Beautiful Email - Sendgrid/Mailchimp or otherwise?

joey · 2020-12-15T22:21:31.241Z

Howdy!

I’m stuck with analysis paralysis over here and looking for a little guidance.

Surprised by the lack of direction around branding the transactional emails sent from bubble & SendGrid. Just to clarify, I have already set up my domain through SendGrid and have connected to my bubble app.

I’m looking to accomplish three things.

Customize my transactional emails to match the design of my site.
Add additional transactional emails for user notifications that already have workflows built
Send welcome & warming emails to help new users through onboarding

I’m just looking to do the above efficiently. My current research tells me that I’ll likely end up with a SendinBlue integration for transactional and a Mailchimp integration for onboarding.

Many thanks in advance!
Cheers,
Joey

adamhholmes · 2020-12-15T22:40:52.588Z

If using Sendgrid you need to create your API dynamic email templates, which is easy to do in their design interface. You can design them from scratch, or use their design templates.

Then you can send any dynamic data you want from Bubble into the template (using handlebars) via the API connector (or a plugin).

Personally I’ve found Sendgrid to be easy to use, and simple to integrate with Bubble.

joey · 2020-12-15T23:01:00.893Z

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Adam!

johnny · 2020-12-15T23:15:46.725Z

Hey @joey,

This is a good question to ask! I’ve used Sendgrid for a bit of time until recently when I had so many terrible issues with them and their team. Their delivery rates were very low for me, so I reached out to their team and the only solution they proposed for me was to upgrade to their Pro Plan and get my own IP Address which was about give or take $90/mo and just ridiculous.

I actually created a post asking for better service than Sendgrid for Bubble a few weeks ago and @bubble30 pointed me in the direction of Postmark. This thread also pushed me to make the change: Postmark is awesome

I think when considering this question, you might have to look at it using a wider lens and what will be better for you long-term. I’ve been using Postmark for about a few weeks now and mail delivery has been great, they also have a very supportive customer support team who are very responsive compared to Sendgrid.

I’ve used Postmark to send both marking and transactional emails through Bubble.

joey · 2020-12-16T00:34:20.815Z

So, just to clarify, it’s not worth trying the plugin? It’s just best to set up with the bubble api connector?

Honestly, at this stage, it’s starting to seem like a larger task than I’d like to worry about.
I’m in the validation/mvp stage and just want to make sure the emails maintain the sites presentation.

Thanks for your help!

johnny · 2020-12-16T00:37:33.916Z

It honestly didn’t take me much time to set up the APIs, took me about 5 mins. You can try out the plugin, but they aren’t that advanced and it was just easier for me to set up the APIs rather than plugins.

I also worked with @lihte to set it up on his application.

joey · 2020-12-16T00:48:42.802Z

Well, @johnny, your confidence in my ability is contagious.
I’m going to give it a shot. I appreciate your push!

johnny · 2020-12-16T00:49:35.216Z

Yay! Let me know how I can support you

joey · 2020-12-16T02:57:32.615Z

Hey @johnny, I’m spinning my wheels over here a little bit. This is my first API setup, so please forgive me if I’m missing the basics.

My understanding as I read through the API documentation, I’ll need to create a Post call through to api…/email/withTemplate .

Am I correct?

The body content then follows, which will need a template to be built ahead of time so that I can input the TemplateID/Alias and model? I assume that I can copy and paste the documented code into the Bubble API body input and make any changes that are obvious.

Am I missing anything?

Thanks again!

johnny · 2020-12-16T03:12:42.252Z

Yup, basically that.

joey · 2020-12-16T03:21:04.602Z

Hmm, this seems too easy… How might i set up a workflow for an account manager to sign up a team member?

johnny · 2020-12-16T03:22:14.783Z

Like create a user for someone else? You’d do it like how it is now, then you can send a welcome email or whatnot

joey · 2020-12-16T03:37:11.936Z

So, funny story, I was confused by my templates current workflow configuration. I thought it was already built for a welcome email flow, but it turns out it just creates the user, it doesn’t actually give them any login credentials or send an email like it currently does during the sign up validation email. I need to piece together a welcome/validation email for both sequences.