The communication with customers is an essential part of every marketing strategy. As a merchant, you need channels through which to communicate seamlessly with your customers. 

One of these channels is the email - probably still the most popular communication channel among merchants and marketers for sending relevant information. Other channels could be SMS, viber messages, messenger, telegram etc. Web push notifications are also considered as a type of communication channel. 

In this article you will find out how to set up an email as a communication channel with your customers and then use it for your campaigns through the campaign builder.


In this section:


When you go to the Campaigns section for the first time, you have to read and agree with CloudCart Anti-Spam Policy in order to continue forward.


Configuration of email as a communication channel

Go to Marketing > Campaigns > Channels and enable email as a communication channel from the ON/OFF button. Then go to Configuration from the first tab.

The profile information is extracted from the Settings section of your admin panel. If all boxes are filled in, you can hit the Save and Continue button. 

The next step is to choose the domain name you are going to use for that campaign. You should select one of all the domains that have been added in the Settings > Domain section and hit the Save and Continue button.

Once you've set up your email channel, you'll have your own email server, so you will be able to send your emails from your dedicated email address.

Adding DNS records

The next step is to add the following DNS records into your domain in order to send emails:

Go to Settings > Domains section > Manage DNS records button.  In the side panel, click on the Create DNS record button. 

Select the type of the field (TXT), Hostname (@) and paste the "Value" record in the corresponding field. Press the Save button and continue with the next DNS record. 

Verify Tracking - TYPE: CNAME; HOST/NAME: tracking; VALUE: api.elasticemail.com. It is crucial to set up CNAME because it tracks the open rate and the clicks in the email. 


Enter the rest of the DNS records in the same way -Verify DKM, VERIFY DMARK.


Manage DNS records only works if you are using CloudCart DNS service. If you don't have DNS records managed by CloudCart then you have to go to the administration where they are and add that records there.


Once you are ready with all DNS records, hit the Verify button. 


Sometimes if you have more than one SPF record in your domain name an error may occur. Once you delete the unneccessary SPF records you will be able to verify your domain.


After verifying your domain, you can enter the email address (the sender) for your email campaigns. Make sure that this is a valid email address. Otherwise, you won't be able to receive customers' messages. 


Later, you can change some of your configured settings, like your email address, profile information, and domain. But if you decide to change the domain, you should add the DNS records and verify it again.

Settings

Мore settings will be added soon in this tab. There is only one at the moment - for sending emails to unverified emails. Once a user subscribes to your email list, he or she will receive a verification email. If you enable this setting, even unverified subscribers will receive emails.

The email template for verifying an email address is located in the Marketing > Email Templates section, where you can edit your template using the built-in email builder.

Reputation

In the reputation tab, you can gather information about the reputation rate of your email campaigns - how many of your emails have been opened. what is the spam rate, click and bounce rate. Keep in mind that if the spam complaints are more than 0.5%, bounces (more than 5%), or you have a minimal open rate (less than 5%), your account will be suspended. You won't be able to unlock your account until your reputation gets back into the "green" area. 

Email bounce rate is the percentage of addresses in a mailing list that didn’t receive the email because the recipient’s server returned it. In other words, an email bounces when it can’t be delivered to its intended recipient.

Usage

The usage tab shows the limits based on your subscription plan. How many emails remain, a total sent of emails, clicks and opens.

Log

In the log tab, you can have a detailed view of all the emails you have sent to your customers. Over time, this log will get bigger and bigger, so you might probably prefer to go to the campaign section for statistics and detailed information, but you have also the log tab at your disposal. 

Sandbox

In a sandbox mode, you can test if your emails are sent correctly or not. When you enable it, you can point a webhook URL where all messages to be sent.