AWS SES Setup & Usage Guide
- Introduction
- Activate the SES integration within SendForensics
- Enable automated template triggering
- Enjoy using the new workflow!
Note: The ESP's API can change unexpectedly from time to time, and there may also be variations within individual ESP accounts. If you are having any trouble connecting or with integration features, please raise a ticket with our friendly Support team who will help you through it.
1. Introduction
The SendForensics system needs to become another recipient of your emails (in the same way as any other customer) to be able to analyze your deliverability properly:
For SES's transactional/marketing-automation type emails (one to one), you can use the automated template triggering functionality so that templates are automatically sent to your unique SendForensics analysis address on a daily or weekly basis.
The integration then allows the automated analysis of your SES engagement data* to complete the deliverability picture:
*Anonymous, aggregated email marketing metrics containing no personally identifiable information (PII). More information »
2. Activate the SES integration within SendForensics
To enable the AWS SES plugin, you will need the Access Key ID, Secret Access Key and Region from your AWS account.
1. Go to your IAM section to add a new user. Specify a name that helps you to identify what the user is used for. Click "Next".
2. Select "Attach policies directly" and search for and select "AmazonSesFullAccess". Click "Next".
3. Click "Create user"
4. Select the newly created user and click on "Create access key"
5. Select "Third-party service". Check the "I understand the above recommendation and want to proceed to create an access key.". Click "Next".
6. Optional to set a description tag. We recommend using "SendForensics platform access". Click "Create access key".
7. Use the displayed Access key and Secret access key in the SendForensics platform to activate the API
Login to your SendForensics account, visit the Domain Settings page. Click on the desired domain, go to "ESP Integrations", then "Add integration" and select "AWS SES". Paste the three required details (for Region, enter the AWS region where your SES account is running) from your AWS SES account that you created above, then click Activate integration.
On successful activation, the system will pull in daily engagement data for any transactional/marketing-automation (one-to-one) sending from this particular sending domain.
Note: Engagement data is pulled in for analysis once per day, so there may be a delay between activating the integration and receiving the first batch of data.
3. Enable automated template triggering
For continual analysis and monitoring of your transactionals/marketing-automation messages, you can automatically trigger each of your SES templates to be sent into the SendForensics platform on a daily or weekly basis.
Enter the details of the first template, with some sample variables if required, then try a test send using the "Send test" button. This should successfully trigger an email using this template to be sent to the platform. You should get a new message notification from the envelope icon on the top right of the screen. Click this to view the analysis.
If you are happy with the test send, then simply select the sending frequency (daily or weekly) and an email using this template will be automatically sent into the platform for analysis either daily or weekly.
Note: If you set up the AWS SES integration before 26th August 2024, you will need to change policy in the Activation step 2 above, from AmazonSESReadOnlyAccess to AmazonSesFullAccess if you want to automatically trigger templates.
Set Alerts
Set automated alerts based on the results of the analyses of these emails received (including the analysis of your live engagement data from these transactional/marketing-automation chanels). These can be set either per sending-domain or globally on the Domain Settings page, and will make sure you know immediately if there is a problem with this sending channel:
4. Enjoy using the new workflow!
Once the automated template triggering has been set up you should be able to see a constant flow of the various transactional and/or marketing-automation messages being received by the platform for analysis and monitoring:
You will also see the corresponding engagement data pulled-in and analysed within the Reputation tab:
Some suggested actions for maintaining effective deliverability for these streams are as follows:
- Improve the analysed emails' Deliverability Scores where lacking. Cycle through the tabs (Content, Infrastructure etc) following the advice and recommendations to optimize the deliverability of your email as much as possible, re-testing each template as necessary. When you have reached a comfortable deliverability score (vs amount of work needed to improve it further), move on to the next template.
- Respond to any warnings/alerts triggered by the analyses of these emails either from within the dashboard or those set up by email/slack/webhook, especially alerts on high bounce/complaint/unsubscribe rates from the engagement data.
- If you modify a template, or add a new one, be sure to send a manual test in for analysis by the system and correct any issues with the content or infrastructure before enabling for your live audience.