Overview

While we highly recommend using a reputable email service provider like Amazon SES, Postmark, or SendGrid, you can also integrate your own SMTP gateway to send emails.

Step 1: CleverTap Dashboard Settings

• In the dashboard, navigate to Settings and click on Integrate Email.
• Select SMTP.
• In the Host text box, fill your publicly accessible IP address or hostname of your SMTP server.
• In the Port text box, fill in your SMTP port.
• Username and Password values should your SMTP credentials needed to connect to the service.
• From Address – this value is used as the sender email address. Most people will not open an email unless they recognize the sender.
• Save your settings.
• Finally, click Send a test email. Has it arrived in your inbox? If not, see troubleshooting steps below.

Step 2: Understanding Bounces

When an email is rejected by a recipient’s email server, it’s called a bounce.

There are two kinds of bounces:

• Soft Bounces: Soft bounces typically indicate a temporary delivery issue to an address. Some reasons for a soft bounce could be that the recipient’s mailbox is full, or the Mail Server is down. Soft bounces are included in the campaign reports; the users are not marked as unsubscribed.
• Hard Bounces: A hard bounce indicates a permanent reason an email cannot be delivered. Hard bounces are included in the campaign reports; the users are marked as unsubscribed.

Step 3: Processing Bounces

To process bounced email messages, you’ll need to make an HTTP request to the callback URL specified in Dashboard > Settings > Channels > Email > Setup Provider tab > Callback URL.

The request should be of type HTTP POST with the payload in the following format.

// if you're not sure of the time of the bounce, just set it to the current epoch

[
    {
        "event": "softbounce",
        "data": [
            {
                "e": "[email protected]",  // email id that soft bounced
                "ts": 1435322805                  // time of the bounce
            },
            {
                "e": "[email protected]", // email id that soft bounced
                "ts": 1435322805                  // time of the bounce
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "event": "hardbounce",
        "data": [
            {
                "e": "[email protected]",   // email id that hard bounced
                "ts": 1435322805
            }
        ]
    }
]

Step 4. Processing Unsubscriptions

To handle unsubscription requests from users, you can follow the steps mentioned here.

To share unsubscription data from custom pages directly, you’ll need to make an HTTP request to the callback URL that is specified in Dashboard > Settings > Channels > Email > Setup tab. The request should be of type HTTP POST with the payload in the following format.

// if you're not sure of the time of the unsubscribe, just set it to the current epoch

[
    {
        "event": "unsubscribe",
        "data": [
            {
                "e": "[email protected]",  // email id of the user
                "ts": 1504632929                  // time of the unsubscribe
            },
            {
                "e": "[email protected]", // email id of the user
                "ts": 1500630929                  // time of the unsubscribe
            }
        ]
    }
]

Step 5: Troubleshooting

• Since you’re using your own SMTP gateway, some email providers like Gmail, Yahoo might not deliver the email in your inbox.
• Check if you have correctly set up DKIM and SPF.
• Check if your IP/domain is blacklisted by Spamhaus.

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Unsubscription Link

The unsubscription link will not work for test emails sent from the notification creation page.