Why I sent 10 copies of the exact same email to my entire list yesterday

Yesterday my entire list got approximately 10 copies of an email I sent. Some people got a few less than 10 emails. A couple people said they got something like 15. But most said 10 — all arriving in their inboxes at virtually the same time. And out of the 100 or so replies I got from it, I (so far) have only heard from one irate person (some insurance salesman dweeb) who had to let me know he unsubscribed because I send just too many darn emails, as if that was a typical day in Mr. Settle’s neighborhood. The vast majority of the replies were helpful, just letting me know (which I certainly appreciated), and some of them even wondering if it was a problem on their end. Many people found it amusing and were joking with me about it (i.e., “Ben I know you like emails, but isn’t this a bit much!”) A few souls were curious if it was some kind of new email tactic I was testing. A couple people decided to give me a testimonial. (I did not see that one coming). And in one case, some idiot tried using it as an excuse to extort a free product from me. I suspect it was quite annoying for most everyone though. I know I would have been annoyed if I got 10 emails at the same time from someone. So, what was going on? Was it really some kind of new email tactic I was testing, bombarding people with 10+ copies of the same email in one shot to get attention and sales? Did I push the wrong button? Did BerserkerMail go “berserk”? The super short answer: No. The longer answer: BerserkerMail uses a bunch of different servers. And each provides different sub systems to the platform. i.e., We have multiple different servers that handle clicks and multiple different servers that handle delivering emails and multiple different servers that handle reporting and multiple different servers that handle the interface, etc. And what happened was in a specific “magic” 10 minute time window: 1. The server specifically responsible for sending my emails at that time failed 2. The secondary server specifically responsible for preventing duplicates of my emails at that time failed 3. My email just happened to go out in that exact same time window Yeesh. Servers failing isn’t at all uncommon. Apple’s literally just failed the other day. And AWS (which nearly all SaaS platforms you probably rely on uses — and has the most up time of anyone else, I believe) has gone down several times in the last few years. When it happens to Facebook the whole world freaks out. So server failures have always happened, always will happen, and are simply the game. And one reason why we use so many different servers is to prevent as much down time as possible. If one server goes down, others can pick up the slack — which is why I was the only one effected and no other BerserkerMail clients. What is uncommon though is what happened to me yesterday. Apparently the chances of all that happening, to those exact servers, being used in that exact same tight time frame, amongst the diverse number of servers we use, was like getting stuck by lightning on a sunny day. Lucky me! But annoyed people aside, it really wasn’t all that bad. The opt-outs were understandably higher than usual. But I only got 3 spam complaints yesterday. Which is 3 more than I usually get on a typical day. But, really, not that big a deal. And while I am not suggesting sending 10 copies of the same email at the same time on purpose or wishing for it to happen on accident… it was probably a net positive, if for no other reason than it is making for a teaching moment I might as well take advantage of here. For example: 1. The 100 or so direct replies I got are at least somewhat potentially good for long term inbox delivery — engagement is the coin of the realm in a lot of ways when it comes to inboxing, and the more you get, the better. It’s one reason why “drive by” troll replies are ultimately useful. 2. It was a very successful test of the platform — the fact I was the only one effected and not a single other BerserkerMail client means the way the servers are stacked and used and the redundancies put in place are working as intended. If we cheaped out to appease price buyers, and those were the only two servers we used, other clients would have had the same thing happen if they sent anything around the same time I did. 3. We've already added now yet a third level of redundancy — to make sure that even this whackadoodle situation can't happen again. Our chief engineer sent us all a detailed 6-page report last night explaining & documenting everything they have already done for this purpose. (Although if you get 10 copies of this email too, that’ll make what I just said all a bit awkward…) 4. It prompted us to do something with BerserkerMail and our upcoming cart platform we hadn’t considered before, that is a true “Obvious Adams” move. And that is this: We are going to make a giant list of all the nightmarish, “hell in a hand basket” scenarios that can potentially — even if super unlikely — happen. And we’ll be finding out our clients’ email and cart nightmare scenarios too. And then we will rapidly put things in place, do lots of simulated tests, and make dayem well sure none of these things happen with any of our platforms. This is a good exercise to do in any business. I had a recent “mini nightmare” scenario happen with one of my paper & ink offers recently. I won't go into that here. But I’m doing the above exercise even with my book & newsletter offers. Anyway, yesterday’s snafu was annoying to a lot of people. But it was not all that big of a deal otherwise. In fact, I was literally 30 seconds away from having a rather big but routine blood draw (i.e., so much drawn, it was almost like giving blood at a blood drive amount, to routinely keep up on my health markers) at the hospital when I started seeing dozens of copies of my own email (I have my list “seeded” with other email addresses to see what they look like with Gmail, etc) come into my own inbox. And I barely even thought about it until I left and Troy briefed me. I knew the team was on it. And frankly, compared to my own various “nightmare” scenarios that could go wrong with email — that I have either experienced or have heard of happening on other platforms or that I have imagined could happen — yesterday’s nightmare was like a wet dream. No platform is immune to these things happening. And no marketer who uses any software platform is ever 100% safe. What matters is what you do about it and how you react if/when something crazy happens. Take, for example, the great Terry Dean. A true founding father of online marketing. I am going on memory here. But back in 2007 or 2008 (give or take a year - it was a while back) he sent an email to his list explaining how his cart had a glitch, where all his subscription offer buyers were charged at the same time that day, whether it was their day of the month to be charged or not. Now THAT is a problem. Imagine all your customers getting charged on a day they aren’t supposed to. That'd very likely overdraw bank accounts and create serious problems. Even potentially get you shut down by your merchant account. Luckily for Terry he is no stranger to turning adversity into profit. And he handled it like a champ and turned it into a net positive from what I remember. Anyway, I’ll end with one more thought. Email Players subscriber & founding father of not only internet marketing but also email marketing and even online video marketing Ken McCarthy told me this about software a few years ago, before I dived into investing in my own platforms: 1. Nothing gets done on time 2. Everything takes longer than it is supposed to 3. Things break Something a lot of Apple customers know full well as of a few days ago. And, now, so does my list. All right, that'll do it for now. If you want to learn more about the Email Players newsletter, go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2021 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA