It is no secret to anyone that the most modern tools such as social networks have captured the attention of the general public, we use them all day on computers and cell phones, however, email continues to be one of the favorite means of communication and more close to users. In this post I want to share with you a method so that these emails have the highest probability of delivery, I will teach you how to connect SendGrid with WordPress to prevent your emails from reaching Spam.
What is email used for today?
Email is and will continue to be one of the most effective means of contact with users, there are numerous studies that show that its use is common and that users even check their personal email several times a day.
Brands today use email in a variety of ways, including:
NotificationsPromotionsTransactional (purchases, sales)Account information (registrations, password changes)
Ensuring that emails reach the users in the correct way becomes an increasingly difficult task due to the harsh anti-spam filters of email clients such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.
How to send an email in WordPress?
By default WordPress uses the PHP mail function to send emails, making the server where you have your installation send an email. however, the best way to ensure email delivery is to use a dedicated external email server that uses the SMTP protocol.
What is SMTP?
They are the acronym in English for “simple mail transfer protocol”, basically it is a protocol for emails to travel over the internet. Precisely today we are going to use the SendGrid service in its free version so that it takes care of the entire process of sending and delivering the emails that come out from WordPress.
The advantage of using an external SMTP server is that these services are optimized for mail delivery only, which ensures faster delivery speed and higher deliverability rate.
What is SendGrid?
SendGrid is an SMTP mail server that in its free version allows you to send 100 messages a day, which is a very large quota for small websites or those that are just starting out. One of its great advantages is the ease of installation in integration with platforms such as WordPress.
How to create a free account with SendGrid
To create an account with SendGrid start by going to their website: https://sendgrid.com/ and clicking the “Start for free” button.
You will be redirected to a screen to enter your username, password and email. You will need to accept the terms and conditions as well.
The platform will ask for additional information such as your name, surnames, company name and telephone number. All this for security reasons. Once you fill in this information and click on the “Get started” button, you will be redirected to the SendGrid platform where you must confirm your email.
Check your email and click the “Confirm email address” button to finish the confirmation process.
How to create an API key in SendGrid
Go to the “Settings” side menu and then click on the “API keys” menu, you will see a page like the following:
Click on the blue “Create API Key” button and assign a name to this API key, in my case I used the name “WordPress mail”. Make sure the “Full Access” option is activated.
Click the “Create & view” button to finish the SendGrid API Key creation process.
You will see the API key that you have just created, copy the code in a safe place and then add it to WordPress. This code will only be shown once, so make sure you save it well.
Install the WP Mail SMTP by WPForms plugin
Log in to the WordPress admin and click on the plugins menu > Add new and in the plugin search box type “smtp”. WP Mail SMTP by WPForms plugin will appear first, install and activate it.
Once the plugin is activated, you will have a new menu in the left bar of WordPress titled “WP Mail SMTP” click on it to start the configuration.
In the general configuration of the plugin you will see the options to customize the name of the sender and the email “From Email” and “From Name”, by default they will be filled with the name of the site and the email of the administrator. You can change them to your liking.
Connecting WordPress with SendGrid with the WP Mail SMTP plugin
In the general configuration of the WP Mail SMTP plugin, scroll down to the “Mailer” section, you will see that there are multiple options available and by default the “Default” option that refers to the PHP mailer is activated.
Select the SendGrid option and an option to enter the API Key you just generated will be enabled below, paste it and click the “Save Settings” button to save the new settings.
Testing the delivery of emails by SendGrid SMTP
Go to the “Email test” tab of the WP Mail SMTP settings and you will see a box to enter an email, to that address an email test will be sent using the plugin, leave the “HTML” option activated and then click the “Send Email” button. verify that the email reaches the email you entered.
If you receive the mail correctly, everything should be working correctly. The mail looks like this:
You can also check the sending of the mails through the SendGrid administration panel by going to its statistics, the mail sends should be registered there:
conclusion
As you can see, improving the delivery of WordPress emails is a fairly simple task. We would love to hear your opinions about this post, has it helped you? Have you used any other mail delivery system? Leave your opinion in the comment box.
