SendGrid - email

SendGrid provides a cloud-based email delivery service that assists businesses with email delivery. The service manages various types of email including shipping notifications, friend requests, sign-up confirmations, and email newsletters. It also handles internet service provider (ISP) monitoring, domain keys, sender policy framework (SPF), and feedback loops.

Tracked events

With SendGrid integration, we can track the following: 

• Sends - via blueshift
• Impressions
• Unique impressions
• Clicks
• Unique clicks
• Delivered (sent and not bounced)
• Bounces
• Spam reports
• Unsubscribes

Note:

• You must first set up a webhook in Sendgrid so that Blueshift can receive messaging events.
• Click tracking in SendGrid is disabled by default when you integrate with Blueshift. You can enable SendGrid click tracking for all emails sent outside the Blueshift platform while using Blueshift for tracking clicks on all emails sent from the Blueshift platform. To take advantage of click tracking on both platforms, reach out to your CSM or support@blueshift.com.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up integration with Blueshift, you must have your SendGrid account set up.

Complete the following settings in SendGrid before you set up integration with Blueshift:

• Let Blueshift access your SendGrid account.
  
  • Create a sub user account.
  • Configure a sub domain in SendGrid.
  • Create event callback in SendGrid.
  • Create an API key in SendGrid.
• Set up Unsubscribe groups in Sendgrid.

You can directly set up integration with Blueshift if you think that Blueshift can access the configuration of your SendGrid account to send emails.

Note: If you are using your own SendGrid account, we recommend that you turn off subscription tracking in SendGrid settings. This will ensure that one-click list unsubscribes required by Gmail will work as expected. Additionally, end users who click on the unsubscribe link see your sender details instead of the default Sendgrid mailing address in the Gmail unsubscribe confirmation popup.

Create a sub user account

1. Request or select IP address for Sub user.
2. Create Sub user.
   
   
   
   

• Sub account should be created for each Blueshift adapter.
• Sub Accounts/Blueshift adapters can share IPs. 
• Set Sub User name and password.
• Select IP Address from step 1.

Configure a sub domain in SendGrid

1. Configure Sending Domain authentication and configure Reverse DNS. For more information, see SendGrid DNS authentication documentation.
2. Add SendGrid DNS entries with your hosting provider. Each hosting provider's configuration varies. Ensure that you follow the steps that your DNS provider supports.
3. Verify the sub domain in Sendgrid:
   
4. Associate the sub domain that you se tup to the sub user that you create. At a high level:
   • Select sub user from the parent account
   • Add Sending authentication
   • Add IP Address if not already associated
     

Create event callback in SendGrid

1. Log into SendGrid as the sub user that you created.
2. Update the HTTP Post URL.
   • Provide the Blueshift callback url:
     • If your account is hosted in Blueshift's US datacenter, use https://api.getblueshift.com/api/v1/messaging_events/5fcf7990-3d53-11e4-916c-0800200c9a66
     • If your account is hosted in Blueshift's EU datacenter, use https://api.eu.getblueshift.com/api/v1/messaging_events/5fcf7990-3d53-11e4-916c-0800200c9a66
3. Update Select Actions
   • Select all actions except the ASM Unsubscribe action.
4. Save and enable Event Notification

Create an API key in Sendgrid

1. Log into SendGrid as the sub user account that you created.
2. Go to Settings > API Keys in the left navigation.
3. Click Create API Key.
4. Give your API key a name.
5. Under API Key Permissions, select Restricted Access and select the following permissions.
   • Email Activity > Read
   • Email Testing > Full
   • Mail Send > Full
   • Mail Settings > Full
   • Sender Authentication > Full
   • Suppressions > Full
   • Tracking > Full
6. Click Create & View.
7. Copy your API key and save it.
   Note: You will be shown your API key one time only. Ensure that you save it as you will not be able to retrieve or restore it.

Unsubscribe Groups

The Unsubscribe groups option in SendGrid allows you to manage content category subscriptions.

For example, if you are a news network, some of your customers may be interested in political news while some others may be interested in sports news, and so on. Customers who would like to receive news update about sporting events might not want to receive updates related to political news. Using unsubscribe groups in SendGrid, you can manage unsubscribes for each news category. You can then specify the unsubscribe group ID in Blueshift. This ensures that even if you send the email to all customers, any customer who has unsubscribed from that content category will not receive the email.

Note:
▪ You can use unsubscribe groups only if you have your own SendGrid account.
▪ To use this feature, contact support@getblueshift.com or your CSM.

Set up integration

To set up integration, complete the following steps:

1. Sign in to the Blueshift app, and click App Hub in the left navigation menu.
2. Go to All Apps, search for, and select SendGrid.
3. You can also go to Email Apps and select SendGrid.
4. Click Configure to view all the configured adapters.
5. Click +ADAPTER to add an adapter.
6. Add a Name for the adapter.  If you have multiple adapters, the adapter name helps you to identify the integration.
7. Provide the following details for integration:
   

   
   
   

   Alias name	Specify an alias for the adapter. This is for identification purpose only.
   Username	Specify the username of the sub user account that you create.
   Password	Specify the password of the sub user account that you create.
   API Key	Provide the API key that you get from your sub user account. For more information, see Manage SendGrid API keys.
   From Name	Specify a name that is displayed on the From field of an email. You can override this value in the trigger that you create for a campaign.
   From Address	Specify the sender's email address. You can override this value in the trigger that you create for a campaign.  Ensure that domain that you use for this address is the same as the domain that you add in SendGrid. For example, if you add default.subdomain.com in SendGrid, the From Address value should be someone@default.subdomain.com where someone can be anyone.
   Reply To Address	Specify the email address to which a customer can reply.
   BCC	Specify the email addresses of people who should receive the copy of the email that your customers receive. Use comma to provide multiple email addresses. For example: johndoe@blueshift.com,janedoe@blueshift.com,doejohn@blueshift.com By default, our platform sends a copy of the email to the email addresses that you specify. If you want to include the email addresses in the BCC field of the email, drop us an email on support@blueshift.com.
   Enable ESP engagement callback	Specify this value as true or false based on your preference. If you set this value to true, our platform can leverage SendGrid's engagement events and record campaign engagements. This field is optional.
   Whitelabel host name (CNAME)	Specify the domain that will be used to mask links for tracking purposes. The domain must be setup as a CNAME record in your DNS. The CNAME must map to either links.getblueshift.com (US or Rest of the world) or links.eu.blueshift.com (EU region) based on your Blueshift login region. SSL is required for any link masking domains. If you are unsure which domain to setup in your DNS please contact your CSM or support@getblueshift.com. If you do not specify a value here, and you have set up Whitelabeling for your account, then the domain setup in Account Settings will be used. If you have not set up Whitelabeling for your account and you do not specify a value here, the Blueshift domain will be used for tracking.
   Suppression Group	Specify the ID for the Unsubscribe groups to which the email must not be sent.

    

8. Select the Bypass suppression list option to send an email to all customers who qualify for a campaign regardless of their subscription status in Blueshift and SendGrid.
9. Select Use campaign UUID for category option to use the campaign's UUID as the name instead of category. 
10. Click Save to add the adapter.

Next steps

1. Create an Email template for your messages.
2. Verify your configuration.
3. In your campaign journey, add an Email trigger. On the Email tab of the trigger, go to Send Settings and specify SendGrid as the App and select the adapter that you just created.

Verify your configuration

You can verify your configuration. Just send a test message from any Blueshift template:

If you see an error in Blueshift, then either domain is not validated or settings are incorrect.

 

 

If you receive the test message -- and your domain says example@xxx.example.com via example.com or via sengrid.com -- the sending domain authentication is not configured for the sub user in Sendgrid.