Worried about using MailChimp to send member information [closed]

Question

This is more of a theoretical question because I respect the opinions of those who frequent this website. Also, the MailChimp staff still have not replied to my urgent email sent over a week ago.

I'm worried about using MailChimp for my web application because I can't allow users to "unsubscribe" for certain notifications when they NEED to be getting these emails.

Mandrill works great ... but I can't use it to broadcast to multiple people at a time.

Is this a justified worry? Is there any way around this? There must be an answer to safely sending necessary bulk emails to a member-base that requires such emails.

I appreciate your input.

Answer 1

I work on the Mandrill team and saw your question and thought I could help. I don't have access to the MailChimp support queue, but I thought I'd add some detail on using Mandrill since Mandrill is probably a good fit for the type of emails you're sending.

With MailChimp, because it's designed for bulk email, you absolutely have to allow recipients to unsubscribe. There's not a way to remove the unsubscribe link and MailChimp's system is designed to detect when an unsubscribe link isn't present and stop the emails from being sent. Adding back people who have previously unsubscribed is problematic, and the MailChimp list management functions are designed to prevent adding people back who have unsubscribed in the past.

Mandrill, however, doesn't strictly require an unsubscribe link because it typically doesn't make sense for people to unsubscribe from transactional and one-time emails or notifications. You can send any legal, non-spam messages through Mandrill (including bulk email). If you're sending bulk, you would just need to be aware of and abide by the laws and regulations that govern your emails (such as requirements for unsubscribe links).

You can send to more than one person at a time with Mandrill, as described here: https://mandrill.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205582557-Can-I-send-to-more-than-one-recipient-at-a-time-

If you're using the SMTP integration, you can specify up to 1000 recipients for your To: field. If you're using the API, you can specify as many recipients as needed in the 'to' array: https://mandrillapp.com/api/docs/messages.html#method=send

Feel free to email Mandrill support by clicking on the 'Submit a Request' link at help.mandrill.com if you need more info on using Mandrill.