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What methods exist for setting up a large email notification system?

My company has a website built with PHP. We use the built-in PHP email functionality to send thousands of emails to subscribers on a daily basis.

This is a terrible idea. It chokes out our server, and takes hours to complete the whole batch.

Now I've looked at mass mailing services like MailChimp (which would replace our current system of sending the same email to many people), but what I think I'd really like to do is to set up a somewhat-sophisticated notification system.

Rather than send a mass email to each person each time something important happens, I'd like clients to be able to customize the rate and content of the emails that they receive.

Even using this new idea, we're talking about A LOT of emails being sent.

So my question is very specific: I have a rough idea of how to build the system internally, but what is the best way to send out all of these emails?

Bullet points to consider:

  • Sometimes emails' contents are identical across recipients, but many of them will be customized per-user (they choose what they get notified about, and sometimes it is aggregated).
  • I want a system that is not going to choke the server, and will complete in a decent amount of time. I don't mind going with a third-party service (even a paid one) if that is what it is going to take.
  • The system should hook into PHP easily, or the API or whatever should be relatively easy for me to call from your typical web server.
  • We have a dedicated server and full control over it (so we can install apps, services, whatever).
  • Any kind of detailed tracking information (opens, clicks, etc) is a huge plus.
  • These emails are sometimes time-sensitive (so can't take all day to send).

Thoughts? Tips? Point me in the right direction?

EDIT

To clarify:

I can do these on my own:

  • maintain user list
  • handle email content generation based on user preferences

And need something else (app, third-party service, w/e) to:

  • accept email content and addresses and actually send the emails out
  • provide tracking data (opens, clicks, etc). The more detail the better.

I'm leaning towards a third-party service, since I'm not sure any app can avoid choking the server when sending thousands of emails (though I wouldn't consider myself an email expert so I could be wrong).

Solution

  • I'd recommend using the third party mailing service Silverpop, or something like it. We've used them for a few years and have been fairly satisfied. They already have relationships with the major email clients (AOL, Yahoo!, Gmail, etc.) and they do a good job of telling you if the stuff you're sending is likely to be classified as SPAM.

    They have a fairly extensive API that uses XML HTTP/HTTPS requests that can tie in to existing systems. You can use it to remotely trigger emails, schedule mailings, customize email contents, set up, manage and query huge lists of recipients, run batch processes, etc.

    It isn't a perfect service, but compared to a lot of others out there, they do pretty well. I have had very few complaints about them thus far.