First Email Mailing
Email remains one of the most effective methods of marketing communication with customers. You can send subscribers more content than through other channels: images, links to various products and services, interactive elements that attract attention and increase customer engagement.
This guide will help you set up an Email mailing from scratch: from configuring the sending domain to viewing mailing statistics.
Altcraft Platform tracks subscriber actions in Email messages, such as opens, reads, and link clicks.
Step 1: Configure Email Sender
The Altcraft Platform sends email using the SMTP protocol. For this purpose, we developed our own transport module AKMTA (Altcraft Mail Transfer Agent), which optimizes email delivery — even when the mailing audience reaches tens of millions of recipients.
Sending and tracking domains
To send email messages, you will need a sending domain. The domain will be used in the sender address (from email), which recipients see in their mail client.
To track recipient actions in emails, you will also need a tracking domain. This can be a subdomain of your main domain or a separate domain. Link clicks in the message are redirected to the tracking domain — this is how the platform tracks clicks. Images are also loaded through it for registering email opens.
Once you have acquired a domain, you need to add configuration records on the side of the domain name registrar that provided it, to ensure efficient delivery.
Custom domain settings are described in a separate article.
For cloud clients:
- SPF — authorizes sending emails from your domain
- DKIM — digital signature of emails
- DMARC — policy for handling emails that fail SPF/DKIM
- CNAME tracking — subdomain for tracking clicks from emails
For On-premise clients:
- A-record — specifies the IP address of the mail server (AKMTA)
- MX-record — directs mail to the sender's server
- PTR-record — reverse DNS for the sender's IP address
- SPF — authorizes sending emails from your domain
- DKIM — digital signature of emails
- DMARC — policy for handling emails that fail SPF/DKIM
- CNAME tracking — subdomain for tracking clicks from emails
Installing AKMTA
For cloud clients:
When using the cloud service, we provide our own sending infrastructure with all necessary settings. The only thing you need to start sending is your configured domain (see the previous section).
For On-premise clients:
When installing the Altcraft Marketing platform on your equipment, you can configure one or several sending servers with AKMTA transport modules. To do this, you need to configure the following in the platform's Admin Panel:
- Nodes — network sending nodes. The module uses the IP addresses available to you for sending.
- Senders — configuration records that combine sender identification parameters, sending speed, and sender behavior settings in case of sending errors.
- Virtual senders — rules for sending from multiple senders. Can be configured in both the Admin Panel and the User Interface.
Step 2: Run a test check
Before sending at scale, send a test email to a single mailbox and check the results.
Check the headers of the received email:
dkim=pass— DKIM signature verifiedspf=pass— SPF record confirms the senderdmarc=pass— DMARC policy passed
If you are using Microsoft 365 or Outlook, also check for compauth=pass, SCL:0, BCL:0.
For a comprehensive antispam score and content check, use online testers such as Mail-Tester.com. Antispam filter headers vary depending on the mail provider and are not always available for manual inspection.
If any check fails, resolve the issue before launching the mailing. For detailed diagnostic instructions, see the Troubleshooting section of the from-domain configuration article.
Step 3: Subscribe profiles to the Email channel
Profiles Databases
Altcraft Marketing mailings are received by your subscribers. Subscriber profiles are stored in profiles databases.
Each customer profile has a system field Email: it is used to identify profiles and in cases where your customers only have one email address.
If you use different contact details for the same customer — or send content of different types — set up multiple subscription resources.
When creating a database, the Sender Email is a required parameter. Sending will be performed on its behalf without using resources. Enter the sending address in the corresponding field. Also specify the Sender Name, and if needed — the reply recipient details (Reply-to name and Reply-to email):
Subscription resources
Each client profile can be subscribed to one or more resources. A resource can be a separate marketing direction, a website, an application, or a type of content. Select the corresponding item from the main menu, create a new resource or select an existing one. Add the Email channel to an existing resource or select it as the primary channel for a new one:
In the general settings, add the required databases. If needed, assign a sending policy. Specify the Default tracking domain configured earlier:
In the Email channel settings of the resource, specify the Sender Name and Sender Email, as well as — if needed — the name and address for receiving replies. These values will be used by default if they are not overridden at the message template or mailing level. Priority order: mailing, template, resource.
Customer profiles and subscription to the resource
After configuring the database and subscription resource, you can import customer data into the platform. For each client, Altcraft Marketing creates a single digital profile combining personal data, action history, and subscriptions to your resources.
You can upload customer data manually: one at a time, in a list, or from a spreadsheet file. Various import methods are described in this article.
You can also set up automatic import of client profiles:
When importing data, subscribe clients to the previously prepared resource. Select Email as the communication channel and specify the column with subscribers' addresses:
If you already have a profiles database, add subscriptions to the new resource. There are two options:
- if customers have subscriptions to another resource with up-to-date email addresses — use bulk profile update.
- if you need to upload email addresses to the platform for subscription — use profile import in "update only" mode.
Step 4: Prepare content for sending
Content for your Email mailings is created in Message Templates. Templates contain content for all available channels. When creating a new template, select the Email channel or add it to an existing one.
For the Email version of the template, you can set a Subject — it will be displayed in the correspondence. You can also set the sender name and address — the template settings will override the settings of both the resource and the database.
Templates in Altcraft Marketing offer many personalization options for content tailored to a specific recipient. This uses various types of variables, logical expressions, loops, and functions, as well as dynamic content from various external sources.
To create Email message templates, use the Code Editor or the Visual Editor:
Some of your subscribers may use a mail client where image loading is unavailable — for example, due to corporate policy. For such cases, the template includes a Text version.
The text version is sent together with the HTML version of the email. If it is left empty — or does not match the HTML — this may negatively affect the sender's reputation.
Conversely, having a text version significantly increases trust metrics for the mailing.
Below the text version editor is a form that allows you to attach files in any format to the message.
Step 5: Select the type of mailing
 | To send Email messages, use the
Mailing tool. |
Decide on a date and create a mailing of the required type:
Detailed instructions for setting up a Broadcast can be found on this page.
Detailed instructions for setting up a Regular mailing can be found on this page.
Once you have filled in the general mailing settings, select Email as the communication channel, choose the subscription resource configured earlier, and select the recipient audience. Add a message template to the mailing and set a schedule. For example, for a broadcast, the option "On a specific date at a selected time" works well:
When the mailing is configured, save it. It will appear in the list of mailings of the corresponding type. On the right side of each entry there is a quick actions menu. Use it to send a test — and if everything is successful, activate the mailing:
The active mailing will start sending emails as soon as it will be time to launch as scheduled. Messages are sent to the sender. You can also open the sender queue from the quick action menu. For more details on queue management, see Managing the Sender Queue.
Sending speed depends on the sender domain reputation.
Step 6: Evaluate mailing effectiveness
Mailing Log
The Mailing Log is a tool that provides a summary of the mailing execution progress. It records key events, mailing parameters, and statistics, allowing you to identify potential issues.
To open the mailing log, click the Journal button in the quick actions menu:
The mailing log contains the following information:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Mailing started | Start time of the email mailing execution |
| Limit | Shows whether a sending limit is set |
| Audience source | Audience source: List — Database Segment — Segment |
| Segment ID / Database ID | Segment identifier / Database identifier |
| Time retrieving segment | Time spent loading segment data from the database (in ms) |
| Number of profiles received from source | Total number of profiles found in the specified segment/database |
| Number of subscribers found | Number of profiles in the specified segment/database subscribed to the selected resource |
| Number of hard bounces | Emails that could not be delivered (non-existent addresses, etc.) |
| Number of subscribers who received email | Actual number of successful sends |
| Mailing finished | Mailing completion time |
| Total time spent | Total duration of the entire mailing from start to completion |
Reports and Analytics
To evaluate the results of a current mailing, you can view a channel report. The Channel report provides analytics for one or several mailings, for a selected communication channel.
You can access the report for a specific mailing via the link in the mailing editor:
Or select the Analytics button from the quick actions panel:
There is a third way to get mailing statistics. Select the Analytics section by Channels in the main platform menu. By default, a report for All channels for the last 7 days will be displayed. To group by the Email channel, select "Report by":.
Next, Add a filter by Mailings. From the displayed list, select the required mailing.
To analyze message deliverability to email mailboxes of different providers, you can group the report by recipient domain group:
Provider information will appear in the table below the graph:
To analyze Email deliverability issues, use the Bounces and Undeliveries reports:
Actions in an Email mailing or template can become steps in an interactive conversion funnel:
For Email, a click map is also available — it is compiled for templates with an Email version that have been sent at least once. When you make changes to the template and send again, a new version of the click map is created, allowing you to evaluate the dynamics of subscriber behavior:
