System and method of efficiently generating and sending bulk emails

• US 8,135,675 B2
• Filed: 12/22/2009
• Issued: 03/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MyPoints.com, Inc. (Prodege)
• Original Assignee: MyPoints.com, Inc. (Prodege)
• Inventors: Burgoyne, Andre, Bohannon, James John
• Primary Examiner(s): DANG, THANH HA T
• Application Number:
  US12/644,512
• Publication Number:
  US 20100205476A1
• Time in Patent Office: 812 Days
• Field of Search: 707/643, 709/206, 709/223
• US Class Current: 707/643
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A method of efficiently generating and sending emails including creating an email template, setting up a campaign query, and distributing the email template and a set of information associated with the campaign query to a plurality of server groups. The method also includes running the campaign query on each of the plurality of server groups and obtaining a plurality of matching users; dividing the plurality of matching users into one or more batches; merging the email template with a set of information corresponding to each of the plurality of matching users from a first batch for each of the plurality of server groups, and sending the first batch of the merged emails directly from each of the plurality of server groups without saving copies of the merged emails.

Claims

1. A method of efficiently generating and sending emails, comprising:

creating an email template;

setting up a campaign query;

distributing the email template and a set of information associated with the campaign query to a plurality of server groups;

running the campaign query on each of the plurality of server groups and obtaining a plurality of matching users on each of the plurality of server groups;

dividing the plurality of matching users on each of the plurality of server groups into one or more batches of users;

merging the email template with a set of information corresponding to each of the plurality of matching users from a first batch of users to generate a first batch of merged emails for each of the plurality of server groups;

sending the first batch of merged emails directly from each of the plurality of server groups without saving copies of the merged emails;

marking a status of what portion of the first batch of the merged emails was sent before a shutdown of at least one server in the plurality of server groups; and

resuming the sending of the first batch of the merged emails when the at least one server in the plurality of server groups is restarted after shutdown.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising distributing the email template and the set of information associated with the campaign query to an application server at each of the plurality of server groups.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising replicating the email template and the set of information associated with the campaign query to two replication servers at each of the plurality of server groups.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising running the campaign query on one of the replication servers in each of the server groups in parallel so that the campaign query runs on all of the plurality of server groups.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising sending a periodic batch progress update to the application server at each of the plurality of server groups.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if a campaign status is active before running the campaign query.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising queuing the merged emails in a memory buffer based on email domains of the matching users.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if a sent email was delivered to domain associated with a particular user and making one or more subsequent delivery attempts if the sent email was not delivered.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining if a campaign status is active before running the campaign query.

9. A method of efficiently generating and sending emails, comprising:

creating an email template;

setting up a campaign query;

distributing the email template and a set of information associated with the campaign query to an application server at each of a plurality of server groups;

replicating the email template and the set of information associated with the campaign query to one or more replication servers at each of the plurality of server groups;

running the campaign query on each of the one or more replication servers at each of the plurality of server groups and obtaining a plurality of matching users on each of the one or more replication servers;

dividing the plurality of matching users on each of the plurality of server groups into one or more batches of users;

merging the email template with a set of information corresponding to each of the plurality of matching users from a first batch of users to generate a first batch of merged emails for each of the plurality of server groups;

queuing the merged emails in a memory buffer based on email domains of the matching users;

sending the first batch of merged emails directly from each of the plurality of server groups without saving copies of the merged emails;

marking a status of what portion of the first batch of the merged emails was sent before a shutdown of at least one server in the plurality of server groups; and

resuming the sending of the first batch of the merged emails when the at least one server in the plurality of server groups is restarted after shutdown.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising sending a periodic batch progress update from the one or more replication servers to the application server at each of the plurality of server groups.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining if a sent email was delivered to a domain associated with a particular user and making one or more subsequent delivery attempts if the sent email was not delivered.

13. An email generation and transmission system, comprising:

an administrative server group communicatively coupled to one or more member server groups, each of the one or more member server groups including at least an application server and a replication server, each of the application server and the replication server including a processing unit and a memory coupled to the processing unit;

the administrative server group programmed to allow a user to store an email template and set up a campaign query associated with the email template;

the administrative server group programmed to facilitate the distribution of the email template and at least a portion of the associated campaign query to each of the application servers at each of the one or more member server groups;

each of the application servers at each of the one or more member server groups programmed to replicate the email template and the at least a portion of the associated campaign query to each of the replication servers at each of the one or more member server groups;

each of the replication servers at each of the one or more member server groups programmed to;

run the campaign query to obtain a plurality of matching members;

divide the plurality of matching users on each of the plurality of server groups into one or more batches of users;

merge the email template with a set of information corresponding to each of the plurality of matching users from a first batch of users to generate a first batch of merged emails for each of the plurality of server groups;

send the first batch of merged emails without saving copies of the merged emails;

mark a status of what portion of the first batch of the merged emails was sent before a shutdown of at least one server in the plurality of server groups; and

resume the sending of the first batch of the merged emails when the at least one server in the plurality of server groups is restarted after shutdown.

14. The email generation and transmission system of claim 13, wherein each of the replication servers at each of the one or more member server groups is further programmed to merge the email template with a set of information corresponding to each of the plurality of matching users from a second batch to generate a second batch of merged emails for each of the plurality of server groups after an occurrence of at least one of a hardware failure or a software failure during the sending of the merged emails in the first batch, while the merged emails in the first batch that were not sent prior to the hardware failure or the software failure are not identified and not sent to the corresponding matching users.

15. The email generation and transmission system of claim 14, wherein each of the replication servers at each of the one or more member server groups is further programmed to send the second batch of the merged emails directly from each of the one or more replication servers at each of the plurality of server groups without saving copies of the merged emails.