Email channel
Why this matters for your business
Email is the most under-rated channel in modern e-commerce. Influencers say it's "dead." Inbox providers (Gmail, Apple) fight with it constantly. Open rates have drifted lower. Despite all of this, email remains the highest-ROI channel for most stores — because it's free to send, async (doesn't need quiet hours), and consented. Customers who opted in want to hear from you.
But email is also where reputational damage compounds fastest. A bad sender reputation (too many bounces, too many spam complaints) doesn't just hurt one campaign — it hurts every future send forever, until you fix the underlying sender identity. Most merchants don't realize they're damaging their reputation until inbox placement collapses 6 months in.
The email channel on this platform protects against that. Built on Resend (modern, deliverability-focused infrastructure) with SMTP fallback, automated list hygiene, sender-reputation monitoring, and the same fatigue cap as every other channel. The result: email that stays in the inbox over years, not just months.
What this typically unlocks
| Outcome | Result |
|---|---|
| Inbox placement (Gmail) | 94-98% with proper setup |
| Sender reputation score | +12 points vs. ad-hoc setup |
| Bounce rate | < 1% with auto-hygiene |
| Spam complaint rate | < 0.1% with consent + fatigue |
| Setup time (DNS + DKIM) | 30 minutes |
What you actually get
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Resend primary | Modern transactional + marketing email infrastructure |
| SMTP fallback | Resend down? Failover to a configured SMTP provider |
| DKIM / SPF / DMARC | Auto-configured during onboarding |
| List hygiene | Bounces auto-suppressed; unengaged auto-suppressed |
| Template library | Brand-consistent, mobile-tested templates |
| A/B subject lines | Built into campaigns |
| Send-time optimization | Fire emails at customer's known-engaged hour |
| Inbox placement monitoring | Track Gmail / Outlook / Apple placement weekly |
| Suppression list | Manual + auto entries; never-send-again |
| Per-shop sub-domain | Send from mail.yourbrand.com for sender independence |
How it works
Sender identity setup
The single most important deliverability decision: send from your own subdomain, not a shared sender.
| Setup | Time | Impact |
|---|---|---|
Add CNAME for mail.yourbrand.com | 5 min | Required |
| Add SPF record | 5 min | Critical |
| Add DKIM record | 5 min | Critical |
Add DMARC record (p=quarantine) | 5 min | Recommended |
The platform's onboarding wizard generates the exact records to add; you copy them into your DNS. Verification is automatic within ~10 minutes.
List hygiene (automatic)
Bounces and unengaged contacts hurt your sender score. The platform handles this:
| Trigger | Action |
|---|---|
| Hard bounce (mailbox doesn't exist) | Suppress permanently |
| Soft bounce (temporary) | Retry; suppress after 5 consecutive |
| Spam complaint | Suppress + log for audit |
| Unengaged 90+ days | Reduce send frequency (warm-down) |
| Unengaged 180+ days | Suppress; require re-engagement |
Suppressed contacts never receive sends. Their data stays in Customer 360 (analytics still work) but they're protected from further outreach.
Inbox placement monitoring
Weekly seed test: send a known-content email to seed inboxes across Gmail / Outlook / Apple / Yahoo. Track placement:
| Provider | Inbox | Promotions | Spam | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 96% | 3% | 1% | 0% |
| Outlook | 94% | 2% | 4% | 0% |
| Apple Mail | 98% | 1% | 1% | 0% |
| Yahoo | 91% | 5% | 4% | 0% |
If any provider drops > 5% in a week, anomaly fires. Common causes: new send volume spike, content trigger word, sender reputation hit.
Real merchant scenarios
Scenario A — DTC brand recovers from inbox placement crash
Setup. Brand had been sending from noreply@brandname.com
on a generic ESP. Inbox placement on Gmail dropped from 95% to
58% over 3 months — half the list wasn't seeing emails.
Diagnosis (post-migration to platform):
- Old ESP shared IP with several spammy senders
- DKIM/SPF wasn't aligned (ESP's domain, not brand's)
- Bounce rate had crept to 4.2% (no list hygiene)
Fix:
- Migrate to Resend with own subdomain
mail.brandname.com - Add proper DKIM/SPF/DMARC records
- Auto-suppress hard bounces (cleared 3,400 bad addresses)
- Warm-up new IP with low-volume sends for 2 weeks
90-day result: Inbox placement recovered to 96%. Open rate went from 11% (post-crash) → 24%. Recovered ~$48K in "missing" revenue.
Scenario B — High-volume sender on Pro tier
Setup. Brand sending 150K emails/month across newsletters, journeys, and transactional.
Configuration:
- Own subdomain
- DKIM/SPF/DMARC aligned
- Auto-warm-down for unengaged 90+
- Send-time optimization on (each customer gets email at their best hour)
Outcome: Stable 95%+ inbox placement. Bounce rate 0.7%. Spam complaint rate 0.04%. Industry-grade deliverability at ~$140/month total cost (including platform fee).
Scenario C — Catching a content-trigger spam issue
Setup. Brand sent a campaign with subject "FREE GIFT INSIDE!" Inbox placement on the campaign tanked.
Anomaly fired: "Open rate ↓ 38% on campaign 12345 — likely content-trigger spam classification."
Root cause: The all-caps "FREE GIFT" triggered Gmail's spam filter on this specific campaign (didn't affect other campaigns).
Fix: Re-sent campaign with subject "Your free gift inside" to suppression-cleared remainder. Open rate recovered to baseline.
Lesson: the spam filter is content-sensitive; the platform's anomaly detection caught it within hours, not weeks.
Scenario D — Migrating from Klaviyo
Setup. $15M brand on Klaviyo. Wants to migrate but worried about losing 10 years of sender reputation.
Approach:
- Set up new subdomain (
shop.brandname.com— different from Klaviyo'semail.brandname.com) - Warm up new subdomain with 2 weeks of low-volume sends
- Gradually shift traffic: 20% week 1, 50% week 2, 100% week 3
- Monitor inbox placement at each step
- After full cutover, retire Klaviyo subdomain
Result: Zero placement loss. The warm-up + gradual shift preserved the new domain's reputation from day one. Klaviyo's old subdomain stays cold (no harm to brand).
Best practices
✅ Send from your own subdomain. The biggest deliverability decision; not optional for serious senders.
✅ Enable auto-suppression on bounces. Manual list hygiene will be dropped within 3 months; auto is reliable.
✅ Monitor placement weekly. Anomaly catches drops; the weekly review catches drift.
✅ Use plain text + HTML versions. Some clients render plain text; sending only HTML hurts placement.
✅ Warm up new IPs/domains. Don't blast 50K from a brand- new sender; ramp from 1K → 5K → 20K → 50K over 2 weeks.
❌ Don't use all-caps subject lines. Gmail's filter penalizes them.
❌ Don't include too many links — emails with 10+ links score worse than those with 3-5.
❌ Don't ignore spam complaints. Even 1 complaint per 1000 sends compounds.
❌ Don't email unengaged 180+ contacts. They hurt your score.
Plan tiers
| Capability | Free | Starter | Pro | Agency | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Email sending | 1K/month | 50K/month | 500K/month | 2M/month | unlimited |
| Own subdomain | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| DKIM/SPF/DMARC auto-setup | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto list hygiene | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Inbox placement monitoring | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Send-time optimization | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| A/B subject line | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-domain (multi-brand) | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dedicated IP | — | — | — | — | ✓ |