Newsletter sending from 1and1 to 2k different emails in PHP

I have been开发者_Go百科 working on this subject for a long time now and to be honest I am in need of some help if you guys have some time to answer to my problem ;)

I have a few k of emails in my database (around 2k and coming up...) and I would like to send two newsletters a week ... what would be the best way to achieve that ?

So far here is what I am doing : - a script php (with meta tag refresh set to 600) which sends every 10 minutes an email to 50 people (using basic mail() function). It runs for 6 hours to get to the 2k emails. I am using the less expensive shared server at 1and1 (2EUR a month :D).

1- Is this way to proceed a good way ? I heard when you put people in BCC you go to SPAM directly ... Also many people do not even receive the emails ... no idea why. So far it is not really conclusive.

2- Do you think it would worth taking the dedicated server and send 1 email to each people thats to say 2k different emails ? Or is it a bad move ?

3- How do people proceed when sending newsletters ? I'm sure I look ridiculous with 2k emails and though I have difficulties in making my way through this ;)

Any help welcome.

Cheers. G/

1. maximize time between connections to same mail servers
2. maximize number of servers you use
3. send to one person at a time
4. include images, text and html version, unsubscribe link
5. Check what mail servers respond (like IP blocking notice with link to unblock)

And yes, use cron