What is AWS?
What is Amazon SES?
What is an AWS Region?
Pricing plans of Amazon SES
What is Amazon SNS?
Why do I need Amazon SNS?
Connecting AWS account with MailBluster
Can I use MailBluster without an AWS account?
Do I need to pay Amazon to create AWS Account?
Do I need to have a website for my AWS Account?
Do I need to pay an additional cost to AWS for using Amazon SES?
How to choose AWS Region for MailBluster?
How to move out of Amazon SES Sandbox?
Can I use my MailBluster Account when my AWS Account is in sandbox?
What is Amazon SES Sandbox and why does my account have sandbox access?
What if I don’t get approval from Amazon SES after requesting to move out of the sandbox?
I’m getting the error ‘Unable to connect with Amazon SES using your AWS account’
How to verify a domain in Amazon SES?
How to verify an email address in Amazon SES?
How to verify Sender Domain from MailBluster?
How to verify Sender Email Address from MailBluster?
What is a Sender Identity?
What is a Custom Domain?
How to set Custom MAIL FROM Domain in AWS?
Why set Custom MAIL FROM Domain in Amazon SES?
How to prevent Gmail from showing ‘via amazonses.com’?
Why my AWS Account has been “Paused”?
How to resolve AWS Account “Pause” issue?
Cloudflare configuration is not working with HTTPS?
How can I achieve positive sender reputation if I switch to a new domain?
I am getting this error: Unable to find the permission of ‘AmazonSESFullAccess’.
I am getting this error: Unable to find the permission of ‘AmazonSNSFullAccess’.
Gmail is still not showing the one-click unsubscribe (list-unsubscribe header) in my emails?
Does AWS show complaint rates and bounce rates for AWS accounts?
What is a Campaign?
How to edit a Campaign?
How to rename a campaign?
How to duplicate a campaign?
How to schedule a campaign in MailBluster?
How to cancel a scheduled campaign?
Changing the width of campaign email
What is the maximum email content size limit?
Using query string in campaign
Removing MailBluster branding
Why is it taking a long time to send the campaigns from MailBluster?
What is double opt-in?
How can I set-up Double Opt-In for my campaign?
Difference between Standard Campaigns and Automation Campaigns
Is there a way to sent email in plain text using MailBluster?
How to create and send an email campaign?
How to send Personalized Email from MailBluster?
How to compose email using Drag and Drop Editor?
How can we share the email campaign from MailBluster?
How to set Unsubscribe URL using Drag and Drop editor?
How to set Unsubscribe URL using HTML editor?
How to set Unsubscribe URL using WYSIWYG Editor?
Why my email campaign is showing “outdated”?
Why is my campaign still in the “waiting” status?
Can I store images in MailBluster?
What is the maximum file size of an image file that can be used in an email campaign?
If I want to include a motion logo, what would be the process for doing so?
Why does the text look okay in the editor, but in the campaign, it becomes broken?
How to use UTM for tracking in MailBluster using Google Analytics?
If I exceed my sending limit, will my campaign continue tomorrow automatically?
How do you resolve “Content is invalid, merge tag or block tag contains error”?
How to resolve “AWS connection is invalid” under the “Sender email address?”
Is the short preheader text I use in my email campaign getting automatically populated?
I have set up my URL but in the test mail, it is showing 404 error and redirecting it to different URL
How to use default Merge Tag in email campaign if the recipients do not have the data (First Name, Last Name, Full Name, etc)?

What is a Campaign?

Last update: March 18, 2024

A campaign is like a special email you send to a bunch of people. You get to make it look nice, pick when it goes out, and decide who gets it. After it’s sent, you get a report telling you how well it did.

Campaigns are usually send in bulk in MailBluster. The receivers are mainly your subscribers.

How to edit a Campaign?

Last update: March 18, 2024

Draft Campaigns can easily be edited in MailBluster. To edit a campaign, simply click on the 3 dot ellipsis.

Click on 3 dot ellipsis.

Then click on Edit campaign.

Click on Edit campaign

Now you can edit your Audience and Info.

You can edit your Audience and Info

Also, you can edit your Content etc.

You can edit email Content

How to rename a campaign?

Last update: March 18, 2024

You can rename these type of campaigns Draft/Sent/Cancelled/Failed in MailBluster. First go to Campaigns. Then click on 3 dots (…) ellipsis. In the drop down list, click on Rename campaign.

Clicking on 3 dot ellipsis and then click Rename campaign

When you click Rename campaign, a popup dialogue box will appear from which you can change the Campaign name of the selected campaign.

Rename campaign pop up box appears where Campaign name is inserted

How to duplicate a campaign?

Last update: March 18, 2024

To duplicate campaigns, go to Campaigns then select your desired campaign and then click on the 3 dots (…) ellipsis.

Clicking on 3 dot ellipsis and then click Duplicate campaign

After you clicked Duplicate campaign, a new campaign with the identical name and design will be created as shown below:

An identical name and design of the campaign is created with the label - duplicated

How to schedule a campaign in MailBluster?

Last update: March 18, 2024

Let’s assume that you’ve completed all of the prerequisite steps before sending email campaign from MailBluster and have already designed your email campaign and now, you are ready to send your campaign.

Now what you need to do is scroll down to the bottom of your edit campaign page and look for the Delivery section, where you need to select the Schedule option and enter your preferred Delivery date, Delivery time, and timezone. Then click Continue to proceed.

Selecting Schedule and then setting Delivery date, Delivery time and Timezone

After clicking Schedule Campaign, your campaign will be ready and will be send out to the senders at the specified time you set.

Clicking on Schedule campaign button and the campaign is set to send at the desired time and date

How to cancel a scheduled campaign?

Last update: March 18, 2024

To cancel a schedule campaign, first make sure that your campaign is in Scheduled state as shown below. Click on the 3 dot ellipsis. Then click on View campaign.

Click on the 3 dot ellipsis. Then click on View campaign.

Once you are on the View campaign screen, you will notice that you campaign status is set to Scheduled. Just click on the Cancel campaign button.

click on the Cancel campaign button.

A confirmation dialogue box named Cancel campaign appears. Click on Cancel button.

Click on Cancel button.

Your campaign will then stopped immediately and the status will be set to Draft. You can now edit your campaign or reschedule it to any other time.

Your campaign will then stopped immediately and the status will be set to Draft.

Changing the width of campaign email

Last update: March 18, 2024

If you want to change the width of your email campaign, then open the campaign first. Then edit the campaign using Drag and drop Editor. Inside the Compose email, Go to Compose email window > Content > Body> Content Width. Using this option, you can change the width of your email campaign. The following screenshot will let you clarify it further:

Inside the compose email, change the width of your email campaign

Using query string in campaign

Last update: March 18, 2024

Query string is a tail added onto a URL that carry information from one page to another.

To understand query strings, let’s first take a closer look at a sample URL that uses one:

https://example.com/product/shirt/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=winter

The first section of a URL is called a protocol (https). It is followed by the domain name of the website, or the hostname (here http://example.com ). And the next part (after the forward slash) is the path (product/shirt/?).

Everything that follows the path after the question mark (?) is the tail of the URL, also known as the query string (utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=winter).

MailBluster has the option to put a query string in your campaign email, which you will find under Campaigns > Content > Query String section:

Entering query string correctly under Campaigns

If you set query string in your campaign like this:

utm_source=email&utm_medium=MailBluster&utm_campaign=campaign_xyz

then it will be appended to all the links of the campaign.

Removing MailBluster branding

Last update: April 18, 2024

MailBluster branding is enabled by default for all the emails campaigns if you are using the Starter plan. Once you choose your Plan and add your Billing card, you will be able to remove the MailBluster branding from the email footer and unsubscribe page of your campaign email:

Remove MailBluster branding checkbox

You can check out the differences in the email footer and unsubscribe page after removing MailBluster Branding from here.

Why is it taking a long time to send the campaigns from MailBluster?

Last update: April 24, 2024

If your Amazon SES send rate is 14 emails/sec and by default, MailBluster operates at 90% of the send rate, which is 14 X 90% = 12.6 emails/sec, rounded down to 12 emails/sec. In summary, it means that MailBluster can send approximately 12 emails per second.

However, there might be other factors causing the delay:

  1. If you send any other email/campaign at the same time from Amazon SES, we might not be able to send emails at the above-mentioned rate.
  2. MailBluster sends only one campaign at a time. So, if you send multiple campaigns simultaneously, there might be some delay.
  3. MailBluster takes some time to prepare your campaign.
  4. MailBluster tries to send the campaign within one minute of your exact scheduled time. During this minute, there is a buffering time in case the sender wants to cancel the campaign.

What is double opt-in?

Last update: March 18, 2024

Double opt-in is a process where, after you subscribe for an email or newsletter, you receive an email asking you to confirm that you really want to join. It’s more like a “Are you sure?” step to make sure you’re not accidentally added or signed up by someone else. You need to click a link or take an action in that confirmation email to complete the sign-up process. This helps prevent spam and ensures that people on the list actually want to be there.

How can I set-up Double Opt-In for my campaign?

Last update: March 14, 2024

MailBluster utilizes a double opt-in mechanism to validate subscriber consent. This process ensures that subscribers not only sign up but also confirm their subscription via a verification email. By employing this method, MailBluster aims to maintain a high standard of compliance and deliverability.

Here is how double opt-in works in MailBluster:

Double opt-in is an additional step to the email subscription opt-in process, which requires a lead to verify the email address to subscribe to your brand. You need to enable double opt-in using the MailBluster developer API, and then new leads will receive a confirmation email. ( technical knowledge is required)

Please Note: Without using MailBluster developer API, the double opt-in Subscribe option will not work.

First, you need to set up the campaign for Double Opt-in from Settings > Double Opt-in. Set the redirect URL.

Clicking on Double opt-in under Settings
Composing email for double opt-in
Advance settings for double opt-in

Then use API endpoints from the Developer API and use it on your website. Technical knowledge is required to implement Double Opt-in on your website.

API documentation showing API endpoints under Manage leads

Also note that manually added leads won’t receive double opt-in confirmation email.

Difference between Standard Campaigns and Automation Campaigns

Last update: March 18, 2024

The standard campaign allows you to send individual campaign straight forward without any kinds of conditional triggers or delays. But for automation campaigns, you need to design a workflow with conditional triggers. You can also assign multiple campaigns to a single workflow with delay relays and trigger conditions in Automation.

The following are sample screenshots to show the differences between normal campaign and an automation campaign.

Normal Campaign Layout:

Normal Campaign Layout

Automation Campaign Layout:

Automation Campaign Layout

Is there a way to sent email in plain text using MailBluster?

Last update: March 18, 2024

You can send plain text using MailBluster if you use the WYSIWYG editor.
Plain text with emojis are also possible to send using this editor present in MailBluster.

Go to your Campaign, and then select WYSIWYG editor from Content > Editor selection

Go to your Campaign, and then select WYSIWYG editor from Content > Editor selection

Here is a sample of Plain text email created using WYSIWYG editor from MailBluster.

Sample of Plain text email created using WYSIWYG editor

How to create and send an email campaign?

Last update: April 22, 2024

To create a new campaign, first you need to go to your Brand > Campaigns and the click on Create new.

Click on Create new

A new campaign window will appear and here you will need to set the Campaign name, select the appropriate Audience (senders from the Leads) and fill in the details in the Info section as highlighted below.

Set the Campaign name, select the appropriate Audience (senders from the Leads) and fill in the details in the Info section

You also need to select the appropriate editor for your email Content. Then click Edit button.

Select the appropriate Editor

Here we used Drag and drop editor to compose email campaign very easily.

Drag and drop editor is selected for Email compose

Select the Delivery option, MailBluster branding (click the Remove option if you are under Pro plan) and then click Save changes. Now click Continue.

Setting the Delivery to Send now

After clicking Continue, Preview campaign window pops up. Click Send campaign.

Preview campaign windows pops up. Click send campaign

The campaign is being sent to the appropriate sender. Status will change from “Sending” to “Sent”.

Campaign is being sent with sending progress

After the email campaign is sent, click on the View report.

Click on View report

The Report will show the metrics of the current campaign that was being sent.

Click on Overview under Reports for the current campaign

How to send Personalized Email from MailBluster?

Last update: March 18, 2024

When you personalize your emails, people find them more fitting and unique, leading to more opens and clicks. Making subscribers feel like the campaign is just for them which boosts the chances of getting the results you want.

To personalize your email, first go to Fields then either select Add new > Add this field to define your desired custom Fields

Clicking on Fields

Or, select the predefined Fields from the list copying their merge tags

Select Add new > Add this field to define your desired custom Fields

Now go to Campaigns > Create new

Going to Campaigns > Create new

Enter the campaign name, select the Audience and then go to Subject. Click on Insert merge tag icon and the list of merge tags will appear. Select your desired Merge tags for your email subject

Clicking on merge tag icon

The merge tags will appear like this as shown below

Setting up merge tags on the subject of the email

Now go to Content and click Edit

Clicking on Campaign and then Edit button

Personalize your email content by adding any additional merge tags as shown here

In the compose email, Clicking on Merge Tags button to add additional merge tags in the marketing email

Once you completed personalizing your Email content, click Done editing and your marketing email is ready for send out. Here is an example of Personalized email side by side. The left one is before sending and the right one is after subscriber receives the personalized email.

Preview campaign is showing email before sending and Actual campaign is the email received by the subscriber

How to compose email using Drag and Drop Editor?

Last update: March 18, 2024

MailBluster has three types of email editors which you can use to compose your email campaign:

1. Drag and drop editor

2. WYSIWYG Editor

3. HTML editor

The most common and easy-to-use editor is the Drag and Drop Editor. Emails composed with this editor are responsive and do not require programming or coding knowledge.

Selecting Editor: Drag & drop, WYSIWYG or HTML

Click on the Drag and Drop Editor on the edit campaign page.  It will take you directly to the Compose email, where you can easily design your email content.

After clicking on the Drag and Drop Editor on the edit campaign page

Once you completed designing your campaign, click Done Editing to save your email campaign.

How can we share the email campaign from MailBluster?

Last update: March 18, 2024

You can share your already sent campaign very easily with anyone using MailBluster share campaign feature and view it in browser, social media etc. First go to your Brand > Campaigns.

Here we selected a sample campaign. Click on the 3 dots as shown here:

Clicking on the 3 dots

A dropdown list will appear. Click View campaign

Clicking on View campaign

When the sent campaign is shown, click on the 3 dots beside View Report and a dropdown list option will appear. Click on Share campaign.

Clicking on Share campaign

Now will see a popup window. You need to click Copy link.

Clicking on Copy link

Paste it in a web browser and you will be able to see the entire campaign.

Pasting the campaign link in web browser

Now, you can share the entire sent campaign with anyone using this generated link from MailBluster.

How to set Unsubscribe URL using Drag and Drop editor?

Last update: April 25, 2024

To add an unsubscribe link in your email campaign using MailBluster’s Drag and drop Editor. First you need to go to your draft campaign/new campaign and click Edit to compose your campaign email.

1. On the right corner select the Content section, click TEXT box and drag and drop on the compose email area.

Drag and drop the Text button to the Compose email section for Method 1

2. Some text will appear with text editing toolbar

Text appears with text editing toolbar

3. Write a text like “Click here to Unsubscribe from this email“. Highlight “Here” and click on Insert/edit link.

Highlighting “Here” and then clicking on Insert/edit link button

4. Select Action Type: Open unsubscribe page.

Clicking on Action Type and selecting Open unsubscribe page

5. Click Save and the unsubscribe link is set on your email campaign.

Clicking Save button after Insert/Edit Link window pops up

6. Now the unsubscribe link has been added to the highlighted text.

Now the unsubscribe link has been added to the highlighted text.

7. Once viewed the email in inbox, it will show like this as shown below. If clicked it will take you to MailBluster’s default unsubscribe page.

Once viewed the email in inbox, it will show like this

How to set Unsubscribe URL using HTML editor?

Last update: March 18, 2024

To set Unsubscribe URL using HTML Editor, use this Unsubscribe URL merge tag:

{{unsubscribe_url}}

The HTML code should be this:

<a href="{{unsubscribe_url}}">Click to Unsubscribe</a>

Here is an example on how to set Unsubscribe URL using HTML Editor:

Setting the unsubscribe url merge tag in Compose email of HTML Editor

How to set Unsubscribe URL using WYSIWYG Editor?

Last update: March 18, 2024

To set Unsubscribe URL using WYSIWYG Editor, first select your WYSIWYG Editor from Campaign > Content.

Selecting WYSIWYG Editor under Campaigns

Once the editor opens, select any text and the highlight it. Once highlighted, click on Insert/Edit link and enter the merge tag “{{unsubscribe_url}}” in the URL field of the Insert/Edit Link popup box.

Highlighting any text and clicking on Insert/Edit link

Select Unsubscribe URL from Link list and then click Save.

Select Unsubscribe URL from Link list and then click Save

Click Done editing and exit from the editor. Now your Unsubscribe URL is ready.

Clicking Done editing on the top right corner to save the progress

Why my email campaign is showing “outdated”?

Last update: March 18, 2024

You might see this error after you have created a campaign and selected a

segment, and then after you click the Send Campaign button.

Error message after clicking send campaign

This error occurs due to the Segment you are using has been outdated which means the segment you selected is using conditions like leads campaign activity is more than 90 days old. You can see that the error has been highlighted by MailBluster. The selected Segment is marked in red and showing “Segment has been outdated”.

Selected segment is showing error "Segment has been outdated"

Now if you go to your campaign and further inspect, you will be able to resolve the issue. Go to your Draft campaign and click on the Standard Segment that you selected for this Draft campaign.

Go to your Draft campaign and click on the Standard Segment which you selected for this campaign.

As you will notice, the segment will show a pop-up message showing that your segment is Outdated. Click on the Edit segment.

The segment will show a pop-up message showing that it is Outdated. Click on the Edit segment.

After clicking on the Edit segment, you will notice that the campaigns that are selected for this segment conditions (Here we used Campaign activity: did not open conditions) are more than 90 days old. So you need to keep in mind that you should not use those campaigns or segments which are 90 days old. This is because MailBluster now keep activities of campaigns for the last 90 days.

After clicking on the Edit segment, you will notice that the campaigns are more than 90 days old.

Why is my campaign still in the “waiting” status?

Last update: March 18, 2024

MailBluster sends only one campaign at a time. If your campaign is in the waiting state, it means another campaign of your brand is in sending state. Once that campaign is sent, MailBluster will start sending the waiting campaigns one by one.

Campaign status showing "Waiting" state

Can I store images in MailBluster?

Last update: March 18, 2024

You can store images on MailBluster server. You can do it by using the Drag and drop editor. Please check out the screenshots below where you can store images by uploading the images.

Drag Image from the Content section of the Drag and drop editor and place it on the composed email content.

Dragging Image from the Content section and place it on the composed email content

Click on the Image placeholder, and an Upload image button will appear on the right side of Content section. Either drag and drop an image on the Drop and upload placeholder or click on the Upload image button and upload your desired image on the composed email.

Drag and drop an image on the Drop and upload placeholder or click on the Upload image button and upload your desired image on the composed email

Or you can click on More Images and click Upload to upload more images in MailBluster.

click on More Images and click Upload to upload more images

If I want to include a motion logo, what would be the process for doing so?

Last update: April 18, 2024

You need to generate a GIF logo first and add it as an image using the Drag and drop editor. It’s just like how you add images to the Drag and drop editor, you just need to select the GIF image.

You can download the cat GIF image that has been shared here and add it to test the behavior.

Animated GIF image of a CAT

Why does the text look okay in the editor, but in the campaign, it becomes broken?

Last update: March 19, 2024

This type of issue generally occurs when you compose Campaign using Copy-Paste technique.

To resolve this issue, there are 2 solutions.

Solution No.1:

When you copy-paste any text in Drag and drop Editor, click this option on the top right corner as shown below.

Click on the option button on the top right corner

Untick the checkbox Clean paste and wait for the editor to load again.

Untick the checkbox "Clean paste"

Now paste the text from the source and “Paste Formatting Options” will pop up. You will see these two conditions:

Paste Formatting Options showing 2 options Remove Formatting and Keep Formatting

1. If you select “Remove Formatting,” then only the basic structure of the text will be pasted, but the change will not work properly.

After selecting "Remove Formatting," then only the basic structure of the text is pasted

2. If you select “Keep Formatting,” then the same design will be pasted, but the change might not work properly.

After selecting "Keep Formatting," then the same design is pasted

Solution No.2:

When you paste using Ctrl+Shift+v (for Windows) and Cmd+Shift+v (for Mac), you will not get any formatting options. However, only text will appear. In this case, the change will work properly.

After pasting using Ctrl+Shift+v (for Windows) and Cmd+Shift+v (for Mac), only text will appear

How to use UTM for tracking in MailBluster using Google Analytics?

Last update: March 18, 2024

If you want to track your email campaigns using Google Analytics, you have to use the Query String option available in MailBluster campaign. You can optionally add query string to all of the links of your campaign body as well just before sending a campaign.

Correct format of Query String:

utm_source=email&utm_medium=MailBluster&utm_campaign=your_campaign_name

Before setting up query string, you need to first set up Google Analytics on your website.

You can follow this guide on how to setup Google Analytics.

Then you need to add UTM tracking in your MailBluster campaign.

Please note: there is no default UTM tracking in MailBluster.

Copy the URL with UTM tracking codes and use it in your specified campaign item, for example, Query string. This can be done by adding UTM to your campaign’s query string. You need to go to Brand > Campaigns > Send new > Query string, as shown in the screenshot below:

Finally, use the UTM for tracking using this guide.

Entering query string correctly under Campaigns

If I exceed my sending limit, will my campaign continue tomorrow automatically?

Last update: April 8, 2024

If the number of leads exceed your email sending limit of AWS (and MailBluster if you are under the Starter plan), your campaign will not proceed further. The campaign will show Failed. You should keep an eye on your daily sending limit from MailBluster Dashboard before you try to send any email campaigns from MailBluster.

Dashboard of MailBluster

Under Usage, you can see your Free quota usage from Username>My Account. The free quota: 3000 emails are only applicable for a MailBluster account not individual Brand.

Free quota usage

How do you resolve “Content is invalid, merge tag or block tag contains error”?

Last update: March 25, 2024

If you copy and paste any links in like this {{http://www.URL.com}}  then you will get this error message:

Content is invalid, merge tag or block tag contains error message

The correct way to set the merge tag is this: {{tag_name}}

You can try this method if you want to include links in your campaign without the merge tags:

Include links in your campaign like this without the merge tags

Please Note: Using the wrong merge tag will trigger this error: “Content is invalid, merge tag or block tag contains error.

Is the short preheader text I use in my email campaign getting automatically populated?

Last update: March 24, 2024

You must set a preheader text greater than 30 characters long. This is because preheader text is inevitable for any type of email. If you do not set a custom preheader or provide one too short to meet the 30-character minimum, email systems will start populating the preheader with email content. To avoid that happening, you should always set a preheader of at least 30 characters. The closer it is to the 55-character mobile maximum, the better.

I have set up my URL but in the test mail, it is showing 404 error and redirecting it to different URL

Last update: March 12, 2024

If you are facing an error with the CTA button as shown below like the URL is redirecting to a different URL during test mail and showing 404 error.

Setting up my URL in Action Type after placing CTA button "Order Now"

Then first, you need to sign in to your AWS account. Then, navigate to Amazon SES (You selected region) > Configuration sets > mailbluster-30375 (this can be any random number) in your AWS account. On this page, click  the Edit button under Overview tab General details section. On the edit page, disable/remove Custom redirect domain and save changes.

How to use default Merge Tag in email campaign if the recipients do not have the data (First Name, Last Name, Full Name, etc)?

Last update: March 18, 2024

If you want to use default Merge Tag in your email campaign because some of your recipients do not have these data (First Name, Last Name, Full Name, etc) in their records, then you can set a default value instead. The Default value can be inserted like this in your email campaign:
{{ first_name or “default value” }}

Here is a real example:
{{ first_name or “Hello!” }}

Here we have mentioned the value inside the double quote.