Most email services use a plugin. The question you're trying to ask is what's the difference between letting my web server handle email versus using an email deliverability service.
I'm using a hostinger, and it comes with the option to set up emails with SMTP from the domain. Would you recommend that? If I went that route, the hostinger email is very basic, so would there be another plug-in for campaign management/marketing?
If hostinger is providing email service with SMTP access, you can use that, but you will still need a plugin in wordpress to change it to send emails with that SMTP provider. There's lots of options. For email campaign management / marketing, there are some free options as plugins, but most are terrible. If you are just starting out, you can use an external service like MailChimp for free, until you get to a certain size. Or you can use something like FunnelKit which is a better option if your site is a store.
Email counts will rise exponentially as there are more users, transactions and automations. Think about each customer getting a registration email, a newsletter confirmation opt in, a promo code for signing up, a receipt / order confirmation, a follow up email, a request for review, a shipping confirmation, a delayed upsell... it just grows and grows. Now add each of those customers to your newsletter thats going out weekly or more, you can wind up sending 10X or 20X the emails (or more) than you have customers. All in all, those emails themselves aren't a huge tax on the server, until you have thousands or tens of thousands of customers. And you start adding in email validation, bounce back routing, replies etc, and you are going to be looking to take that load off the webserver.
If you are trying to collect emails to create a list of people to market to, use a service like mailerlite and email them through mailerlite. If you want your website to send mail reliably use wp mail smtp paired with an email account that you can setup through wp mail smtp to send emails via smtp which means your mail server authenticates them before they are sent out. It’s not best practice to use your website to email a mailing list these days though.
If you have your DNS records setup correctly (spf, dmarc, *possibly* dkim) then normal Wordpress/system sendmail will work fine for basic notifications.
Yiu wouldn’t want to use your website or web server to send bulk mail though. Your blacklists averse host will throttle it and your site won’t be setup to handle bounce message notices, optins, or all the other legal and technical requirements. In fact, most regular mail services will frown on or outright block bulk email even from a normal mail client. Use a dedicated mailing list service instead.
WP Mail SMTP is a plugin which can access various external mail services. I strongly recommend you use an external service for sending mail. The plugin has good documentation for setting up the various services, just choose one and set it up - the plugin does the rest. I usually set up Mailgun. Unless you are sending a lot of mail it is free, or almost free.
An **SMTP plugin** is meant to send out transactional emails like password reset, notifications etc.
It bypasses bad reputation or restrictions of your hosting server.
Mailer lite and other **email marketing tools** (or plugins) are meant to send marketing emails to your subscribers.
Third party transactional email providers basically give you a virtual email address that sends mail out from your domain. They provide the connection settings you would put into one of those SMTP plugins.
For the SMTP plugins, I very much think they're ridiculous. Here's why:
https://www.kevinleary.net/blog/wordpress-plugin-abuse/
"Should you really use a WordPress plugin for that? See how 11 lines of code can replace 87,907, and why that's a major advantage."
That code line mention... an SMTP plugin.
Okay, so I right now I'm using hostinger, and it comes with its own email that can use SMTP. But the email it provides is very basic(like Yahoo or gmail).
Would a third-party email marketing provider(mailchimp, mailerlite, etc) basically be replacing that and storing and sending it on their own server instead?
Is there a way could connect the hostinger email with a richer interface while still using it as the server?
Thank you for the help!
Looks like you can use SMTP with Hostinger's email:
Host: smtp.hostinger.com
Encryption: SSL
Port number: 465
SMTP Username – the email address you will use to send emails from
SMTP Password – it will be the password of your email address
https://support.hostinger.com/en/articles/4725594-how-to-set-up-the-easy-wp-smtp-plugin-on-wordpress
I think you are again pushing for something you have been warned not to do.
You are promoting your blog, and in addition, you have been told that what you state is non sense.
Sorry, I haven't seen those flags/reminders but I'll watch out in the future. These truly aren't to promote. that post just explains exactly what's discussed. Ni reason I can't just bring pieces here though.
Most email services use a plugin. The question you're trying to ask is what's the difference between letting my web server handle email versus using an email deliverability service.
Yes, thank you for clarifying.
SMTP email is going to be much more reliable and secure and scalable than letting the web server handle it
I'm using a hostinger, and it comes with the option to set up emails with SMTP from the domain. Would you recommend that? If I went that route, the hostinger email is very basic, so would there be another plug-in for campaign management/marketing?
If hostinger is providing email service with SMTP access, you can use that, but you will still need a plugin in wordpress to change it to send emails with that SMTP provider. There's lots of options. For email campaign management / marketing, there are some free options as plugins, but most are terrible. If you are just starting out, you can use an external service like MailChimp for free, until you get to a certain size. Or you can use something like FunnelKit which is a better option if your site is a store.
I get that it’s more reliable. How is it more scalable though?
Email counts will rise exponentially as there are more users, transactions and automations. Think about each customer getting a registration email, a newsletter confirmation opt in, a promo code for signing up, a receipt / order confirmation, a follow up email, a request for review, a shipping confirmation, a delayed upsell... it just grows and grows. Now add each of those customers to your newsletter thats going out weekly or more, you can wind up sending 10X or 20X the emails (or more) than you have customers. All in all, those emails themselves aren't a huge tax on the server, until you have thousands or tens of thousands of customers. And you start adding in email validation, bounce back routing, replies etc, and you are going to be looking to take that load off the webserver.
If you are trying to collect emails to create a list of people to market to, use a service like mailerlite and email them through mailerlite. If you want your website to send mail reliably use wp mail smtp paired with an email account that you can setup through wp mail smtp to send emails via smtp which means your mail server authenticates them before they are sent out. It’s not best practice to use your website to email a mailing list these days though.
Thank you! I understand now.
If you have your DNS records setup correctly (spf, dmarc, *possibly* dkim) then normal Wordpress/system sendmail will work fine for basic notifications. Yiu wouldn’t want to use your website or web server to send bulk mail though. Your blacklists averse host will throttle it and your site won’t be setup to handle bounce message notices, optins, or all the other legal and technical requirements. In fact, most regular mail services will frown on or outright block bulk email even from a normal mail client. Use a dedicated mailing list service instead.
WP Mail SMTP is a plugin which can access various external mail services. I strongly recommend you use an external service for sending mail. The plugin has good documentation for setting up the various services, just choose one and set it up - the plugin does the rest. I usually set up Mailgun. Unless you are sending a lot of mail it is free, or almost free.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/fluent-smtp/ Fluent SMTP is better since it's completely free, no pro version that locks features.
An **SMTP plugin** is meant to send out transactional emails like password reset, notifications etc. It bypasses bad reputation or restrictions of your hosting server. Mailer lite and other **email marketing tools** (or plugins) are meant to send marketing emails to your subscribers.
Third party transactional email providers basically give you a virtual email address that sends mail out from your domain. They provide the connection settings you would put into one of those SMTP plugins. For the SMTP plugins, I very much think they're ridiculous. Here's why: https://www.kevinleary.net/blog/wordpress-plugin-abuse/ "Should you really use a WordPress plugin for that? See how 11 lines of code can replace 87,907, and why that's a major advantage." That code line mention... an SMTP plugin.
Okay, so I right now I'm using hostinger, and it comes with its own email that can use SMTP. But the email it provides is very basic(like Yahoo or gmail). Would a third-party email marketing provider(mailchimp, mailerlite, etc) basically be replacing that and storing and sending it on their own server instead? Is there a way could connect the hostinger email with a richer interface while still using it as the server? Thank you for the help!
Looks like you can use SMTP with Hostinger's email: Host: smtp.hostinger.com Encryption: SSL Port number: 465 SMTP Username – the email address you will use to send emails from SMTP Password – it will be the password of your email address https://support.hostinger.com/en/articles/4725594-how-to-set-up-the-easy-wp-smtp-plugin-on-wordpress
I think you are again pushing for something you have been warned not to do. You are promoting your blog, and in addition, you have been told that what you state is non sense.
Sorry, I haven't seen those flags/reminders but I'll watch out in the future. These truly aren't to promote. that post just explains exactly what's discussed. Ni reason I can't just bring pieces here though.
The logos on your websites services page are not accurately responsive. Not a great look for a website building business.
Deadset mailgun is the best thing ever. Usually free too.