This article will walk you through the full process of creating your Send In Blue account. Keep in mind, SendInBlue is NOT an email routing and tracking application. It is a 3rd party email marketing software.
Step 1: Select a Plan and Create an Account at www.sendinblue.com. Send In Blue has various plans available, from as low as $0 (a trial account) to $65 a month. We're going to walk you through what each plan offers:
- Trial: Great to test it out, but not great for a functioning business
- $25/Month: Send & receive up to 10,000 emails. A good option for smaller businesses.
- $65/Month: Send & receive up to 20,000 emails. The best solution for marketing pros. Includes Facebook and retargeting ads, marketing automation, 20 landing pages, and 10 users.
- Enterprise plan: a customized solution if you're looking for more than the above. You can fully customize a plan based on your business needs.
NOTE: None of the above plans include a dedicated IP address which can impact successful email deliverability.
Step 2: Create your subdomain in SendInBlue.
- Log in to your SendInBlue account and your DNS manager (Godaddy, Cloudflare, etc.)
- Select the domain you want to use for SendInblue from a domain you own or purchased (helpdesk.com). You will set up a subdomain (mg.helpdesk.com) for SendInBlue, so choosing a domain already being used is ok.
- Navigate to the 'Senders and APIs' tab within SendInBlue and select 'Domains.'
- Create a subdomain such as mg.yourdomain.com or replies.yourdomain.com and enter it in the Domain Name field.
- Click Add Domain
- Verify the domain by adding a record to your DNS manager and clicking the button.
Step 3: Setup the Subdomain Records in Your DNS Manager
- In SendInBlue, you will see the DNS entries; 3 TXT records and a TXT (SPF) record. Go into your DNS manager, where you will set up the DNS entries.
- Navigate to the DNS record section for the domain you use within SendInBlue. You will now set up the 4 DNS records to ensure proper sending, replies, and tracking. Follow directions in SendInBlue. Records are unique to your domain and SendInBlue account.
- After adding and saving all four records, click "Record Added. Please Verify" next to each record within SendInBlue. All five should have the green check mark. Suppose any do not check the record and re-attempt.
Here is a screenshot walkthrough of this process:
NOTE: If the green check marks are not showing up, you'll want to ensure that the Host pieces for each record only have the sub-domain piece of the total record. For example, if the total record is mailto._domainkey.mg.mydomain.com, you would only put mailto._domainkey.mg
Step 4: Add SendInBlue as your Email Provider
- Navigate to your Account Settings > Select Email Services
- Select 'Add Provider'
- In SendInBlue, navigate to the 'SMTP & API' tab and select SMTP
- Enter the information from SendInBlue into your account.
- Save to confirm your changes.