It’s really recommended to send your newsletters via a dedicated email service provider. One of the big players in this field is Amazon’s Simple Email Service (SES).
Download the free extension from wordpress.org
If you have successfully installed the plugin you can find a new tab on the delivery settings page
Set Up your Amazon SES account
Before you can use Mailster with AmazonSES you have to create a new account on the Amazon Web Service site. After some registration process, you have access to the AWS Console.
SES Home
The next step is to move to the SES dashboard to manage all your email-related settings.
Here you can verify your email addresses and whole domains. If you can change the name records of your server it’s recommended to verify your domain so you can send it with all associated email addresses.
If you verify a single email address you can only send from this particular email address.
You have to verify your from-address, reply-to as well your used bounce address!
Verify a new Domain
If you like to verify your domain you have to insert the domain and check the “Generate DKIM Settings”:
On the next screen, you see the changes you have to apply to your name sever:
Please note updating your namespace may take up to 48h to take effect around the globe!
Get your Amazon SES Access keys
You need a pair of access keys to use this service. You can create them on the Security Credentials page.
Use these two keys in the Mailster Amazon SES plugin.
Moving Out of the Amazon SES Sandbox (request production access)
Amazon SES has a very strict fraud and abuse prevention system. In order to send to unverified email addresses (which are all your subscribers) you have to fill out this form and wait for the approval.
Read more about the sandbox here.
Create your SMTP Credentials (optional)
The next step is optional and only needed if you like to send via SMTP API. Better and mostly faster is using the WEB API.
Go to create your SMTP credentials which you can do on the “SMTP Settings” tab:
You will now get the SMTP credentials you can use in the plugin.
Amazon SES has most likely the most complex registration required but in the end they provide a solid solution for sending emails.
Handling Bounces with AmazonSES
You can let Mailster handle bounces if you set up automatic bounce handling but a more reliable way is to handle them with AmazonSNS. Read more on our guide here.
Create a new User
For some time now Amazon SES allows creating users in your account who can gain certain access levels. Go to the Users Dashboard and click on the button to add a new user.
Enter a User name and give “Programmatic access”. In the next step, you have to define the Permissions.
Permissions are wrapped in Groups so if you don’t have a group yet you have to create one with at least the “AmazonSESFullAccount” policy.
Finish the user creation process and your new user should show up in your users list.
Get your new credentials you can use in the Mailster Amazon SES add-on:
