How do I setup a Custom SMTP using Amazon SES to improve email deliverability?
This article will explain you why you might want to consider using a SMTP to send your emails, and guide you on how to set one up with Amazon SES.
Introduction
I. Setting up Amazon SES
II. Configuring the SMTP
Congratulations, your SMTP server with Amazon SES is deployed!
How can I take advantage of the features provided by Amazon SES?
Extra Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
Setting up a custom SMTP is available from the Basic plan, starting at 0$ / mo
⚠️ Amazon SES is totally free for up to 62000 email sent / month so it's really great for any companies willing to improve its deliverability at little to no-costs.
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is an email platform that provides a solution to send and receive email using your own email addresses and domains, similarly to other services such as SendGrid or MailGun.
Email delivery services provide many benefits such as:
High deliverability to ensure that your emails don't end up in spams.
Scalability to meet your needs and ensure that you're able to handle high volumes of emails.
Tracking and analytics features which will help you further monitor delivery rates, bounce rates, openings... etc.
Reputation management which can help you efficiently improve deliverability.
Many other features depending on the services used, such as Integrations, API, Compliance, Security, and more.
The SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the protocol that will allow you to connect Crisp to this Email Service. It serves as a bridge and will handle the emails sent from Crisp and relay them to your Email Service, so that they can delivered to the proper recipients. It will also help you fight poor email deliverability.
Whether it is for basic customers' communication through the Crisp Inbox or using Crisp Campaigns, the custom SMTP will impact each and every email sent from Crisp.
SMTPs also provide various advantages such as email verification, error handling, and more.
In this guide we will focus on Amazon SES and the SMTP provided by AWS, but feel free to explore other options, and don't hesitate letting us know about which solution you chose for your Crisp emails.
If you wish to dig deeper and learn more about how it works, feel free to check their overview guide.
You can find more informations about the features provided by their solution provide right here as well as a detailed setup page which can you refer to if needed.
If you're unsure whether a SMTP would be beneficial for your business, don't hesitate reaching out to our support!
Configuring your SMTP server in Crisp will require you to have an active Custom Email Domain. If you haven't done so yet, or if you're unsure about how to accomplish this, you can consult this article on how to set one up.
The following guide will also require you to meet these 3 conditions:
Being an Owner of your Crisp workspace (also see: How can I change Agent roles? for more information).
Having access to the DNS records of your domain used for emails (Cloudflare, OVH, GoDaddy, etc).
Creating an Amazon AWS account (or have root/admin access for your organization). You can create your Amazon AWS account here.
To kick off this guide, we will create and verify an identity for our email domain. This will later allow use to send emails from that domain by using our SMTP server provided by Amazon SES.
Step 1: Log into your Amazon AWS dashboard and, from the top-left menu, navigate to Services > Business Applications > Amazon Simple Email Service.
You can also directly search for "SES".
Step 2: Head to Configuration > Verified Identities, and click "Create Identity".
Step 3: Select the Domain identity type, then simply enter the sub-domain from which you will be sending your emails and click "Create".
You can leave the other options to default for a basic setup. We will set up our Custom MAIL FROM Domain in the next step.
Step 4: After being redirected to your new identity, head down to the bottom section Custom MAIL FROM Domain then click "Edit" and enter a new sub-level domain (eg. ses.emails.mydomain.com if you are sending your emails from emails.mydomain.com) and save the changes.
This sub-domain will be used under the hood by your SMTP and email clients, in the headers of the emails sent. A "Custom MAIL FROM domain" is a great way to:
Improve the deliverability of your emails and help establish a stronger reputation for your domain.
Maintain a consistent branding experience for your recipients.
Handle bounces and complaints more efficiently.
Step 5: Back in Domain Identity, you will now see two sets of DNS records:
Your Domain's DKIM records (if you kept the default settings earlier).
Your Sub-Domain's MX and TXT records.
These records will need to be added to your DNS settings. In this demonstration, our domain is hosted by Cloudflare:
Keep in mind that Proxies should be disabled for all of these records (represented by an orange/grey cloud in Cloudflare).
Take some time to double-check and make sure that all your records were entered correctly.
Also note that the DNS records can take some time to propagate, and that Amazon only performs checks periodically, not on-demand. As such, it is not unusual for the verification process to take over 24h.
Once the status of your domain's DKIM and sub-domain's have gone from "Pending" to "Successful", you will see that the status of your identity will also turn to Verified.
Note: As the Custom MAIL FROM is optional, you do not need to wait for those DNS records to propagate in order to pursue the setup.
If the verification fails or take abnormally long, double-check the value of your records, their priority (if any) and make sure that any proxies are disabled. Should the verification not go through, we would advise contacting the Amazon AWS or your domain provider for assistance.
Step 6: Now that the Identity Status for our domain is set to Verified, it's time to check that our configuration is working properly. There are several ways to do this, but in our case we will choose to email ourselves to our personal email address.
However, because our environment is still in sandbox mode, AWS will only allow us to email verified recipients. Let's work on that:
Head back to Configuration > Verified Identities and click "Create Identity".
This time, select Email address and enter the personal email address to which you to send a test email (eg. john.doe@gmail.com). Click on "Create Identity" at the bottom to register it.
A verification email will be sent to this email address, you will need to click the link inside in order to verify it.
Step 7: On the top-right of the Summary section, click on "Send test email".
You can now choose which scenario you wish to conduct. In our example, as we want to attempt sending an email to our personal email address, we will select a Custom scenario:
From-address: simply specify a name from which the email will be sent
Custom recipient: your personal email address
Fill-in a dummy subject & message template
Send the test email, which should then be received in your personal inbox for the email address that you specified.
If you're not receiving your test emails, make sure that that your Domain Identity is verified, and that you are sending them to verified recipients. If you're not sure why your emails are not being delivered, please consult Amazon's SES documentation and their troubleshooting steps.
Step 8: In order to use SES and our SMTP server in Crisp, we will need to move to a Production environment.
As you noticed, our environment is currently in Sandbox mode, which has certain limitations. We can only send emails to verified recipients, and our daily quota is heavily restricted. In order to lift these restrictions, we will need to move to a Production environment. This can be done directly from your Amazon SES dashboard by selecting "Request Production Access" and filling-in the required information. While you could proceed with the next chapter of this guide from the Sandbox, we recommend that you obtain your Production access before proceeding with the last chapter of this guide, otherwise your emails will not be properly delivered from the Sandbox.
Once you've submitted your Production request to the AWS team, you will need to await their approval in order for your new environment to be activated.
That's it for this part! We're now ready to configure our SMTP, which will allow use to send Emails from Amazon SES through Crisp.
It is now time to configure the SMTP server. We will create the necessary credentials and configure Crisp to use this SMTP to dispatch our emails.
Step 1: Still in your Amazon AWS dashboard, head once again to Services > Business Applications > Amazon Simple Email Service.
Step 2: The access to our SMTP is now just a few clicks away:
Move to "SMTP Settings" and click "Create SMTP Credentials".
Choose a username (or keep the default one) and click "Create".
Consult, download, and securely store your SMTP credentials. If you lose them, you will have to re-create them again.
Reminder: In these next steps we will connect Crisp to our SMTP server, which means that all emails sent from Crisp will be routed through SES. Make sure that you have obtained and activated your production environment, otherwise your emails will no longer be delivered.
Step 3: We now need to connect to our SMTP in Crisp.
Go to app.crisp.chat and log into your dashboard.
Navigate to Settings > Website Settings > Advanced Configuration > Custom Email SMTP.
Step 4: Fill in your SMTP username and password acquired in Step 2. You will find your SMTP server and port information back in AWS, by going to Amazon SES > SMTP Settings.
Once you're done, click "Verify SMTP Credentials".
Step 5: We're now almost finished! It's time to test if our SMTP is working. To do that, nothing better than actually sending an email directly from Crisp!
You can create a new email conversation and send a test email to the email address of your choice.
You can now check your inbox for this email. You can also take a second to review the headers in order to see the informations regarding the SMTP and the Custom MAIL FROM domain you set up earlier!
You're all set!
You can now also take advantages of many of the features offered by Amazon SES, such as statistic about the emails dispatched, monitoring bounces and spams, various integrations with AWS and much more. You can find a more exhaustive list here.
Your SMTP for Amazon SES will now affect all the outbound emails sent from your Crisp inbox.
Regarding Campaigns, your limits do not change either. Don't hesitate taking a look at our dedicated article regarding the amount of recipients you can send one-shot campaigns to. You can also check our article about Dedicated IPs, in order to further increase these quotas!
You can also consult the official documentation for more ways to tweak and configure your SMTP to send emails.
Amazon SES (and Email Services in general) offer numerous features to help you further improve deliverability, monitor your emails, and make your life easier in general. While the list is long and may depend on your use-case, here are few worth mentioning:
Virtual Delivery Manager can help you improve both your deliverability and reputation by providing insights and giving you advices on how to fix the issues that are negatively affecting your delivery success rate and reputation.
Configuration Sets : You might have noticed this option when first creating your Domain Identity. You can create configurations sets and assign them to your domain to publish email sending metrics (deliveries, bounces, clicks, openings... etc) and analyze them.
Sending Limits will allow you to keep a hand on your sendings rates and quotas to control costs for high volumes of emails.
You can find more information in the official FAQ as well. Have fun!
Should you want to discover and learn more about your newly created SMTP server powered by Amazon SES, we would of course recommend you to check out their official and complete documentation.
If you're just getting started with Crisp and you wish to get started, a good place to start is to set up your own custom email domain.
And if you just completed this guide, it might be time to get ready to send your campaigns. Don't hesitate checking out our guides, such as our article to properly format your campaigns.
Finally, we have a number of helpful articles and tutorials such as this one about using of automated campaigns.
Why is my Domain Identity still pending? When will it be verified?
The verification process of the domain can take up to 48h in some cases. Make sure the DKIM configuration is properly setup. Don't hesitate double-checking that you've set the records properly and for the right domain. Also make sure that you don't have any conflicting DNS settings or proxies for these records.
If your domain still remain unverified, you should contact AWS (or whichever Email Service you use) as well as your DNS provider for support.
My Domain Identity is verified, but not my Custom EMAIL FROM Domain, why?
Most domain verification issues stem from error in the ways the records were set. You should check the configuration once again and make sure you don't have any conflicting MX records for instance. Our support won't be able to help in that regard, you will need to reach your to DNS provider if the issues persists.
Is the SMTP only routing my Campaigns?
The SMTP will handle all outbound emails emitted from Crisp. It will route not only your Automated and One-Shot Campaigns, but also the emails sent from your Crisp Inbox, conversations Transcripts, etc...
Can I use the SMTP to create a triple-layered VTX HyperLoop and automatically dispatch emails to different multiverses?
...Sure.
Have more questions? Shoot us a message!
Table of Content
Introduction
I. Setting up Amazon SES
II. Configuring the SMTP
Congratulations, your SMTP server with Amazon SES is deployed!
How can I take advantage of the features provided by Amazon SES?
Extra Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
Setting up a custom SMTP is available from the Basic plan, starting at 0$ / mo
⚠️ Amazon SES is totally free for up to 62000 email sent / month so it's really great for any companies willing to improve its deliverability at little to no-costs.
Introduction
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is an email platform that provides a solution to send and receive email using your own email addresses and domains, similarly to other services such as SendGrid or MailGun.
Email delivery services provide many benefits such as:
High deliverability to ensure that your emails don't end up in spams.
Scalability to meet your needs and ensure that you're able to handle high volumes of emails.
Tracking and analytics features which will help you further monitor delivery rates, bounce rates, openings... etc.
Reputation management which can help you efficiently improve deliverability.
Many other features depending on the services used, such as Integrations, API, Compliance, Security, and more.
The SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the protocol that will allow you to connect Crisp to this Email Service. It serves as a bridge and will handle the emails sent from Crisp and relay them to your Email Service, so that they can delivered to the proper recipients. It will also help you fight poor email deliverability.
Whether it is for basic customers' communication through the Crisp Inbox or using Crisp Campaigns, the custom SMTP will impact each and every email sent from Crisp.
SMTPs also provide various advantages such as email verification, error handling, and more.
In this guide we will focus on Amazon SES and the SMTP provided by AWS, but feel free to explore other options, and don't hesitate letting us know about which solution you chose for your Crisp emails.
If you wish to dig deeper and learn more about how it works, feel free to check their overview guide.
You can find more informations about the features provided by their solution provide right here as well as a detailed setup page which can you refer to if needed.
If you're unsure whether a SMTP would be beneficial for your business, don't hesitate reaching out to our support!
Configuring your SMTP server in Crisp will require you to have an active Custom Email Domain. If you haven't done so yet, or if you're unsure about how to accomplish this, you can consult this article on how to set one up.
The following guide will also require you to meet these 3 conditions:
Being an Owner of your Crisp workspace (also see: How can I change Agent roles? for more information).
Having access to the DNS records of your domain used for emails (Cloudflare, OVH, GoDaddy, etc).
Creating an Amazon AWS account (or have root/admin access for your organization). You can create your Amazon AWS account here.
I. Setting up Amazon SES
To kick off this guide, we will create and verify an identity for our email domain. This will later allow use to send emails from that domain by using our SMTP server provided by Amazon SES.
Step 1: Log into your Amazon AWS dashboard and, from the top-left menu, navigate to Services > Business Applications > Amazon Simple Email Service.
You can also directly search for "SES".
Step 2: Head to Configuration > Verified Identities, and click "Create Identity".
Step 3: Select the Domain identity type, then simply enter the sub-domain from which you will be sending your emails and click "Create".
You can leave the other options to default for a basic setup. We will set up our Custom MAIL FROM Domain in the next step.
Step 4: After being redirected to your new identity, head down to the bottom section Custom MAIL FROM Domain then click "Edit" and enter a new sub-level domain (eg. ses.emails.mydomain.com if you are sending your emails from emails.mydomain.com) and save the changes.
This sub-domain will be used under the hood by your SMTP and email clients, in the headers of the emails sent. A "Custom MAIL FROM domain" is a great way to:
Improve the deliverability of your emails and help establish a stronger reputation for your domain.
Maintain a consistent branding experience for your recipients.
Handle bounces and complaints more efficiently.
Step 5: Back in Domain Identity, you will now see two sets of DNS records:
Your Domain's DKIM records (if you kept the default settings earlier).
Your Sub-Domain's MX and TXT records.
These records will need to be added to your DNS settings. In this demonstration, our domain is hosted by Cloudflare:
Keep in mind that Proxies should be disabled for all of these records (represented by an orange/grey cloud in Cloudflare).
Take some time to double-check and make sure that all your records were entered correctly.
Also note that the DNS records can take some time to propagate, and that Amazon only performs checks periodically, not on-demand. As such, it is not unusual for the verification process to take over 24h.
Once the status of your domain's DKIM and sub-domain's have gone from "Pending" to "Successful", you will see that the status of your identity will also turn to Verified.
Note: As the Custom MAIL FROM is optional, you do not need to wait for those DNS records to propagate in order to pursue the setup.
If the verification fails or take abnormally long, double-check the value of your records, their priority (if any) and make sure that any proxies are disabled. Should the verification not go through, we would advise contacting the Amazon AWS or your domain provider for assistance.
Step 6: Now that the Identity Status for our domain is set to Verified, it's time to check that our configuration is working properly. There are several ways to do this, but in our case we will choose to email ourselves to our personal email address.
However, because our environment is still in sandbox mode, AWS will only allow us to email verified recipients. Let's work on that:
Head back to Configuration > Verified Identities and click "Create Identity".
This time, select Email address and enter the personal email address to which you to send a test email (eg. john.doe@gmail.com). Click on "Create Identity" at the bottom to register it.
A verification email will be sent to this email address, you will need to click the link inside in order to verify it.
Step 7: On the top-right of the Summary section, click on "Send test email".
You can now choose which scenario you wish to conduct. In our example, as we want to attempt sending an email to our personal email address, we will select a Custom scenario:
From-address: simply specify a name from which the email will be sent
Custom recipient: your personal email address
Fill-in a dummy subject & message template
Send the test email, which should then be received in your personal inbox for the email address that you specified.
If you're not receiving your test emails, make sure that that your Domain Identity is verified, and that you are sending them to verified recipients. If you're not sure why your emails are not being delivered, please consult Amazon's SES documentation and their troubleshooting steps.
Step 8: In order to use SES and our SMTP server in Crisp, we will need to move to a Production environment.
As you noticed, our environment is currently in Sandbox mode, which has certain limitations. We can only send emails to verified recipients, and our daily quota is heavily restricted. In order to lift these restrictions, we will need to move to a Production environment. This can be done directly from your Amazon SES dashboard by selecting "Request Production Access" and filling-in the required information. While you could proceed with the next chapter of this guide from the Sandbox, we recommend that you obtain your Production access before proceeding with the last chapter of this guide, otherwise your emails will not be properly delivered from the Sandbox.
Once you've submitted your Production request to the AWS team, you will need to await their approval in order for your new environment to be activated.
That's it for this part! We're now ready to configure our SMTP, which will allow use to send Emails from Amazon SES through Crisp.
II. Configuring the SMTP
It is now time to configure the SMTP server. We will create the necessary credentials and configure Crisp to use this SMTP to dispatch our emails.
Step 1: Still in your Amazon AWS dashboard, head once again to Services > Business Applications > Amazon Simple Email Service.
Step 2: The access to our SMTP is now just a few clicks away:
Move to "SMTP Settings" and click "Create SMTP Credentials".
Choose a username (or keep the default one) and click "Create".
Consult, download, and securely store your SMTP credentials. If you lose them, you will have to re-create them again.
Reminder: In these next steps we will connect Crisp to our SMTP server, which means that all emails sent from Crisp will be routed through SES. Make sure that you have obtained and activated your production environment, otherwise your emails will no longer be delivered.
Step 3: We now need to connect to our SMTP in Crisp.
Go to app.crisp.chat and log into your dashboard.
Navigate to Settings > Website Settings > Advanced Configuration > Custom Email SMTP.
Step 4: Fill in your SMTP username and password acquired in Step 2. You will find your SMTP server and port information back in AWS, by going to Amazon SES > SMTP Settings.
Once you're done, click "Verify SMTP Credentials".
Step 5: We're now almost finished! It's time to test if our SMTP is working. To do that, nothing better than actually sending an email directly from Crisp!
You can create a new email conversation and send a test email to the email address of your choice.
You can now check your inbox for this email. You can also take a second to review the headers in order to see the informations regarding the SMTP and the Custom MAIL FROM domain you set up earlier!
Congratulations, your SMTP server with Amazon SES is deployed!
You're all set!
You can now also take advantages of many of the features offered by Amazon SES, such as statistic about the emails dispatched, monitoring bounces and spams, various integrations with AWS and much more. You can find a more exhaustive list here.
Your SMTP for Amazon SES will now affect all the outbound emails sent from your Crisp inbox.
Regarding Campaigns, your limits do not change either. Don't hesitate taking a look at our dedicated article regarding the amount of recipients you can send one-shot campaigns to. You can also check our article about Dedicated IPs, in order to further increase these quotas!
You can also consult the official documentation for more ways to tweak and configure your SMTP to send emails.
How can I take advantage of the features provided by Amazon SES?
Amazon SES (and Email Services in general) offer numerous features to help you further improve deliverability, monitor your emails, and make your life easier in general. While the list is long and may depend on your use-case, here are few worth mentioning:
Virtual Delivery Manager can help you improve both your deliverability and reputation by providing insights and giving you advices on how to fix the issues that are negatively affecting your delivery success rate and reputation.
Configuration Sets : You might have noticed this option when first creating your Domain Identity. You can create configurations sets and assign them to your domain to publish email sending metrics (deliveries, bounces, clicks, openings... etc) and analyze them.
Sending Limits will allow you to keep a hand on your sendings rates and quotas to control costs for high volumes of emails.
You can find more information in the official FAQ as well. Have fun!
Extra Resources
Should you want to discover and learn more about your newly created SMTP server powered by Amazon SES, we would of course recommend you to check out their official and complete documentation.
If you're just getting started with Crisp and you wish to get started, a good place to start is to set up your own custom email domain.
And if you just completed this guide, it might be time to get ready to send your campaigns. Don't hesitate checking out our guides, such as our article to properly format your campaigns.
Finally, we have a number of helpful articles and tutorials such as this one about using of automated campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my Domain Identity still pending? When will it be verified?
The verification process of the domain can take up to 48h in some cases. Make sure the DKIM configuration is properly setup. Don't hesitate double-checking that you've set the records properly and for the right domain. Also make sure that you don't have any conflicting DNS settings or proxies for these records.
If your domain still remain unverified, you should contact AWS (or whichever Email Service you use) as well as your DNS provider for support.
My Domain Identity is verified, but not my Custom EMAIL FROM Domain, why?
Most domain verification issues stem from error in the ways the records were set. You should check the configuration once again and make sure you don't have any conflicting MX records for instance. Our support won't be able to help in that regard, you will need to reach your to DNS provider if the issues persists.
Is the SMTP only routing my Campaigns?
The SMTP will handle all outbound emails emitted from Crisp. It will route not only your Automated and One-Shot Campaigns, but also the emails sent from your Crisp Inbox, conversations Transcripts, etc...
Can I use the SMTP to create a triple-layered VTX HyperLoop and automatically dispatch emails to different multiverses?
...Sure.
Have more questions? Shoot us a message!
Updated on: 11/03/2024
Thank you!