Shared Server

For email marketing, a shared server refers, simply, to an email server that is used by more than one company or sender. Shared servers can be cost effective for companies that will not be storing or transferring large amounts of data, and that do not require a dedicated server for their internet-based transactions or communications. Because the server cost can be shared among several companies with low processing and storage requirements, shared servers are typically less expensive than dedicated options. This can be advantageous for companies with low usage who want to increase their web-based ROI.

However, shared servers can also cause some difficulties for email marketers. Each user on a shared server will encounter some restrictions due to the distribution of the machine’s resources. If one user abuses the shared server, the ramifications can be felt by all other uses. For email marketing, this could mean that if one user’s practices cause the email server’s IP address to be blacklisted, all other email marketers sending from the IP address may also have their messages blocked. This difficulty is not encountered with dedicated servers, of course, as the user is responsible only for their own action.