Sendy Review – My Thoughts after using it
Looking for Sendy Review? then you are in the right place. In this post, I will let you know what sendy.co newsletter script will offer, what it cannot offer, and a few other things about sendy.
Table of Contents:
About Sendy:
Before going to review, it’s better to know what sendy is all about.
Most of you guys might have already aware of what it is. If you are not, then it is a self-hosted email marketing solution.
This means, instead of using standard email marketing services like Aweber, Mailchimp, etc., we are going to use our own stuff to do similar tasks.
For example, if you are going to use sendy as email newsletter software, then we need – software (here sendy), Amazon SES for sending emails, a domain name for sendy installation, and a server to host sendy script.
In this way, we will have full control over our list and save a lot of money by compromising a few common email marketing features which you can find on any other email marketing solution but not on sendy.
In short, sendy.co is a PHP script that offers a platform to send email newsletters to users by using our own server and Amazon SES platform.
I Tried Below Service Before Using Sendy
Before getting my hands on the sendy platform, I tried Aweber and MyMail WordPress Plugin. I like both the service, but both of them won’t properly suit my needs.
Here Why I Moved Away from Aweber..
1. Cost:
Aweber is a hosted email marketing platform that offers very nice features, but when it comes to the cost-it is pretty costly, and it’s recurring too. As per my business needs, Aweber seems to be pretty costly, moreover, I rarely used to send the newsletter to my subscribers. So Aweber is not the right solution for my business needs.
2. Scalability:
Aweber is good for users with small subscribers list, if your list starts growing then you will end up paying more than your website server cost! so in the long run Aweber won’t be a perfect solution at all.
To give you an idea, If you have 5,001+ subscribers in your list then you have to pay $69 monthly to maintain that list whether you send mails or not it won’t matter.
3. Use it or not, you have to pay full:
This is the one feature that I don’t like about Aweber. I’m not a regular email sender, but still, we need to pay the full amount for maintaining that email list.
These are the few things which I don’t like about Aweber. I mentioned Aweber here because I used only this service. It usually applies to all most all hosted email marketing solution.
Why I Moved Away from Mymail/Mailster Newsletter Plugin for WordPress:
After trying Aweber I did lot of research online to find solution to my newsletter problem. The solution that I found is, MyMail plugin. When I came across this MyMail plugin, I immediately bought and started integrating on my wordpress blog.
MyMail plugin is an excellent plugin, and it is also having lots of features. I loved it until I started facing some problems. The problem that I met with MyMail plugin is, It stopped handling bounce and complaints.
I did not notice that MyMail is not handling any bounced email address until I got a mail from Amazon SES saying-your account has been suspended due to a high bounce rate.
That’s the time I realized there is a problem with MyMail plugin in handling bounced mail. I contacted the developer regarding this, and he also failed to fix the problem.
It happened because, MyMail uses Gmail account to handle bounce and complaints, and Gmail recently introduced new security feature which is stopping MyMail plugin to login to Gmail account to handle bounce and complaints. That’s the time I started looking for other solution.
The next solution that I came across is Sendy.
Sendy Review
What I like About Sendy Newsletter Script:
When I started using sendy on my domain the first thing I noticed is a very nice user interface, little setup required to get started into the system and lightweight script.
After using the sendy newsletter script with Amazon SES, this is what I feel about that script.
1. Very Nice and Simple Design:
The first thing that I love about sendy is-its design. Sendy script comes with an Awesome user interface, you don’t find any much-complicated option, colors with this script. I simply love that minimal design.
2. Saves Hell lot of Money:
As I said earlier before I start using sendy I was with Aweber. When I was with Aweber my expenses are like 69$ Per month to maintain that list, and Now with sendy, my cost went to $1 per month, that too If I send a newsletter/emails or else I could save that money too.
For your information, I never calculated Server (I use Digital Ocean) and Domain cost here because I hosted sendy on the same server where my other domains are hosted.
3. Your list, Your Rules:
Some email marketing companies have strict rules regarding email lists. For example, some companies won’t allow you to bulk import your email list. Your list is always in control of someone else, you have to obey their rules or they will kick anytime.
In sendy, your list, your rules (excluding Amazon SES policy obviously)
4. Automatically Handles any Complaints, Bounce, and Spam:
When it comes to Email marketing you should take care of handling complaints, bounce and Spam complaints very seriously or else your newsletter won’t reach your subscriber inbox.
Sendy is primarily designed to work with Amazon SES, and they are using the Amazon HTTP protocol notification method to receive such complaints. Once the sendy receives any complaints it automatically handles it.
For example, If you got Hard bounced notification then sendy marks the email Has Bounced email ID and in future, it won’t send any email to that user. Thus you can maintain a good email list.
Few services like MyMail plugin need one separate Gmail account to handle such complaints. I strongly disagree with this type of method. Because of this and a few other features made me switch to this service.
5. Maintain all Email List in One Domain:
When I was using the MyMail plugin, building a List for different domains is a tedious process, and there are a lot of difficulties involved in that. If I start mentioning here, then it will be another big post. So I will avoid pointing all those here.
With Sendy, You can easily collect email leads from as many domains as you want by installing sendy on only one domain.
It will be very easy to manage all your list under one roof than installing domain-specific Plugins like MyMail. This is a perfect solution for the users who are having multiple sites and want to collect and manage your email leads all at one destination.
Isn’t it a cool feature? It is.
6. Save Time and Energy:
Think that you have 10 Domains, and you will install any newsletter plugin for all those 10 domains to collect email IDS. If you go with a premium plugin then you may need to buy a separate license for each domain.
Moreover, if you need to send the newsletter to any of those 2 domains then you need to go to a specific domain, then login to your site, go to the plugin page, and create a new campaign.
It takes some time to do all those steps. How about managing all those different Domains Newsletter tasks under one roof? sendy perfectly suits for this job.
Previously I installed newsletter plugin on each domain, and I was spending most of my time just navigating here and there to schedule newsletter. After moving to sendy, my newsletter task is managed all under one roof. This feature helps a lot for most of them.
7. Nice Support from Developer: (No support these days)
In some cases we need support. Sendy is a developer who is offering excellent support through Sendy Forum and by mail as well. Most of my queries are answered by the developer within 24 hours. I love their support.
8. Multiple Brand:
In sendy, brands are nothing but different domains. This means you can collect email subscribers from different domains by creating separate brands here.
Currently, I used to create different brands per domain.
For example, I created PushIncome.com as one brand to collect email leads for this domain. This is how multiple brand feature is going to work in sendy script.
This is really nice feature. By using this feature we can easily collect and manage all email list at one place instead of installing sendy for each and every domain.
10. Allow Client to Send Newsletter:
Sendy allows you to add your clients to send newsletter. You can use this option by clicking on “Edit” link on Brands page. This feature might not be helpful for everyone, but definitely it will be useful someone who manages clients.
In client manage page you can provide the client login email id, password, campaign Fees, set monthly limit and other option here. All the payments made by your clients will directly sent to your paypal account.
11. Multiple List for Each Brands:
Sendy allows you to create multiple lists for each brand, by this way you can build as many email lists as you want for that particular brand or domain.
For example, If I created PushIncome.com as a brand, in that brand I can easily create Blog subscribers as one list who receives all blog post updates and special offers alert as one more list where users only receive special offers alerts. Both the list will have different subscription forms to collect subscribers. This is how you can make use of different lists in sendy.
If you wish to see more information about that list, then just click on that list name. It will take you to the detailed stats about that list subscribers. Here you can import all the subscribers to list, delete any subscribers, mass unsubscribe users or you can also export all the subscribers easily as well.
12. Custom Filed:
Need to collect More information from subscribers? then you can make use of custom field option which comes under list. Here you can create as many fields as you wish. For example if you wish to collect your subscriber Date of birth, then you can do it by using this option.
13. Autoresponders:
If you need to send Autorepsonders for any particular list, then you can set by going to that particular list and by clicking on that Autoresponders option.
14. Subscribe Form:
With Subscribe Form you can place a subscription form on any domain or page to start collecting subscribers. Just copy that HTML code and paste it on any web page to start collecting subscribers.
15. List Settings:
In List settings you can enable whether that list should have single opt-in or double opt-in, you can also configure subscription and unsubscription confirmation page, subscription and unsubscription message for each list.
16. Beautiful Reports:
In Reports tab you can see the detailed reports of each campaign that you sent.
To see detailed reports of any email campaign or newsletter, just click on that campaign and it will display full report of that particular campaign. In that report you can see stats like Which Link on that email got most clicks, last 10 emails opened users, last 10 unsubscribed users, last 10 bounced email, last 10 marked as spam users, which are all Country users opened your email.
17. New Campaign Tab:
In “Create new Campaign” tab is the place where we are going to create new email campaign on sendy script. Currently Sendy newsletter script won’t come up with any newsletter template by default. So if you want to send any beautifully designed newsletter, then you have to do your research online to get the sendy newsletter template and use it here or else just send with bare design.
Sendy supported essential html tags are listed below the page. Use the tags which are required on your email campaign. Don’t forget to add unsubscribe tag, because sendy won’t do this automatically.
Currently sendy supports Plain text email and HTML email. But the thing is, sendy send or show plain text email only when user client won’t supports for HTML emails.
18. Sendy Settings:
Under sendy settings here we will configure some mandatory sendy configuration like Adding amazon SES details like AWS Access Key ID, AWS Secret Access Key and your amazon SES region.
If you are someone who have client and wish to receive to payments form clients, then you can add your Paypal email ID in this page.
These are the features you currently get on sendy newsletter script.
Things Sendy Is Missing…
Sendy is a beautiful email marketing script, but it still missing some important features in it. Below is the list of feature which I felt was missing on Sendy.
1. Force to add “Unsubscribe” link in all Campaigns:
Sometimes we may miss adding Unsubscribe link manually on every mail that we send. I think developer should make sendy to alert when we try to send newsletter without Unsubscribe link.
2. No Template support:
I think this is one of the main features which is currently lacking in Sendy script. Currently, sendy don’t come up with newsletter template support in it. If you need to add a template in sendy, then you need to Copy paste the HTML code on the editor.
3. No support for other then Amazon SES:
Sendy is built to use it with Amazon SES. If you wish to use sendy with other providers like a mandrill, then sendy won’t support it. You can use sendy with Mandrill as well, but the problem is sendy won’t handle bounce, complaints.
4. No RSS to Email:
If you are a blogger then you might miss this feature a lot. Currently, sendy won’t automatically compile our latest blog post and send it to our subscribers.
5. No Advance Segmetation:
If you look at any premium email marketing solution like an active campaign, you will see a segmentation option. Sendy also offers segmentation, but its segmentation feature is useless.
6. Lead Scoring:
There is no such lead scoring option in sendy.
7. Not for Advanced Email marketing users:
If you are goal is just to collect, send some autoresponder (not advanced), send broadcast emails, and save some money, then sendy is the right fit for you.
If you are looking for an advanced email marketing feature, then I highly recommend an active campaign for sure.
Sendy Bonus:
If you are interested in buying sendy.co newsletter script, then you can buy from my link and get the below sendy bonus.
1) Sendy Autoresponder Webhook Script:
The sendy script cannot move subscribers from one list to another after all the autoresponder emails have been sent.
Let’s consider you have two lists. One list is Welcome Sequence, and another is LIVE List Sequence.
After all the autoresponder emails are sent on Welcome Sequence, if you need to move a subscribers to a new list called LIVE List Sequence, then you need a webhook script to do this functionality to achieve this feature. I have written a webhook script to do this feature.
You can learn more about this script here.
How to Get my Sendy Bonus:
1) Clear your Brower Cookies. I may miss the sale credit if you click on any other link so.
2) Visit sendy.co by clicking here and buy the sendy newsletter script
3) Send your sendy receipt to arun [at] pkarun.com
4) Once I receive the sale credit, I will give access to the sendy webhook script
Conclusion:
Sendy is an excellent script for email marketing. But it is not for everyone. Because sendy uses Amazon SES service, which means all the newsletter you send should adhere to their policy or else you will be suspended or banned from using Amazon SES service.
In general, if your planning to send “Buy this, Buy That” (only promotional or Spam sort mail) type of newsletter, then its better to stay away from sendy. If you are someone who is offering valuable content to your subscriber, then sendy will perfectly fit for your use case.
Visit: Sendy.co | Digital Ocean | Amazon SES | Aweber |Mailster Plugin | Active Campaign
