January 29, 2018

Let Amazon Send your Emails

Imagine we pick an email marketer at random and we ask him: “Hey, bro! Which Email Service Provider (ESP) do you use?”

Yep, an ESP is the service you use to send your emails and newsletters to your subscribers every week.

What do you think some possible answers will be?

MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse, Drip, Active Campaign, ConvertKit, right?

And then a dude comes and says: “I use Amazon.”

Whhhhaaatt??? Amazon??? You on drugs mate?

No, he’s not. You can use Amazon to send and receive emails and you know what? They’re fucking cheap, solid and reliable.

I’m talking about Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Simple Email Service.

I’m still using Aweber but I decided to give Amazon SES a go for the following reasons:

I trust Amazon for their excellent customer service.
I was convinced before trying that their sending IP’s would have an excellent reputation (Remember the reputation of your ESP’s IP highly determines your ability to reach your subscribers’ inbox. However, if you are a spammer no reputation will save your soul. On the contrary, Amazon or any ESP will kick you out 🙂
My brother, a computer scientist, uses AWS Machine Learning and AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools at work and he’s raving every time he talks about them.
OMG! They are so cheap!!! As for today, 29th of January 2018, they offer 62K emails/month (2K/day) for free to new accounts! So, if we assume that you send out one campaign every week and you have up to (62000*12)/52 = 14307 subscribers, you pay nothing! Now, if you send 4K/day, you pay $6.10/month! Unbelievable! Check the screenshots below. To calculate your costs, use their calculator here.

Note that, although we’re going to set up Amazon for the delivery of our emails, we also need to get Mailster, a WordPress plugin for managing our lists and autoresponders on our WordPress platform. Mailster costs an one-off fee of $49, but trust me, it’s worth it.

Mailster Installation

Once you purchase Mailster, download the zip file from the Downloads section of CodeCanyon and extract.

Extract the Documentation zip.

Open the page Index.html in the Documentation folder. There you’ll find a complete guide to all the plugin features.

Click Upload Plugin.

Choose the Mailster zip from the Extracted Folder of Step 2 and press Install Now.

Once installed, click Activate Plugin.

Then Press Start Wizard.

Next, under the Basics tab, use the same address in the From and Reply-To fields for better deliverability purposes.

Enter your Address. Remember your Address is not optional; it’s required by law. Don’t mess with anything else there. The tags in {} are populated by the Plugin itself. You don’t have to change those values.
Skip the Newsletter Tab for now and there you go! Delivery! You see you need to install the Amazon AWS plugin.

Now, take a break and go sign up for AWS below. Don’t exit this Wizard. We’ll finalise the whole thing later.

Sign Up for AWS and Simple Email Service

Go to the Amazon AWS page and sign up for an AWS account.

Once you create the account, click on Sign-In to your Console.

Then click on Simple Email Service or type ses in the search bar.

First, you need to verify an email account from which you’ll be sending your emails. Click on Email Addresses on the left and then Verify a New Email Address on the top.

You will receive a confirmation email from Amazon. Click on the link in the email and then you’ll see that your email is now verified.

Now, you need to verify your domain. Click on Domain on the left and then, Verify a New Domain at the top. For domain verification, Amazon asks you to insert a TXT record like the one below in your DNS settings.

Go to your registrar’s website. If you use Bluehost like me, go to Domains and then choose DNS Zone Editor. Add a new record with Type – TXT, Host Record – AWS Name field, and TXT Value – AWS Value field.

In a few minutes, you’ll get an email from Amazon that the domain has been verified.

Then you need to set up three CNAME records for DKIM verification purposes (similar to the process for adding the TXT domain verification record before). Yep guys, that’s bloody important, DKIM records server as your email signature. It means that it’s you and your domain that created this email. ISP’s look for these records to make sure that your email is legitimate. It’s not optional as Amazon says. It’s NECESSARY. We’ll talk more about authentication and DKIM later. If you want more information see http://www.dkim.org.
Now, you need to get your Amazon Access Key and Secret Key. Go to the top of your AWS console and choose My Security Credentials.

Then click on Access keys (access key ID and secret access key) and Create New Access Key.

Finalise the configuration of Mailster

Enter the Amazon Access Key and Secret Key and Press Next.

In the next tab, you have to enter your purchase code. After your purchase from CodeCanyon, you received an email. Check there for the purchase code.
You’re now done and you can create your first list!

Ask for Production Access

Now you need to ask for production access by filling a form on the AWS site. Go to this address and fill and form. This is a very helpful resource on how to complete the form.

Note here that Amazon has certain sending limits for a new account and they steadily ramp up your sending activity to improve your deliverability so you don’t get blocked by ISP’s. So, don’t freak out if you can’t send instantly to 100k subscribers.

It takes around 24 hrs for getting production access. In the meantime you can play with the Mailster plugin, ie. you can create a list, customise your forms, add a form widget to your website, etc. If you have any questions, you can open a support ticket on the Mailster website. You’ll have to sing up first using your license code from CodeCanyon. And this is their knowledge base page with useful getting-started tutorials.

And this is what Amazon suggests on their AWS blog in terms of deliverability and list management. Basic stuff but very important, right?

Enjoy and respect peoples’ inboxes!