The decisoin about hosted vs. in-house email broadcast solutions is not a technology decision, it's a business decision.  So noted Ryan Deutsch, VP, Strategic Services at StrongMail (an in-house solution) in a panel debating the pros and cons of hosting in house or out of house. The companies that in source email have challenges to manage the infrastructure, he says, but MTA vendors like StrongMail are offering managed services to help marketers control and optimize the use of the technology. Dave Hendricks, VP Market Strategy at Datran Media (an ASP solution) agrees, noting that the technology can always be more flexible than the business rules.   Dave Hendricks recommends that the risk is there regardless of the choice to go in or out of house, and the starting point is the marketer's ability and tolerance for dealing with the technical issues. "Risk is in the eye of the beholder," Ryan counters. He notes three levels of risk which are primarily business decision - risk of data security, risk of integration and security and risk to sender reputation. Dave adds that the more vendors you have the more trouble you have - there is a benefit of having a hosted provider so you can kick someone when things go wrong.

Despite a lot of good ideas and provocative sound bytes, too bad our panelists didn't leave attendees with much of a clear path for finding the right answer. They did discuss a number of factors that must be considered and, led by moderator David Baker of Avenue A-Razorfish, discussed some of the common beliefs around pros and cons. Â

If the behavior of my Return Path clients this year is any indication, many marketers will question their current solution and send out RFPs in order to answer that question. My advice is to start and end with the subscriber experience - once you have a clear vision for the experience you want to create, you can easily outline what you need to do from a technical and human resource standpoint and set priorities for evaluating vendors. You will also more clearly see which solutions can help you creatively approach the challenge, and scale with your program and growth.Â