What Is My SMTP Server – What Kind Of SMTP Server You Need For Your Business

Digital marketing involves the use of the internet, social media, email, and other forms of marketing to promote and strengthen an organization as a brand. Email marketing is an essential and practical aspect of digital marketing. Enterprises view sending emails to customers as an efficient way to connect with them directly without any mediator.

Through professional marketing emails, enterprises can inform or pitch about the latest product launches, offers/deals, etc. But sending an email to your relative is entirely different and personal.

When you want to send an email to your friend or a relative, you can open your Gmail account and send it immediately. But imagine a brand with thousands of customers in its network. It would be difficult for a digital marketer to send thousands of marketing emails from a standard email software that a regular user requires.

It is where an SMTP email server comes to work. Timing and deliverability are the keys to the success of any email marketing campaign, and an SMTP server-free or paid assists businesses to get their marketing emails delivered to their clients without any hassle.

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Understanding SMTP & SMTP Server

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a protocol used for email communication. This protocol works in the background when you send/receive emails.

SMTP works alongside Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) to ensure that the email delivers to the intended address. It is the SMTP port that guides the MTA to transfer the email from the sender to the receiver’s SMTP server.

As the name suggests, the SMTP port is there to handle text messages. But we also can view pictures, videos, and files shared in an email. It is where the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) comes handy to encode those into a text to allow SMTP to transfer it across.

Once the email is received, the MIME extension in the recipient SMTP decodes the message and displays the actual email with text, pictures, videos, and attachments.

Why You Need An SMTP Server?

If you are looking to send bulk marketing emails, an SMTP server is the best option. While you can use traditional email services too for sending emails, imagine the time and resources needed to process thousands of email addresses manually.

But with SMTP servers, everything is effortless. Another reason that you cannot send bulk emails with your traditional email services is that some email services block sending marketing emails if detected.

outbound smtp relay
smtp outbound

Do You Need A Free, Dedicated Or A Third Party SMTP Server?

When it comes to smtp servers, there are several options, including:

  • Free SMTP Server
  • Dedicated SMTP Server
  • Third-Party SMTP Service

Free SMTP Server

If your organization deals with only a small number of customers in the range of 100-200, then two major free SMTP server examples that you can use are Google SMTP Server and Amazon SES. But if your organization deals with thousands of marketing emails a day; then, a free smtp server is not your ideal choice.

Another reason that corporations do not consider free smtp servers is that they are not reliable and do not guarantee 100% deliverability of emails.

Free smtp servers come with the following benefits:

  • Available for free
  • Easy to set up
  • Cut down your digital marketing costs to a great extent
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email hosting smtp

Dedicated SMTP Server

Enterprises that cater to thousands of customers would be required to send out a considerable number of marketing and promotional emails regularly. For them, free smtp servers would serve no good. They either need to seek the help of a third-party smtp service or set up their dedicated smtp server.

When compared with a commercial smtp server, a dedicated smtp server is ideal if the organization is willing to spend time, effort, and resources on maintaining that server. Because setting up an smtp server is a complicated task.

If you want to run a customized and dedicated smtp server, then it needs to be set up from scratch, including setting up the Mail Transfer Agent, Mail Delivery Agent, POP3/IMAP server, etc.

But once all the hard part of setting up the smtp server is over, then your organization would start reaping the benefits. With a dedicated smtp server, you can have the following advantages:

  • Total control over the server
  • Configure according to your requirements
  • Add tools and components according to your preferences
  • High-speed email delivery
  • Backup Emails
  • Enhanced security

Third-Party SMTP Server

If your enterprise doesn’t have the resources or time to maintain the smtp server, then you can opt for a commercial third-party smtp service. There are many smtp services out there that come with all the essentials.

You can choose the plan that suits your requirements. It takes a few minutes to set up, and then you are all set to send promotional emails to your customers.

With Third-party smtp email servers, you get the following benefits including:

  • Real-time monitoring and tracking
  • Real-time reporting/statistics
  • Delivery optimization
  • High-speed deliverability
  • Email automation and personalization
  • Insightful analytics
  • Inbuilt Email Templates
  • Easy to use template editor
  • Dedicated IP address
  • Sub-user management
  • Scalable infrastructure
  • Excellent customer support
outbound smtp
outbound mail relay

What Is My SMTP Server Address And How To Find It?

To configure your SMTP server to allow it to function properly and send bulk emails without getting blacklisted and to reach the customer’s inbox directly, you need to know the IP address. If you know the server name, then it is quite easy to find the IP address. Just open the command prompt and type the following “ping mail.yourserver.com” and press enter. The command prompt will display the following results like:

Pinging mail.yourserver.com [x.x.x.x] with 32 bytes of data

[x.x.x.x] is your IP address that you can use to configure your smtp server.

Final Words

The success of an organization’s email marketing campaign is determined based on the boost in sales, new customer leads, and increased traffic to the website. But it is the SMTP server example that is primarily responsible for seeing that every email sent is delivered to the intended audience.

If you can put in some time and money, then you can set up your dedicated smtp server and customize it according to your requirements. Hopefully, you have understood everything you wanted to know about questions like what is my smtp server based on the information provided with this smtp example.

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