Amazon Web Services (AWS) is like a huge virtual toolbox provided by Amazon. In this toolbox, you have all sorts of tools and services that you can use to build and run computer programs, store data, host websites, and do many other things, all without needing to have your own physical computers or data centers. It’s like renting the tools and equipment you need from Amazon’s toolbox in the cloud instead of buying and maintaining them yourself. This makes it easier and more cost-effective for businesses and developers to do all sorts of tasks on the internet. AWS provides several services that can be used for email marketing purposes. These services allow businesses to send, manage, and analyze email campaigns at scale. It is expanding its network globally, allowing you to access its services from anywhere in the world.
Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is a service that helps businesses, developers and email marketers send emails easily and reliably. It ensures that your emails get delivered to your subscribers or customers’ inboxes instead of being marked as spam. You can use it for sending various types of emails, from marketing emails to newsletters. It’s cost-effective, so you only pay for the emails you send, and it can grow with your needs, making it a great tool for businesses of all sizes.
An AWS Region is a geographical area where AWS has established data centers and network infrastructure to provide its cloud computing services. Each AWS Region is completely independent and isolated from other regions to ensure data privacy, security, and compliance with regional regulations. AWS Regions are essential for customers to deploy their applications and data in proximity to their users or resources, improving performance and reliability.
Selecting the suitable AWS Region is an important consideration when designing and deploying applications in the cloud. It involves a balance between factors like data residency, performance, disaster recovery, and regulatory compliance to meet the specific needs of your organization and users.
AWS Reputation Metrics is a feature within Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) that helps you monitor the health of your email sending reputation. It tracks metrics that can impact how email providers perceive you as a sender, ultimately affecting your email deliverability rates.
By signing in to Amazon SES > Reputation metrics you can check Account status, Bounce rate and Complaint Rate Charts and Bounce and Complaint Details.
Maintaining a good reputation as an email sender is critical for ensuring your emails reach their intended destination: recipients’ inboxes not their spam folders. By regularly monitoring your AWS Reputation Metrics, you can proactively identify and address any issues that could affect your email deliverability and potentially lead to emails landing in spam folders or even account suspension.
Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) is a managed service that facilitates the delivery of messages from publishers (producers) to subscribers (consumers). This communication is asynchronous, meaning it doesn’t require immediate responses.
Publishers send messages to a specific “topic,” which serves as a logical access point and communication channel for these messages. Clients interested in receiving these messages can subscribe to the respective SNS topic. They can specify how they want to receive these published messages using various supported endpoint types, including Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), AWS Lambda, HTTP, email, mobile push notifications, and mobile text messages (SMS). This flexibility allows for versatile communication and integration between different services and systems.
Here’s how Amazon SNS can be used in email marketing: Delivery Notifications, Real-Time Alerts, Cross-Channel Messaging and Event-Driven Marketing.
MailBluster uses Amazon SNS to track the emails you send and generate campaign reports based on the tracked events. Hence, Amazon SNS is a must to use MailBluster.
To connect your AWS Account with MailBluster you can check out this step by step guide. Please make sure you are signed in to MailBluster to view the guide.
Also, we have a detailed video tutorial that will help you create AWS Account and connect with MailBluster correctly:
When you create an AWS Account, you need to add a new payment card to your AWS account and an authorization charge of $1.00 is sent to verify that the billing card is valid and that the card hasn’t been reported lost or stolen.
For all AWS customers, the temporary authorization charge is $1.00. AWS doesn’t proceed with the charge, and the charge should disappear within three to five business days. The authorization charges for prepaid credit cards might vary.
You also need to activate your AWS account by verifying your email address and mobile number. And AWS will deduct $1.00 from your card after verifying it. If all these goes well, your AWS account will be activated.
When you start to use Amazon SES, you will be in Free Tier with a limit of 3000 emails per month upto 1 year. Once you exceed this limit, Amazon SES will most likely charge you $0.10 for every 1000 emails you send from your AWS Account. This charge is solely part of Amazon Web Services, not MailBluster.
AWS requires credit card information to verify all new accounts, including those signing up for the free tier. Providing a credit card allows AWS to confirm your identity and prevent misuse, such as the creation of multiple or fraudulent accounts. While the free tier doesn’t generally incur charges, AWS uses your credit card details to cover any additional services you might opt for that go beyond the free usage limits.
AWS has implemented this verification step as a security measure, ensuring that resources aren’t misused and that services remain reliable for all users. At this time, there’s no alternative to bypass this requirement, as a valid payment method is necessary to complete the registration process.
To learn more about AWS account for Amazon SES and it’s free tier, click here.
If you don’t have a website on the domain that you verified as the intended sender, you are less likely to get approved by AWS. If you verify a domain name, but it’s only parked with no website hosted, it becomes a red flag for your approval request for moving out of AWS Sandbox. If you don’t have a website, you should clarify where and how you collect your email addresses, and where you plan to send your subscribers from the emails, for example, an online store on an e-commerce platform like Shopify, Etsy, Facebook, or Amazon.
Amazon SES pricing and its charges are based on the total emails sent out from your AWS account each month. Amazon will not charge you anything for the first 3,000 emails you send for that month up to 1 year. If you exceed the defined number of emails, then you’ll have to pay them $0.10 for every additional 1,000 emails you send from your AWS Account. Also, you need to add your Billing card while creating a new AWS Account. This is Amazon SES free tier limit, which is 3,000 emails free per month, so try to stay within the limit if you want to try it out for free.
You need to select the AWS region that best suits you according to your subscribers’ location. Remember to choose this exact same region when you request Amazon for an increase of sending limit. If your AWS account is already out of Sandbox (for a specific AWS region), use that region for MailBluster as well.
For example, here you can see that the sending limit has been increased for the “US East (N. Virginia)” region:
In MailBluster, “US East (N. Virginia)” needs to be selected as SES region when setting up AWS credentials like Access key and Secret Access Key.
In sandbox mode, you will not be able to send any emails from MailBluster. So you need to sign in to your AWS Account and request them to move your AWS Account out of sandbox by answering some questions like:
What is the business you are involved in with details
How did you collect your recipients’ email addresses (share URL if available)?
Do you have permission to send them emails?
How do you manage bounce, complaint, and unsubscription? (MailBluster will automatically do that for you)
State your website URL (Domain)
State your use case for sending emails to your recipients
The entire process may require several tries with Amazon. Share information as much as you can. The main goal is convincing them.
Once your request is approved, Amazon will send you an email confirming the removal of sandbox mode for the specific region you applied for.
You won’t be able to send any bulk emails from MailBluster while you are in sandbox mode. Also, in Sandbox mode, those 200 emails you see are for the virtual mailbox simulator, not for sending actual emails to your leads (recipients). So in conclusion, you won’t be able to send any emails from MailBluster until and unless you move your AWS account out of Amazon SES Sandbox. However, you will still be able to explore your MailBluster Account and its features..
Amazon SES Sandbox or AWS Sandbox is a limited environment where new SES (Simple Email Service) users are placed when they sign up for the service. This environment prevents spammers from misusing their service and maintains the platform’s integrity. When your AWS Account is in Amazon SES sandbox, you can send 200 messages daily. But they can only be sent to verified email addresses. Additionally, the sandbox also restricts users from sending emails to more than one recipient at a time.
If your AWS account is new, Amazon will place your account in the Amazon SES sandbox. While your account is in the Sandbox, you can use all of the features of Amazon SES. However, when your account is in the Sandbox, Amazon applies the following restrictions to your account:
You can only send mail to verified email addresses and domains, or the Amazon SES mailbox simulator.
You can only send mail from verified email addresses and domains.
You can send a maximum of 200 messages per 24-hour period.
I would suggest you to request AWS again to move your AWS Account out of the sandbox environment. This may require several tries. You need to share your business information with AWS as much as you can. The main objective is convincing them.
These are the vital information you need to share with them which includes:
Detailed information about your business.
How did you collect your recipients’ email addresses ? (share the subscribe URL if available in your domain)
Do you have the permission to send them emails ? If yes, then how ? (Explain accordingly but correctly)
How do you manage bounce, complaint, and unsubscription ? (MailBluster will automatically unsubscribe hard bounced leads for you)
Share your Website URL (Domain).
Your use case for sending emails to your recipients.
AWS usually rejects requests because of these critical conditions:
Your use case violates AWS terms and AUP (Acceptable Usage Policy).
Your emails weren’t collected legally and you are probably using paid email IDs from third parties.
You didn’t provide enough evidence against your email collection process, so they can’t confirm your claim.
You didn’t verify your domain to Amazon SES when you first created the AWS account.
If your AWS account is brand new, AWS takes some time to verify your account and then activate it. You need to ensure that you have verified your email address or domain in AWS, add your contact number and valid credit card information to AWS. If you submitted all these information properly, then AWS Account will be activated within 24 hours.
The message you received indicates that Amazon SES did not send your email because the recipient’s address is on the suppression list for your account. This happens when an address has previously resulted in bounces or complaints. In your case, the reason is due to a complaint.
This suppression list is used by Amazon SES to prevent sending emails to addresses that have previously resulted in bounces or complaints, thereby protecting your sender reputation and ensuring better deliverability of future emails.
To resolve this issue, please follow these steps:
1.Review the Suppression List:
Check your suppression list in the Amazon SES console to see which addresses are included. You can find instructions in the Amazon SES Developer Guide from here.
2. Remove email Addresses if Necessary:
If you believe an address should not be on the suppression list (e.g., a complaint was made in error), you can remove it following the steps:
Login to your AWS account.
Navigate to Amazon SES – Asia Pacific (Sydney) region for example.
Navigate to “Suppression list” from the left side menu.
Select “Remove email address” from the “Suppression list” tab.
Enter the email address and remove it.
If the email is in the suppression list, it would notify that the email has been removed.
Here is the screenshot:
This is where you need to remove the email address from the Suppression list.
The best practice is to create separate IAM users for different Brands in MailBluster. However, one IAM user can be connected to multiple Brands in MailBluster if needed.
Verifying domain in Amazon SES is the best choice. This is because it will increase the chances of moving out of AWS Sandbox when you request Amazon SES for sandbox removal. Also, it will let you use all email addresses as sender email addresses under that verified domain so that you don’t need to verify each email address individually.
Here are the following steps on how to verify your domain in Amazon SES.
1. Sign in to your AWS Management console and select Amazon Simple Email Service
2. Click on Account Dashboard
3. Click on Verified Identities
4. Click on Create identity
5. Select Identity type: Domain
6. Enter the name of your valid domain
7. Scroll down then click on Create identity
8. Now go back to the Amazon SES page and you will notice that the Identity status is showing Verification pending.
9. You will also notice after scrolling downwards that the DKIM configuration is showing pending status
10. Scroll down and copy the first CNAME Records (Name and Value) somewhere to use it on your domain control panel (DNS Management) later. Do keep open the browser tab, you will need this later
11. we are using the CPANEL of our Cloudflare domain. Go to Records and check the DNS management section of your domain.
Please Note: Most domain CPANELS have the same basic configuration like Cloudflare
12. Click Add Record under DNS Management
13. Select CNAME from the dropdown list
14. Copy the first CNAME Records – Name from Amazon SES page to your DNS Management section of your domain CPANEL
15. Copy the firstCNAME Records –Value from Amazon SES page to your DNS Management section of your domain CPANEL
16. Paste the first CNAME Records – Name and Value in the DNS Management section of your domain’s CPANEL
17. Be sure to set the Proxy status to Off (Otherwise you might face DNS Validation Error) and the click Save for saving the configuration
18. The first CNAME configuration has been saved successfully
19. Now copy the secondCNAME records from Amazon SES page
20. And then Add record, select CNAME and paste the second CNAME Records – Name and Value in the DNS Management section of your domain’s CPANEL exactly like before
21. Do the same thing for third CNAME records from Amazon SES page by copying it
22. And paste it in the DNS Management section of your domain’s CPANEL exactly like before with Proxy status set to Off and click Save
23. Now you DNS Configuration is complete with 3 CNAME Records – Name and Value.
Please note: DNS propagation takes time depending on the Domain service provider. You need to allow some time.
24. Now go back to Amazon SES page, click on Verified identities and check the Identity status. It will now show that the domain is Verified successfully
You need to verify your sender email address first in Amazon SES before you can use it in your Brand in MailBluster. Verifying sender email address is the most important part because this will help you later when you request Amazon SES for moving out of sandbox mode.
Here are the following steps on how to verify your email address in Amazon SES.
1. Sign in to your AWS Management Console and select Amazon Simple Email Service
2. Click on Account Dashboard
3. Click on Verified Identities
4. Click on Create identity
5. Select Identity type:Email address
6. Enter the email address which your want to set as sender email address.
Please note: sender email address is not your AWS account email address or MailBluster account email address
7. Scroll down and click Create identity
8. Now go back to Amazon SES page and you will notice that the Identity status is showing Verification pending. This means Amazon already send an email to this sender email address with a link
9. You need to check the Inbox of this email. There should be an email from Amazon SES
10. Click on the email from Amazon SES and then click on the link in the email for confirmation.
11. The link will take you straight to Amazon SES page with a confirmation message that your sender email address has been verified.
12. Now go to Amazon SES page and you will notice that the Identity status is showing Verified.
13. Now click on Verified identities and you will see that your sender email address has been successfully verified by AWS.
The Senders feature in MailBluster simplifies the management of sender identities and DNS records, eliminating the need for manual adjustments in your AWS dashboard.
Now, you can easily verify your Sender Domain from within MailBluster. Just go to your Brand > Settings > @Senders.
Click on Create new
Select Domain for domain verification
Enter your domain address and then click Create sender
Read the instructions carefully and click View Sender
You will notice that your sender domain is showing “Pending” status along with DKIM records, Custom MAIL FROM domain record and SPFF record as “Unverified”
Copy the generated Name and its Value from each of the CNAMEs under DKIM records
Now go to the DNS > Records of your Domain’s CPANEL / DNS Management console and select Type CNAME
Copy Name and Value from MailBluster and paste to DNS Management as shown below
Set Proxy status to off. Then click Save
A CNAME record will be created in your DNS Management
Now click Add record in your DNS Management
Select Type CNAME and copy paste the 2nd CNAME from MailBluster
Here we copied the 2nd CNAME and its Value from @Senders of MailBluster
And paste it into your DNS Management like the one shown below
Follow the same procedure for the 3rd record by copying it from MailBluster
And paste it to your DNS Management as 3rd record
Wait approximately 48 hours maximum for DNS values to propagate and then click Refresh
The DNS Records will show “Verified” and domain will show “Success”
Now click Edit record for Custom MAIL FROM domain record
Enter subdomain in MAIL FROM domain and then click Save changes
You will notice that the Custom MAIL FROM domain record and SPF record will be changed to the new subdomain
Copy the Name from the SPF Record
Click Add record from your DNS Management
Select Type TXT and Name for your domain
Copy Value from SPF Record
Paste in Content (required) and click Save
TXT record is now added to your DNS Management
Copy the Custom MAIL FROM domain record
Click Add record from your DNS Management again
Copy Name, Value and Priority from Custom MAIL FROM domain record
Paste it to DNS Management as MX Record Type, Name (required), Mail server (required) and Priority (required). Then click Save.
MX Record is added to your DNS Management
You will now notice that Custom MAIL FROM domainrecord and SPF record will show “Verified“
Now, it’s time to Generate record for DMARC. Click on the Generate record button
Enter your domain address for DMARC
Select type of DMARC policy Nothing yet, just collect data
Select the domain for Aggregate Reports sent
Select No for Individual failure reports
Select Relaxed mechanisms
Select No for different policy for subdomains
Select percentage of email 100
Click Create Record and your DMARC will be generated
Go to your DNS Management and click Add record
Select Type and Name (Required)
Copy the generated DMARC Record
And paste it in your Domain management and then click Save
Your DMARC Record will be saved in your Domain Management
After 48 hours click Refresh button in MailBluster
Your DMARC record is now Verified
Now you have successfully verified your domainin AWS from MailBluster.
The Senders feature in MailBluster simplifies the management of sender identities and DNS records, eliminating the need for manual adjustments in your AWS dashboard.
Now, you can easily verify your Sender Email from within MailBluster. Just go to your Brand > Settings > @Senders.
Click on Create new
Select Email address for email verification
Enter your sender email address and then click Create sender
Read the instructions carefully and click View Sender
You will notice that your sender email address is showing “pending” status
Now, go to your email inbox, open the email from “Amazon Web Services”. Click on the verification link
After clicking verification link, AWS will confirm you that your sender email address has been verified successfully
Now click the Refresh button in MailBluster
You will see a “Success” right next to your sender email address
Now click on All senders and you will see the verification status of your sender email address
A detailed video on how to verify your Sender Email Address can also be found here.
A sender identity is an email or domain that you plan to send from. When you verify a domain in Amazon SES, which requires adding DNS records, you can use any email address under that domain as a sender (From address).
You can remove the email ID from your sender list by navigating to MailBluster > Brand > Settings > Senders. Here is a screenshot for reference only. Please follow the steps in the screenshot to remove individual email IDs from your sender list, which will help improve email deliverability if the domain is already verified.
Click on the three dot ellipsis (…), and then click Delete sender.
When ‘Delete sender‘ confirmation appears, click on the Delete button and the selected sender will be deleted from your senders list.
A custom domain refers to a personalized and unique web address that you can register and use for your website or online presence. Instead of using a generic domain provided by a hosting service (e.g. yourwebsite.hostingservice.com), a custom domain allows you to have a distinct and branded web address (e.g. www.yourwebsite.com).
To obtain a custom domain, you typically need to register it through a domain registrar, which is a company accredited to manage domain registrations. Popular domain registrars include GoDaddy, Namecheap, and Google Domains. Once you register a custom domain, you have the right to use it for a specified period (usually annually, although longer registration periods are also available).
2. Choose Domains under Identity Management in the navigation pane.
3. Confirm the parent domain of the MAIL FROM domain is verified in the list of domains. If the domain isn’t verified yet, complete the procedures at Verifying domains in Amazon SES to verify the domain. Otherwise, select the domain and go to the next step.
4. Under MAIL FROM Domain, click the Set MAIL FROM Domain button.
5. On the Set MAIL FROM Domain window, follow the steps below-
6. Enter the subdomain which you want to use as the MAIL FROM domain in MAIL FROM domain.
7. For the Behavior if MX record not found, select Use region.amazonses.com as MAIL FROM.
8. Click the Set MAIL FROM Domain button.
9. Publish the MX records displayed on the next screen to the DNS server of the custom MAIL FROM domain.
In Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), setting a custom MAIL FROM (Return-Path) domain is a feature that allows you to specify a custom domain for the “MAIL FROM” address in the email headers. The “MAIL FROM” address is used as the return path for bounces and other email delivery-related notifications. Here are reasons why you might want to set a custom MAIL FROM domain in Amazon SES:
Branding: Using a custom MAIL FROM domain allows you to reinforce your brand in the email delivery process. Instead of using the default SES domain in the return path, you can use your own domain, which enhances the professional appearance of your emails.
Improved Deliverability: Setting a custom MAIL FROM domain can positively impact email deliverability. Some email receivers use the return path domain as a factor in assessing the legitimacy of an email. Having a custom domain that aligns with your sender identity can help establish trust with email providers.
Bounce Handling: When there are issues with email delivery, such as bounces or other delivery failures, having a custom MAIL FROM domain allows you to receive bounce notifications at your specified email address. This enables you to monitor and take appropriate action on delivery issues promptly.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) Compliance: If you are implementing DMARC for email authentication, having a custom MAIL FROM domain helps align your authentication records with your sending domain, enhancing email security and authentication.
Consistency Across Emails: Using a consistent custom MAIL FROM domain across your emails ensures a cohesive and professional appearance. It contributes to a unified email strategy and reinforces the legitimacy of your email communications.
Keep in mind that while there are benefits to using a custom MAIL FROM domain, it’s important to follow best practices for email deliverability, including obtaining explicit consent from recipients, providing clear opt-out options, and maintaining a positive sender reputation.
If your encounter AWS Account’s ability to send email is paused all of a sudden, then you can’t use Amazon SES to send emails until you resolve the problem with Amazon.
Here are few reasons that might lead to a “pause” which includes:
Your AWS Account was already placed under review and the issue wasn’t corrected before the end of the review period.
A bounce rate of 10% or greater has been exceeded.
A complaint rate is 0.5% or greater has been exceeded.
Your account was placed under review several times for the same issue.
If your Amazon SES account has been suspended, it’s essential to review the account’s status and address the underlying issues that led to the suspension. You need to sign in to Amazon SES page to understand the specific reasons for the suspension and take appropriate actions to reinstate your account. To resolve your account paused issue, you must:
Identify the problem.
Request a new review and respond to follow-up questions from the Amazon SES team.
A list of changes that you made to fix the problem.
An explanation of how these changes will prevent the problem from happening again.
After Amazon SES team receives your request, they will decide whether to resolve, uphold, remove the review or further pause on your sending emails from your AWS Account. If your new review is unsuccessful, then Amazon SES team contacts you with follow-up questions. Be sure to respond to Amazon SES team with the requested follow-up questions carefully.
If you switch to a new sender domain for your email marketing campaigns, then you need to implement a proper warm-up strategy. Gradually increase the volume of your outgoing emails, starting with a small number and slowly ramping up, which will help establish a positive sender reputation for the new domain. Continuously monitor the performance of the sender domain and adjust strategies as needed. Keep a close eye on metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates to assess the efficiency of the domain transition.
A more curated list can be found here, please check out this link:
For more detailed guidance, check out these resources:
Also, after you move to a new domain or change sender domain, it’s best to configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC records properly for better email deliverability and verify it accordingly in AWS. For this, you can follow this guide
When you created the IAM user in your AWS Account, you didn’t attach the AmazonSESFullAccess policy to the Username “mailbluster“. To resolve this issue, you need to follow this guide very carefully: app.mailbluster.com/pages/aws-setup-guide.
Notice in Step 2 in the guide, you need to give permission to AmazonSESFullAccess as shown below:
3. Click the tab named Attach policies directly 4. Search for sesf at the permissions policies section & hit enter 5. Check the AmazonSESFullAccess policy, this gives MailBluster permission to use SES service of your AWS account
Check out this video tutorial for further clarification:
Please note: To connect your AWS Account to MailBluster, your IAM user should have the following policies attached:
When you created the IAM user in your AWS Account, you didn’t attach the AmazonSNSFullAccess policy to the Username “mailbluster“. To resolve this issue, you need to follow this guide very carefully: app.mailbluster.com/pages/aws-setup-guide.
Notice in Step 3 in the guide, you need to give permission to AmazonSNSFullAccess as shown below:
6. Click the Clear filters button 7. Search for snsf at the permissions policies section and hit enter 8. Check the AmazonSNSFullAccess policy, this gives us permission to use SNS service of your AWS account 9. Click the Next button
Check out this video tutorial for further clarification:
Please note: To connect your AWS Account to MailBluster, your IAM user should have the following policies attached:
If you see the error message ‘invalid AWS secret access key,’ it means the key you are using in MailBluster Brand AWS Settings has been deleted or changed in the AWS console.
To resolve this, you need to create a new AWS access key and use it to connect to MailBluster. Navigate to your Brand > Settings > AWS page in MailBluster, where you will find the ‘AWS connection guide.’
If you want to disable open tracking for all campaigns in Amazon SES, you’ll need to update your AWS configuration settings. To track your email open activity, Amazon SES automatically injects a 1x1px image to the bottom of your email. If you want to track emails, Amazon SES will automatically inject it. MailBluster can’t do anything as it’s a feature provided by Amazon SES.
Even if you delete it from your email code, Amazon SES will re-insert it when sending, as long as open tracking is enabled in your SES Configuration Set.
To disable open tracking for all campaigns, you’ll need to change the settings in your Amazon SES Configuration Set. Here’s how to do it step by step.
1. Go to your Amazon SES dashboard 2. Make sure you have selected correct region on AWS, for example, Europe (Paris). 3. Go to Configuration sets page from the left side menu. 4. Click mailbluster-xxxxx from the configuration set list, for example, mailbluster-51039 5. Click the Event destinations tab 6. Click the mailbluster-xxxxxEvent destination 7. Click the Edit button of the Event type panel 8. Uncheck Opens of the Open and click tracking option 9. Click Savechanges.
Here is a screenshot from Amazon SES > Configuration for reference only.
Please, note that, it will disable open tracking for all your campaigns sent from this brand.
Using a custom MAIL FROM domain keeps you within the AWS infrastructure. According to SES documentation:
For an email to comply with DMARC based on SPF, both of the following conditions must be met:
1. The message must pass an SPF check based on having a valid SPF (type TXT) record that you’ve published in your custom MAIL FROM domain’s DNS configuration.
2. The domain in the From address of the email header must align (match) with the domain, or a subdomain of, what’s specified in the MAIL FROM address. To achieve SPF alignment with SES, the domain’s DMARC policy must not specify a strict SPF policy (aspf=s).
Basically, every email contains two ‘from‘ addresses, ‘envelope from‘ and ‘header from.‘ The ‘header from‘ field usually contains the email address displayed to the recipient. The ‘envelope from‘ field, often referred to as the ‘MAIL FROM,‘ specifies to a receiving mail server the source of the message.
If a custom MAIL FROM domain is not set, the ‘envelope from‘ value is <mail_id>@<region>.amazonses.com. In your case, your ‘header from‘ value is <mail_id>@domain.com, and these two do not match.
Without a custom MAIL FROM domain, DMARC can only align with DKIM, but not with SPF, because the ‘envelope from’ and ‘header from‘ values are not the same.
Use a custom MAIL FROM domain to make SPF aligned with DMARC.
Test emails will not show a list-unsubscribe header. If you are sending test emails, consider sending the campaign to yourself as a regular email. If you are still not seeing the list-unsubscribe header, it may be that Gmail has not yet enabled the unsubscribe button, although the correct header is present.
Gmail uses complex algorithms to determine when to show the unsubscribe option. These algorithms consider factors such as user engagement (how users interact with emails from the sender), sender reputation, and the nature of the email. If Gmail doesn’t consider the email campaign as eligible, it might not display the unsubscribe link.
The following is an example of showing one-click unsubscribe (list-unsubscribe header)
If you would like to locate your MailBluster campaigns’ list-unsubscribe header:
Google
In your Google inbox, open the email and click the three vertical dots in the upper right corner.
Choose Show original.
Search for list-unsubscribe to view the header.
Yahoo
In your Yahoo inbox, open the email and click the More icon (three dots).
Amazon SES tracks complaint rates but does not capture specific reasons when a recipient marks an email as a complaint. Since recipients do not provide a reason for their complaint, AWS only logs the complaint event without storing additional details. As a result, only the overall complaint rate is is shown.
This is how Amazon SES complaint handling works:
Tracks complaint events via feedback loops
Records when recipients mark emails as spam
Logs overall complaint rates
Does not capture specific complaint reasons
No detailed feedback from recipients
Limitations of Amazon SES:
Only shows that a complaint occurred
No insight into why recipient complained
No detailed complaint messages stored
Only aggregate complaint metrics available
Since AWS SES does not store detailed complaint reasons, monitoring your complaint rates and following best email-sending practices is essential to maintain a good sender reputation.
