Page Comparison

This section describes the different ways through which MailUp can be used to send email messages to groups and lists of users without accessing the administration console. The methods described above can be used to send individual, personalized messages, such as transactional emails. However, if the goal is to send large amounts of messages or DEMs, the best practice to follow is described below.

Some possible scenarios are presented here - with the indication of the web services to be used - as examples of common scenarios. This is in no way an exhaustive overview of all the possible scenarios.

Please note that these examples cases do not talk about authentication. Please refer to the related documentation for details on authentication.

Case 1: email message and recipients exist in the MailUp admin console

You may want to send a message to a group of users and both the message and the recipients list are already available in the MailUp console.

1. If the message has to be sent to all the recipients in a list the suggested method is WS_MailUpSend.SendNewsletter method. Parameters "send_to = ALL" , list ID, message ID and time and date of sending must be specified. Message and list IDs can be found at the page Settings > Codes Tables  in the MailUp console, or using GetLists() and GetNewsletters() methods.
2. If the recipients are just some groups in a list, when calling the SendNewsletter() method the group IDs must be specified as well.
3. If the users share data that can be extracted using one of the MailUp filters (personal data, activity and geolocation filters, available in the Marketing+ package) when calling the SendNewsletter() method the filter to be applied must be indicated as well. Filters can be used in addition or as an alternative to groups. The great advantage of using them lies in the fact that all the users matching a certain condition are automatically included in the filter results, whereas a user must be inserted into a group for group membership.

Case 2: not all recipients exist in the MailUp admin console

Similar to Example 1, but in this case a group of recipients has to be imported as well. Some of these recipients might be already subscribed in MailUp due to a previous signup to a newsletter, some others might be new subscribers. Here below some alternative solutions are listed:

1. Through WS_MailUpImport methods a new temporary group is created (CreateGroup(groupName)) and a group of recipients is imported to it (StartImportProcess(groupID, recipients,…)). This operation may last several minutes, depending on how large the group is, and it can be monitored using GetProcessDetails(). Once the import is finished, SendNewsletter(groupID) method can be used to perform the sending. At the end of the process the group which was created for the purpose must be deleted using DeleteGroup(). This procedure applies to SMS sending as well: in that case, the method to be used is WS_MailUpSend.SendSMS method.
   
   
2. The procedure described here above is less effective when there are large amounts of data to be imported, so it may be useful to use an alternative procedure that provides for a "bulk" import from a file following an input via web service. SendMessageNL(fileName, listId, messageId, timeDateSending,…) method allows to schedule a sending for the desired time and date, then asynchronously executes the following operations:
   
   1. Creation of a temporary group named "Automatic NN", where NN is a progressive number
   2. Import to this group of the recipients indicated in the file
   3. Sending of the message at the scheduled time and date
      
   4. Deletion of the temporary group
   5. 
      

Case 3: creating and sending a message via the MailUp API

In some cases it may be necessary to import into MailUp a message created using an external system. The CreateNewsletters() method allows the creation of a new message where the parameter to be passed is the body of the message (html, text or URL that points to the html file).
It is also possible to use the SendNewsletterFast() method, which conveys to a single call the information that can be drawn from the calls to CreateNewsletters() and SendNewsletter() methods.

Case 4: cloning a message to track separate mailings

Most customers need to track campaign results. When the same message is sent more than once (three different times, to three different groups), statistics are accumulated and pertain to all mailings, not the three individual mailings. To get around this issue, you can make a copy of a message by cloning it using the CloneMessage() method: once the copy has been created, the sending can be performed as described above as this is treated as a completely new mailing for a completely separate message (even if the actual message being sent is identical to another one). 

Case 5: massive sending of personalized messages via Web Services

If you are in need to send a high number of personalized messages through the API, please contact us. We can create custom MailUp configurations for you that will address your needs. For example, we worked with a Web site that needed to send hundreds of thousands of personalized alerts on a daily basis, and needed to do so through the MailUp API.

Case 6: handling bulk mailings via FTP instead of using Web Services

Batch FTP ZIP is a special configuration that can be optionally set up on your MailUp account that which allows you to import via batch a zip file containing the recipients list, the html message to be sent, and a configuration file that defines the mailing details (date, time and so on). Please note that this is not a standard service and is available for an extra charge. For technical details see Batch FTP ZIP: create and send a message via FTP 

Handling bulk mailings via Web Services

Best practices for sending text messages (SMS)

Please refer to this page

Best practices for management of lists and groups

Please refer to this page