Three email sending programs review.

In this review (divided into several individual articles) I will try to examine three Email Sending programs:

•  Atomic Email Sender (Version 5.08 April, 2009) from AtomPark Software
  
•  Bulk Mailer Professional from Live Software or www.email-unlimited.com  (Current version: 6.1 Release Date: 24.03.2009) 
• G-Lock EasyMail from G-Lock Software (Version: 6.50 Released: March 25, 2009) 

Software above is Windows OS compatible. All 3 programs being examined as free trials. 

My choice was based on top-10 Google search results by bulk email software query. Variety of sponsored links displayed makes me think that this market is quite popular among software development companies. 

I will probably start in alphabetical order with Atomic Email Sender.

Click here to download free trial of Atomic Sender with restriction of 50 emails at a time. 

AtomPark Software offers about 10 different programs designed for email marketing. If money is not an issue and you feel kind of newbie to this business then try Atomic Email Studio which includes all 10 modules as a suite: Sender, Email Verifier, Email Hunter, Email Autoresponder, etc. But when only Email Sending tool is needed go into purchasing Atomic Sender only. Note that besides sending email out it has some other facilities as described below.

Start-up snap-shot:

Click here to enlarge snapshot

As you can see, 80% of the main screen occupies HTML editor. I noticed that you can send either text only (not as HTML formatted test, but specifically plain text message) or HTML based emails. Go to Format menu to switch between these options. 

HTML message layout:

Click here to enlarge snapshot

This nice looking html message was loaded from free templates which come with the program and can be edited according to your needs. 

Now I will show you how to start using Atomic Sender providing step-by-step instructions. 

At first this program needs proper smtp settings. SMTP is the outgoing mail server used together with program. Select sending method in How to send mail drop-down menu:

Directly – means that program will use so-called built-in smtp server. You have less chances to use it if your ISP blocks port 25 (like Comcast, Cox, Verizon and many others. Even if it is open, having residential IP address, most of your emails will end up in a junk folder. Here a good question arises: “What is it used for then?”. I feel that this option is of a great advantage when you install Atomic Sender on a server or use it together with Exchange server. However, this needs further testings. 

Directly on errors use SMTP – If direct method fails too often (recipient’s SMTP replies will aborting command) Atomic Sender will try send failed email through your SMTP server.  

Directly for some domains use SMTP. Use it when sending email to some specific domain constantly fails. 

External SMTP – Here you can add smtp server of your Company or ISP or, for instance, Gmail smtp server. For example these are the settings you should use when setting up Gmail smtp:

1. At first you set it as External SMTP only and add smtp.gmail.com into the server list. 
2. For smtp.gmail.com set port 587. 
3. ESMTP authentication is used for almost all SMTPs including Gmail. Then put in your login (full gmail email address including @gmail.com) and password for Google mail.
4. Finally select TLS encryption.  Enter your gmail address into Sender email box.  

Click here for information regarding setting up Atomic Sender with  ISP servers from the US and Canada. 

That’s it. You are almost set to send something out. 

Be aware that free Gmail account lets you send 100-300 emails per day only.

So, once you composed your message, you should load a list of your recipients. Click on Send button. Let’s check what lists Atomic Sender is capable to handle. 

On the right menu it says: Import mailing list. Ok. That’s easy..

- From file or database. I checked what formats appear to be available: .txt .csv .xls .doc .mdb

It is really nice and covers almost all wide spread file formats. But here comes the first tricky question. What if you had, say G-Lock EasyMail mailing list and then switched to Atomic Sender? Will it open .txt mailing list initially saved in G-Lock EasyMail program?

I’m going to test it. But a little bit later. 

- From clipboard. Click on this once you have your emails copied in any other program. 

- From Outlook Address book.  Great feature, really helpful if you previously used Outlook to send your Newsletter. But note that it exports them all,  some personal email can be transferred as well. 

When done with importing emails, hit on Send mail button on top. See your list loaded into Send Mail Monitor and hit on Send. Boom! Now, if everything were set correctly you see list going down,  emails marked as sent in green and maybe some in red, if email address is not reachable.   

Sometimes it is important to keep reports of sent emails. Atomic Sender provides the following types of reports (After you click on Reports button under Send Mail Monitor):

Send mail monitor and Delivery report snapshot:

Click here to enlarge picture above.

- Successfully sent report provides you with a list of  emails went through.

-Not sent yet (queued) shows email addresses of emails you yet have to resend. Seems one need it when you aborted or paused sending process.

- Not send (failed) gives you a list of email addresses program could not deliver. 

- Failed SMTP connections report - same as Not send (failed) but with detailed technical report. Useful when you contact technical support or keep for personal review. Helps to understand why email was not sent. 

Save report to:

• MS Excel  - transfers report to guess where?...Microsoft Excel! :)
• Windows clipboard. Some people ask where then to find clipboard on computer? Don't do that. Once you select copy Windows clipboard  paste report into any other program. Like MS Word or any other text editor. 
• Text file. I suppose that's clear. 

Atomic Sender has one really outstanding feature. If it accidentally crashes or was closed somehow, next time when you turn it on you will see a pop-up window notifying that there was a crash and show you  list of emails you should continue sending with. 

So, at this point you finished sending emails and probably saved your report. What should you do next and what features does this program offer?

Here is a list of other most useful options:

• Manage opt-outs 
• Manage bounced-back messages
• Schedule email sending
• Personalize your next message
• Switch language to: Spanish, Turkish, Russian, Portuguese, Greek, Frensh, Deutsch

Click here to download free trial of Atomic Sender with restriction of 50 emails at a time. 

Will be continued...