Email Distribution in 2012 - Suggestions?

What works for a big list (500,000+)?

[cnvi]

We have a huge email distribution list that we use primarily to communicate to our customers new products, changes, any security or system notices, etc. Our email contact list is all legally obtainined through relationships with our customers over many years. No purchased email lists.

In the past we have tried constantcontact (expensive) or free server based scripts such as dadamail (a little slow even with 100mb) and some other services I won't mention here due to their poor performance (emails slow to get out, ended up on spam lists, etc).

Any suggestions for fast, affordable, email distribution in 2012 that doesnt cause spam problems? I can go either in house or use a third party service. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Hard to see >500,000 emails being treated as anything other than spam?

[cnvi]

Yeah I know but our list is that big. 15 years of business grew the list nicely. We suspect 30-40% are old non working addresses.

[mattb]

You might check out 3rd party providers such as Bronto, Listrak, Experian,Responsys, etc. They can provide a good analytics driven approach to dealing with your email needs. An example: To increase open rates, the bulk email is resent to those that did not open the first one with a different subject line. They will also help you harvest new email addresses and manage the unsubscribes, etc.

[onlineleben]

Before you go for a new application, clean up your current list.
Get rid of the bounces. With your estimated 200,000 bad/old email addresses you could easily end up in the spam filters. With 200K mails not to send, your current application also will become faster.

[cnvi]

yes thanks onlineleben thats my plan. I am looking for a third party that will first help me clean up the list. I appreciate the previous suggestions by mattb. I am going to try Bronto. If anyone else has any other suggestions that are my-own-server script based (not third party), please let me know!