Frequently asked questions…

“How many email campaigns can I run with the Auto-Mail software?”

There’s no limit to the number of e-mail campaigns you can create and operate with the Abacus
Auto-Mail software.

You should create a campaign for each product line or service that you offer. For example, if you run a pet care business, you might run a mail campaign for dog care, another for cat care, etc. If your products can be sub-categorized further, e.g., by breed of dog, you’d probably make a campaign for each breed.

“How many messages can I send in a single campaign?”

Mail campaigns rarely exceed about 30 messages. If you have a huge inventory of products or services in any one category, however, you can send up to 999 messages in each mail campaign. That’s an e-mail a day for 2 years and 9 months!

“Can I send attachments with my e-mails?”

No, for a very good reason. Experienced business owners who run mail campaigns NEVER send attachments with messages, because of the enormous load they’d put on the server, the bandwidth and the Internet generally. If you were to send, say, 5,000 e-mails with an attachment, something would be likely to break down, preventing the messages from reaching their destinations.

Astute business owners adopt the method of including in their messages a link to the document,
e-book, file, or whatever it is. A simple alternative, with zero overhead.

Quite apart from the technical advantage of a link instead of an attachment, if you need to update the document, you cannot do so if it’s been sent out physically. You can do so, however, if it’s a document on your web site. Then all the e-mails you send out will always enable the recipients to see the latest version.

“Can I send e-mails in HTML format?”

Yes. You can choose to send your e-mail messages in HTML or plain-text format. Plain text is recommended for three reasons:

First, some recipients may use a plain-text-only e-mail reader, which would make an HTML message difficult to read.

Second, e-mail clients, such as Outlook, and protection programs, such as ZoneAlarm, may filter out HTML messages, and dump them in a “junk” folder, converting them to plain text in the process.

Third, HTML e-mails are often much bigger than plain text files, and would eat into your load limits and decrease performance levels.

“What if my web host tells me that I’m exceeding my e-mail limits?”

This is usually not a problem. They should just increase your limit. They may or may not make a nominal charge for the extra traffic.

Web hosts are concerned about their servers being used for spamming. You may have to assure them that you’re not a spammer, and that all your e-mail recipients have opted in to your service.

“What if I can’t set up the Auto-Mail software correctly?”

If the software is not set up correctly, it won’t work. This is a very common problem when a user has to set up mail software on a web server, because it requires technical expertise. That’s the reason why Abacus has made the Auto-Mail software self-configuring. Some web hosts, however, do not allow automatic configuration. In these cases, all you’d need to do is change the access permissions of three files. This is explained in detail on the ‘Support’ page, and is very easy to do.

On the ‘Support’ page there’s a table of web hosts with relevant information about this. Abacus uses the Site5 web hosting company, and everything always runs smoothly… and they’re cheap!

This form is only to show you how the Auto-Mail software automates the "sales funnel" process for your prospects. You will not really get a report about dogs. You’ll get a (short) series of e‑mails, as if you were a potential customer.

(The form with the anti-spam-robot check that you see here was created in a few seconds, using the Form Designer of the Abacus Auto-Mail software.)

We respect your privacy. Your contact details will not be divulged to anyone.