Guides

Build an email marketing routine that helps your business stay in touch, generate enquiries and encourage repeat business—without creating more work than your small team can manage. Perhaps your customer details sit in several spreadsheets. You have sent a few newsletters, but not consistently. Or you are unsure which contacts you may email and whether your campaigns achieve anything beyond opens. Start with a permission-based audience, a reliable sending setup and one useful newsletter. Then improve the process as you learn. This…

Make your next product launch count by checking your email list before you schedule the announcement. Start with permission, address quality and relevance—not the total number of contacts in your database. For a South African small business introducing a new product range or service, the aim is to reach people who can reasonably expect the update and have a reason to act on it. BulkMail provides permission-management tools and email address verification to support that preparation. They serve different purposes: one helps…

Growing your South African business through email starts with more than finding addresses. It starts with building an audience that has chosen to hear from you. When you are looking for new customers or clients, a ready-made database or a cold-email sequence can seem like a convenient starting point. Before writing your subject line or planning follow-ups, however, ask a more important question: What permission do we have to send these people marketing emails? This guide explains the difference between cold email…

Before sending a live email campaign, it’s vital to test your newsletter properly. Testing ensures that all links, images, personalisation tags, and formatting display correctly across inboxes and devices. BulkMail offers two ways to test your emails While both serve a purpose, the Campaign Send Method provides the most accurate representation of how a real campaign will behave in the inbox. This article explains how each method works, their key differences, and why using a dedicated test list for campaign-based testing delivers…

Short answer: We do not rent, sell, or provide email lists — and never will. At BulkMail, we are committed to ethical marketing, POPIA compliance, and long-term deliverability for South African businesses. Supplying or using purchased email lists directly contradicts these principles. Using unauthorised or low-quality lists causes: Poor list quality affects everyone on the shared platform — which is why we strictly prohibit it. A clean, opt-in list: Always prioritise quality over quantity — even a small, engaged list outperforms a…

When sending emails through BulkMail, it's important to ensure your message is fully visible to recipients across different email clients. Some platforms — especially Gmail — may clip or truncate emails that exceed a certain size, reducing the impact of your message and hiding key content. The 102 KB limit is calculated using the full structure of the email, including: The size limit does not apply solely to the visible content. Even hidden formatting, inline CSS, or unnecessary white space can increase…

Many South African businesses rely on open and click-through rates to understand how well their newsletters are performing. These metrics are central to reporting success, identifying engagement trends, and refining content strategy. However, due to the way modern email systems and cybersecurity filters work, a portion of your recorded opens and clicks may not come from real people at all — they may come from automated software known as bots. BulkMail’s platform includes a built-in protection system that detects and filters these…

Google and Yahoo Announce New Requirements for Bulk Email Senders As of February 2024, Google and Yahoo have begun enforcing new email authentication standards aimed at reducing spam and improving inbox security. These updates affect anyone sending more than 5,000 emails per day to Gmail or Yahoo addresses — including many South African SMEs using bulk email platforms like BulkMail. These changes aren’t just technical hurdles — they are essential to ensure your emails reach your audience's inbox and are not rejected…

Email blacklisting can occur for several reasons, but it’s important to understand where the issue originates and how BulkMail’s systems operate to prevent it. This FAQ explains why a domain or IP might appear on a blacklist, especially when using shared hosting, and clarifies how BulkMail ensures campaign emails are sent securely and independently of your own hosting environment. When an email or IP address is blacklisted, it means it has been flagged by a spam monitoring service due to suspicious or…

When a subscriber claims that their unsubscribe request was not honoured — and further invokes their rights under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) — this becomes a formal compliance matter. It is critical that this is handled: Under POPIA, once consent is withdrawn, marketing communication must stop immediately. A data subject may also request access to their data, correction, or full de-identification. This guide explains both: Under POPIA, the following sections apply: There is a legal difference between: An unsubscribe…

If your templates list is becoming cluttered with designs you no longer use, you can hide them instead of deleting. This keeps your workspace clean while allowing you to retrieve the template later if needed. To hide a template from your active list: If you need to reuse a hidden template in the future, you can easily unhide it using the filters. The template will now be visible in your regular template list and ready to use again. This approach is ideal…

Adding events directly to a user’s calendar increases engagement, reduces no-shows, and improves scheduling efficiency. This guide explains how to create event links or downloadable files compatible with Google Calendar, Outlook Online, Outlook Desktop, Apple Calendar, and Thunderbird. All examples below include code snippets that you can copy, customise, and implement immediately. Google Calendar supports direct event creation via a specially structured URL. You can create a calendar link that, when clicked, prompts the user to add an event to their own…

Managing your email lists effectively is key to maintaining an organised, compliant and user-friendly BulkMail environment. Whether you're cleaning up unused data or simply want to declutter your dashboard, this guide will help you choose between deleting or hiding an email list. If you’ve created an email list that hasn’t been used in a campaign and you no longer need it, you can either delete it permanently or hide it from view. Choose: Note: Removing a list is permanent and cannot be…

Spam trigger words are terms or phrases that raise red flags for spam filters. These filters are built to protect inboxes from unsolicited, misleading, or suspicious content. If your email contains too many of these words — especially in combination with poor formatting or low sender reputation — your message may be flagged as spam or even rejected. Spam filters don’t just look at keywords in isolation. Context, design, and your sending history all matter. Problems arise when you: Run a spam…

Email spam filters are designed to protect users from unsolicited and potentially harmful content. However, legitimate emails from businesses — especially bulk senders — can be mistakenly flagged as spam due to content, formatting, technical setup, or sender reputation. Understanding how spam filters work and how to optimise your email strategy can significantly reduce the likelihood of your message being incorrectly classified as spam. Spam is typically defined as: Even if you’re not intentionally sending spam, spam-like characteristics in your email can…

Before sending your email campaign to your full list, it’s crucial to test how your message performs against spam filters. This process can highlight issues related to content, authentication, structure, and formatting — all of which affect whether your email lands in the inbox, promotions tab, or spam folder. This guide will help you use www.mail-tester.com, a free and effective tool that gives your email a spam score out of 10. While it's not foolproof, it covers the major spam signals used…

Starting your email marketing journey with BulkMail is easy when you know where to begin. To help you get up to speed quickly, we’ve compiled a list of essential articles and resources that cover everything from setting up your account to sending your first successful campaign. Follow these steps in order to build confidence and make the most of BulkMail’s powerful features. Learn how to build a targeted and organised email list to ensure your messages reach the right audience. Discover the…

Adding a BulkMail signup form to your website is one of the simplest ways to grow your email list, capture quality leads, and keep your business compliant with South African data regulations. Whether you want to embed a newsletter signup box, create a standalone landing page, or display a popup form, BulkMail makes it effortless — no coding required. Each form is securely encrypted, POPIA-ready, and integrates seamlessly with your BulkMail account to create or update subscribers automatically. All data submitted through…

Creating professional, visually engaging email campaigns often depends on finding the right image. To simplify this process, BulkMail now includes a built-in stock image search directly inside the email template editor. This feature allows you to search, preview, import, and edit royalty-free images without leaving the editor, helping you design emails faster and with fewer distractions. The built-in image search lets you: All images are automatically optimised for email use, ensuring reliable delivery and consistent display across devices. Images added using this…

Cleaning your email list is an important step to maintain strong deliverability, reduce spam complaints, and stay compliant with email marketing best practices. This guide will help you understand when to clean your list, how it works, and what you need to consider before and after the process. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), anti-spam networks, and corporate email filters set thresholds for acceptable levels of spam complaints, hard bounces, and unsubscribe requests. If your campaign exceeds these thresholds, it can damage your sender…

If you have an existing mailing list stored in an Excel spreadsheet, you can easily import it into your BulkMail account — but first, it must be saved in the correct format. CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files are the standard file format for bulk imports because they store tabular data in plain text, making it compatible with most systems, including BulkMail. When you save your spreadsheet as a CSV file, each row becomes a separate contact, and each column is treated as a…

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files are commonly used to store data like contact lists, subscriber exports, or reports. While Microsoft Excel can open CSV files by default, it often displays the data incorrectly — especially when your computer's regional settings use a different separator (e.g., semicolon instead of comma). This guide shows you the correct way to open and view your CSV files in Excel without converting or damaging your data. (This is the recommended method to ensure correct formatting.) In the import…

Exporting your Outlook contacts is essential if you're switching platforms, creating backups, or importing them into another tool (like BulkMail). The process varies slightly depending on the version of Outlook you're using, so follow the steps relevant to your version below. Your CSV file will now be saved in the location you specified, ready to import into another system. Choose which contacts to export: This file can now be opened in Excel or imported into another platform like BulkMail. Unfortunately, exporting to…

Including attachments like PDFs or other documents in your email campaigns must be handled carefully. Attaching large files directly to an email is not advisable because: To ensure optimal deliverability and performance, we recommend not attaching files directly but instead linking to the file online. Here’s how to do it effectively. If you have access to your website hosting or CMS, this is the most efficient and professional method. Locate the direct link to the file. It should look like: In your…

Triggering a workflow (automation) from a button or link in your email is a powerful feature that lets you take actions based on user behaviour. The most common use case is to initiate an opt-in workflow when a recipient clicks a link — but it can go far beyond that. You can use this function to send follow-up emails, update subscriber data, or even segment users into different journeys. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to set this up in BulkMail.

Creating a well-designed email campaign template is essential to engage your audience, maintain brand consistency, and improve email performance. Whether you're starting from scratch or leveraging past successes, our system offers five straightforward methods to suit your level of expertise and campaign needs. The Code Editor is designed for users who are comfortable working directly with HTML and CSS. This method provides full control and flexibility, allowing you to: This option is ideal if you want pixel-perfect control or need to replicate…

Over the past year, many email marketers — including those in South Africa — have noticed a sharp increase in bounce rates, particularly from Yahoo email addresses. This is not a platform issue, nor is it due to a change in your sending practices. Rather, it stems from Yahoo’s internal account clean-up processes, which have significantly impacted global deliverability. Understanding what’s happening behind the scenes — and what actions to take — will help you protect your sender reputation, minimise bounces, and…

Some users experience problems when selecting a future date and time for a campaign. This is typically not a platform error, but rather a result of browser plugins interfering with the date field. Certain browser extensions are known to interfere with form fields, including the date and time selector. These plugins may auto-fill, modify, or override inputs — preventing you from properly scheduling your campaign. These tools are useful in general browsing but can disrupt interactive elements on platforms like BulkMail. Try…

While BulkMail does not offer a built-in survey tool, you can easily integrate external surveys into your email campaigns by following a few simple steps. Surveys are powerful tools for gathering feedback, qualifying leads, or measuring customer satisfaction — but they require more flexibility than standard form fields allow. The following platforms allow you to create custom surveys with various logic and design options. Most also offer free tiers and exportable results: Note: These tools are widely used, but BulkMail does not…