91e1d867a4b8481b82ce5b256803f8ebQ: This looks like a great deal, and as an Ontraport user for a decade I've built out an extensive spider web of sequences, tags, and rules.
I also have a great relationship with them, so I have concerns about the risks related to moving to a new platform.
So, I've got a few questions....
Is there a limit to the number of emails in a sequence?
- Currently one of my sequences is daily for a year.
And can people be receiving emails from multiple sequences at the same time?
- Additionally, people receive other sequences (free eCourses, etc) in addition to the 1-per-day sequence mentioned above.
Is there a way to determine the time of sending?
- So that in the above case people aren't getting sent two emails at the exact same time.
Can broadcast / live emails be sent in addition to people on a sequence?
- In addition to the above evergreen sequences, I also send broadcasts when relevant.
For those doing the math, my subscribers receive anywhere from 30-90 emails per month... and they are grateful for them.
Are there any ToS / concerns with high-value content-driven affiliate marketing on your platform?
- My entire business has shifted to a combination of Patreon (donation-based, not membership-based) + affiliate offers. I no longer sell my own courses & just give them away instead. As such, all of my sequence emails & broadcast emails are reader-focused and about as far away from 'spam' as possible (despite still having many affiliate links throughout the sequences & live broadcasts).
- I've browsed your ToS & I also saw some other Q&A concerned about affiliate marketing, and in the case of somebody like me I'd want to be sure that if I invest the weeks/months to migrate to SendFox, that my normal business operations would be well within what's needed to maintain good standing on SendFox.
- For reference, my open rates are typically 20%-22% and my spam / complaint rate is consistently under 0.01% (the first few emails to brand new subscribers sometimes goes as high as 0.05%). These rates are independent of whether or not I have affiliate links in the emails.
How well does your compliance team communicate -before- taking punitive actions such as throttling the sending and/or closing an account?
- Assuming I'm not being "spammy" with my affiliate promotions, if there were anything at all that brought my account and/or sending practices into question I'd want to have advance notice on what the concerns are and what would be considerable remedies. Granted, I don't foresee this as being an issue given the above open/spam rates - still, I'd like some reassurances that migrating is worth it.
While I know SendFox isn't remotely close to Ontraport in terms of features, my shift to email marketing only (no more product sales, affiliates, etc) makes SendFox the first alternative I've seriously considered in over 10 years.
I think that's all for now. :-)
David_SendFox
May 15, 2024A: Hey, Sumo-ling! Welcome to the conversation. Pull up a chair. Bathroom is down the hall to the left. 😛
Cool to see a long-time email marketer. I'm a long-time email marketer, too. And all of Sumo Group is really built on the foundation of email marketing. We've tried literally dozens of tools over the years, with subscriber lists ranging from 100 to 1,000,000+... and we built SendFox to solve our own needs. And we use it today.
We're very much email experts, who built a tool to make email marketing easier and better because we have so much experience. Cool to see someone else so experienced.
There are a few great questions here, so I'll try to distill them down into easy answers...
Yes, a daily automation is fine.
Yes, you can do multiple sequences and people can receive multiple sequences and campaigns — and you can add / remove from sequences based on interactions with a specific sequence.
No, we do not allow specification of time right now.
And yes, your emails should overall be fine. If they're emails that YOU would want to receive, and they get GOOD results... then it's OK. The people who get Optimized on SendFox have results literally at least 3x worse than industry standards. Our system automates this process, so it's always at least 3x worse. And the people get banned are those who get results FAR worse — or who do cold outreach, spam, fraud, etc.
My opinion is to give SendFox a try and dabble around. You get a 60-day refund guarantee, so what's to lose? You could literally save hundreds of dollars a month... or at the very least, you gave it a shot and got your money back. Easy!
Verified purchaser
Thanks for the quick & detailed reply! Yes, I'm on my list - and I still enjoy reading my emails... especially when I'm many months into a sequence, and I think after reading my own email, "Wow. That's a great idea. I think I'll try that!" :)
Seriously though - it's good to know that it's a pure technical determination because that favors me heavily as compared to almost any other high-volume email marketer I've known.
Now for more questions...
Is time-specification on the roadmap?
That's not a deal-breaker. It would be nice to know if it's in the "someday maybe" vs. "probably not ever" vs. "in the next 6-12 months probably" category.
What kind of email validation do you have on incoming email addresses? For example, do you auto-ban "info@" addresses or "postmaster@" ? Do you have any checks for known blacklist emails that you don't let even subscribe? Or is there some other form of verification such as recaptcha or real-time email verification?
Are custom fields anywhere on the roadmap?
Currently one feature that I LOVE with Ontraport is the ability to put a -global- custom field into an email, then update that field in my admin section.
For example: In my admin section, I might put a note that says "By the way, if you like these emails then please click here to support me on Patreon." and put that into a Custom Field. Then at the beginning of my emails I would put in the "Custom Field" so that the above message is displayed in every message that has that Custom Field.
Then a week later, I might change that message to say something like, "Quick FYI before today's message - I'm going to do a Facebook live at 3pm on Saturday - click here to visit my FB page and get notified when I go live."
The use case is quite practical: Because I have multiple evergreen sequences, of which one goes for a full year, the above global "Custom Field" gives me a way to market / message to my audience things that are relevant or time sensitive - without necessarily needing to send a live broadcast.
This feature was actually a defining requirement for me 10 years ago when I was evaluating Ontraport, Infusionsoft, Active Campaign, and many others.
While it wouldn't be a deal-breaker for SendFox, for me it's a HUGELY beneficial feature that is not very difficult to develop. Though obviously if nobody else cares or needs it, then it's understandable why it wouldn't be on the road map. (note: I used to be a software designer / Technical PM for Hitachi and Adobe, so I'm well-versed in product lifecycles, negotiating feature sets with developers, scope creep, etc)
Verified purchaser
Bonus questions... :)
When bringing in a new list, do contacts require being sent a confirmed optin message?
I understand the risks of importing without confirmed optin that SendFox would face. And, given how squeaky clean my list is (I also list-cleanse inactives every 90 days automatically) - it would be important for me to be able to import without requiring confirmation again.
Bonus related question now that I think about it: Are there any ways to automate list-cleansing in SendFox?
- For example, if a subscriber don't open/click every 90 days, he/she is sent a "warning" message... and 10 days later that person is unsubscribed (if they still haven't opened/clicked)?
Given how important it is to maintain a good sending reputation, especially since you're using shared servers, I would expect that in addition to your system throttling poor performers that it also has (at least on the roadmap) some kind of automated list-cleansing feature... even if it has to be done via some combination of automation & rules.