Using PHP mailer to send email after download ... one email is instant, other takes 20 mins ... why?

[sll55]

I'm developing a download page ... user fills in a form, clicks submit, an email goes to me@mydomain.com and it arrives instantly.  Another email goes to the customer at the customer's email address notme@gmail.com ... the email to the customer arrives 10-to-20 minutes later.  Why isn't the customer's email also instant?  

For best customer experience I need the email to arrive as quickly as possible instead of making them wonder if they did something wrong for 20 minutes.

Here's my code ... email to me@mydomain.com ...

require 'mailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php';

$mail = new PHPMailer;

//$mail->SMTPDebug = 3;                               // Enable verbose debug output

//$mail->isSMTP();                                      // Set mailer to use SMTP

$mail->Host = 'a2plcpnl0081.prod.iad2.secureserver.net';  // Specify main and backup SMTP servers

$mail->SMTPAuth = true;                               // Enable SMTP authentication

//Username to use for SMTP authentication

$mail->Username = 'me@mydomain.com';

//Password to use for SMTP authentication

$mail->Password = 'mypassword';

//ssl or my password

$mail->SMTPSecure = 'ssl';  

//Set the SMTP port number - likely to be 25, 465 or 587

$mail->Port = 465;                                

//Set who the message is to be sent from - same with Username

$mail->setFrom('me@mydomain.com', 'mydomain.com support');

//Set who the message is to be sent to

$mail->addAddress('me@mydomain.com');

// Reply email

$mail->addReplyTo($_POST['email']);

$mail->isHTML(true);                                  // Set email format to HTML

$mail->Subject = 'There was a Download at mydomain.com!';

$mail->Body    = "contents of the email to me";

$mail->send();

And here is the code that sends email to the customer ...

$mail = new PHPMailer;

//$mail->SMTPDebug = 3;                               // Enable verbose debug output

//$mail->isSMTP();                                      // Set mailer to use SMTP

$mail->Host = 'a2plcpnl0081.prod.iad2.secureserver.net';  // Specify main and backup SMTP servers

$mail->SMTPAuth = true;                               // Enable SMTP authentication

//Username to use for SMTP authentication

$mail->Username = 'me@mydomain.com';

//Password to use for SMTP authentication

$mail->Password = 'mypassword';

//ssl or tls

$mail->SMTPSecure = 'ssl';  

//Set the SMTP port number - likely to be 25, 465 or 587

$mail->Port = 465;                                

//Set who the message is to be sent from - same with Username

$mail->setFrom('me@mydomain.com', 'Mydomain.com Support');

//Set who the message is to be sent to;  using a test email address notme@gmail.com

$mail->addAddress($_POST['email']);

// Reply email

$mail->addReplyTo('me@mydomain.com');

$mail->isHTML(true);                                  // Set email format to HTML

$mail->Subject = "Thank you for downloading";

$mail->Body    = "Thank you for downloading";

$mail->send();

[sll55 · Accepted solution]

Following up on my problem.

I just had a long chat with a godaddy support guy and he looked into it.

It turns out that web hosting plans on a shared server means emails are sent in a shared queue and sometimes the queue can take a while to send.  Sometimes it's fast, sometimes there's a wait.

Ideally I'd like my customers to get their email immediately so they don't think they've done something wrong, so a long 20 minute wait is not great for me.

I asked in their Outlook365 "professional" email would eliminate this delay problem, and it will not.

He did say that I should consider moving my content to a non-shared server ... I have not looking into that yet, but he provided me this URL which is supposed to have some info about that.

I will likely research other email sending alternatives ... a quick google search shows there are a variety of 3rd party services that specialize in this sort of thing.