C# – Best Practices and Etiquette for Setting up Email Notifications

asp.netcemailweb-development

If you were going to set up a Email Alerts for the customers of your website to subscribe to, what rules of etiquette ought to be followed?

I can think of a few off the top of my head:

  • Users can Opt-Out
  • Text Only (Or tasteful Remote Images)
  • Not sent out more than once a week
  • Clients have fine-grained control over what they receive emails about (Only receive what they are interested in)

What other points should I consider?

From a programming standpoint, what is the best method for setting up and running email notifications?

  • Should I use an ASP.NET Service? A Windows Service? What are the pitfalls to either?
  • How should I log emails that are sent? I don't care if they're received, but I do need to be able to prove that I did or did not send an email.

Best Answer

The Opt-Out Process should NOT be "Reply to the email with 'unsubscribe' in the subject". I use a catch-all for all my subscriptions (helps control spam) because of that I can't reply from every address that I give out (wallmart_username@domain.com). Making it really hard for me to unsubscribe from certain lists.

Opt-Out links work the best.