay service that delivers daily or weekly reports. This will help you identify which marketing mistakes that need fixing for better return-on-investment (ROI) rates.

3. Personalization

With the rise of email fraud nowadays, users are very skeptical when it comes to receiving emails. If one character in the sender’s email address or domain appears suspicious and unfamiliar, the email gets reported, and its reputation is ruined.

The SMTP relay of your choice should allow you to use an email address and domain name of your choice for easier customer identification.

4. Fits your budget

One of the best qualities of an SMTP relay service is that it offers a flexible price depending on the number of emails you want to send per month, week, or day. This can help email marketers who are on a budget. See it to ask about different payment plans depending on your needs as you canvass for SMTP relay services.

5. Beginner-friendly

If you’re new to email marketing, choose an SMTP relay service that doesn’t have a complicated user interface. The relay service of your choice must also be easy to integrate into your email marketing software and other tools that increase engagement.

Wrapping Up

Using an SMTP relay is a must for email marketers who have a growing customer pool and those who are looking to increase the number of users in their mailing list. This is because SMTP has a higher email sending limit compared to ordinary mailing services.

When it comes to security, SMTP provides an added layer of email protection because setting up an email authentication protocol is mandatory. This protects the reputation of a business, the email marketer’s sender reputation, and the customers’ information themselves.

In terms of deliverability, email marketers’ campaigns have an increased chance of reaching the recipients’ inboxes. The relay servers have been recognized by ISPs and ESPs as trusted email senders.