newsletter software settings

To start using RealSender:

1. Request a free trial account
   
   
2. Change the settings of the outgoing mail (SMTP) within your newsletter software:
   GroupMail - Inxmail Professional - Joomla AcyMailing - MaxBulk Mailer - phplist
   SendBlaster - Sendy - WordPress MailPoet 3 - WordPress MailPoet 2 - WordPress Mailster
   
   Your’s not in the list above? Contact us!
   Alternatively, evaluate the “copymail app” option!
   
   Visit the “Email Client” page if you use individually configured email clients.
   Visit the “Email Server” area if you use a centralized email system.
   
   
3. Change your domain’s settings to authenticate the sent messages with SPF
   (this is generally done after the trial period)
   
   

• Why? If you wish to have email from your domain sent through a third party service,
  you must configure your SPF record to permit delivery from the service provider’s IP addresses.
  If you don’t do this, then you risk having email receivers reject all email sent from your domain.
  
  
• Setting up the RealSender SPF record is easy:
  all you have to do is add include:spf.realsender.com to your SPF record, and you’re done.

We automatically sign emails with DKIM, so you don’t need to do anything else.

Questions? Contact us!

newsletter mailboxes

Those who send newsletters often need to setup additional mailboxes
to receive the bounced messages (e.g. bounce@…)

and optionally one for receiving reply emails (e.g. news@…)
if you want to filter them and send automatic replies to the most common requests.

For this reason we introduced two mailboxes matched to your RealSender account:
bounce@email.company-name.org -> bounce@rsXXX-realsender.com
news@email.company-name.org -> news@rsXXX-realsender.com

Explanation:

Using a Mail-From address (also known as bounce/return-path/envelope address)  
with a domain other than the From address
would break the DMARC authentication

To use the "newsletter mailboxes" 
you need to set up a sub-domain of the From address

e.g.  the From address is:           offers@company-name.org
      the sub-domain could be:       email.company-name.org   CNAME   rsXXX-realsender.com
      the Mail-From address becomes: bounce@email.company-name.org

The suggested configuration follows the rules
to send DMARC compliant emails on behalf of customers.

DMARC allows you to send authenticated emails using a sub-domain (such as email.company-name.org), and still be able to use the top-level domain in the From: header (e.g. From: offers@company-name.org).

No additional settings are required in the DNS of your domain name.

As per RFC1912 section 2.4:
 A CNAME record is not allowed to coexist with any other data.  
 In other words, if email.company-name.org is an alias for rsXXX-realsender.com, 
 you can't also have an MX record for email.company-name.org, or an A record, 
 or even a TXT record 

The mailboxes have been configured so that they can receive
large amounts of emails in a short time, as in the case of bounces.
!!! Please note: email messages are automatically deleted after 7 days !!!

To download the emails, you should configure your email client,
or the application that analyzes the bounced messages,
with the following POP3 server address: pop.rsXXX-realsender.com.
Usernames and passwords are available through the website’s restricted area.

bouncehandler app

Repeated sending to wrong / inactive recipients is considered “spammer behavior”.
In recent years, more and more smtp servers have been blacklisted for this reason.

The most noticeable error occurs when the Mail-From/Return-Path address mailbox,
the one receiving the bounced messages, is full or non-existent.
By sending thousands of messages, if 20% come back, it’s easy to fill even a large inbox in minutes.

Receiving all bounced messages without reading them could be considered a minor flaw.
You keep sending emails to addresses that bounce back, with error details that no one cares about.

In both cases, the result is that the smtp server is blacklisted. In this way,
not only will messages not be delivered to invalid recipients, but valid recipients will also receive them as SPAM.

To solve the first problem, we have been offering “newsletter mailboxes” for a long time.
Analyzing bounced messages is more difficult and requires a tool that works very well.

We chose “Sisimai: Mail Analyzing Interface”, formerly known as bounceHammer 4: an error mail analyzer.
An open source software, that parses RFC5322 bounce mails and generates structured data as JSON.

To get an idea of all the possible error codes that Sisimai parses, take a look at “The SMTP Field Manual”,
a collection of raw SMTP error code responses from major email service providers.

The automatic blocklist

Implementing the bounce handler within RealSender is simple.

1. activate the “newsletter mailbox”
2. configure your sending application to use the new Return-Path address
3. ask to verify the setup and activate the “bounce handler”

The “bouncehandler” app will start checking the bounced messages.
Two blocklists will be activated:

1. the hard bounces blocklist
   contains all the email addresses that generated a permanent error,
   such as user unknown or host unreachable
   
   the weekly hard bounces log is available at the web address:
   https://…hardbounces.email.weekly

2. the soft bounces blocklist
   contains all the email addresses that generated three or more transient errors,
   such as mailbox full, at least one week away from each other
   
   the weekly soft bounces log is available at the web address:
   https://…softbounces.email.weekly

Sending messages to a blocklisted recipient will generate an error like this:

Manage your blocks independently

We provide you with the following files,
as web addresses, protected by password or IP address:

https://…bounces.json
the details of ALL bounces received in the last seven days, in JSON format, such as:

  {
    "feedbacktype": "",
    "addresser": "info@circuitocinemascuole.com",
    "diagnostictype": "SMTP",
    "timezoneoffset": "+0200",
    "lhost": "linp.arubabusiness.it",
    "destination": "gmail.com",
    "timestamp": 1635536166,
    "senderdomain": "circuitocinemascuole.com",
    "deliverystatus": "5.1.1",
    "token": "daad8f8fc89cef70e1406a9d2b38be6c35326e03",
    "recipient": "...@gmail.com",
    "subject": "Prenotazioni aperte_Giornata Internazionale dei Diritti dell'Infanzia e dell'Adolescenza_Film FIGLI DEL SOLE",
    "origin": "/home/rs109-bounce/Maildir/new/1635528969.21113_0.rsbox.realsender.com",
    "rhost": "gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com",
    "reason": "userunknown",
    "diagnosticcode": "550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try double-checking the recipient's email address for typos or unnecessary spaces. Learn more at https://support.google.com/mail/?p=NoSuchUser z3si7494964ybg.507 - gsmtp 503 5.5.1 RCPT first. z3si7494964ybg.507 - gsmtp",
    "messageid": "McuPi4DjtlyhvlSMVNB4wTXsUKQeIy6XwlKoAZuJ4@www.circuitocinemascuole.com",
    "listid": "",
    "action": "failed",
    "softbounce": 0,
    "replycode": "550",
    "catch": null,
    "alias": "",
    "smtpagent": "Sendmail",
    "smtpcommand": "DATA"
  },

https://…hardbounces.json
the details of all hard bounces ¹ received in the last seven days, in JSON format

https://…hardbounces.email
the list of email addresses that generated a hard bounce ¹ in the last seven days

¹ = selection criteria: softbounce == 0

https://…softbounces.json
the details of all soft bounces ² received in the last seven days, in JSON format

https://…softbounces.email
the list of email addresses that generated a soft bounce ² in the last seven days

² = selection criteria: softbounce == 1

These are the same files used by the automatic blocklist:

https://…hardbouncesfull.email
the list of email addresses that ever generated a hard bounce

https://…softbouncesfull.email
the list of email addresses that generated three or more soft bounces
at least one week away from each other

copymail app

RealSender “copymail” app lets you send mass mailings,
up to a few thousands of recipients, directly from your email client.

With three easy steps:

1. upload your recipients’ list
2. send the message you want to distribute to the “list-post” email address we will provide you
3. approve the message to start the delivery

Each recipient will receive the message as if it were sent to himself only.

The list administrator will be notified by email
for every address that generates an “hard bounce”
(permanent failure, such as “user unknown”).

Essential features:

• Membership Management
• Mass Subscriptions
• Pending Approvals

Membership Management

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Mass Subscriptions

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Pending Approvals

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