Transactional Email and HubSpot: Everything you need to know

Email is a very important form of communication in the twenty first century. 2020 alone had an estimated 3.9 billion daily email users (Statista, 2020) and this number is expected to climb to 4.3 billion by 2023! But not every email is a "marketing" email. Not every email is trying to "advertise", "sell" or "promote" something. Sometimes the emails that you receive or send are important in terms of notifying an individual about something relating to a contract, purchase or account-related information.

Let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. Have you ever forgotten a password to access an online account, clicked the "forgot password" button and received an email shortly afterwards?
2. Have you ever purchased something online and gotten a confirmation receipt outlining all of the items that make up your order?
3. Have you ever received important account updates that help to keep you informed as to changes happening within the company your conducting business with ?
4. Have you ever gotten an update as to the status of an order after purchasing something online and eagerly awaited it's delivery?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above then you've been a recipient of transactional email. In article we're going to be covering:

• What is a transactional email?
• How you can send transactional email with Hubspot
• Why transactional email requires a dedicated IP
• What happens if you send marketing information in the form of a transactional email

So let's dive in...

What is a transactional Email?

If you were to look at the definition of "transactional" in the oxford english dictionary you'd find the following:

The above is a very accurate descriptor as to what signifies a "transactional email". It's a 1:1 email that contains important information about an order, purchase or account related information. Typically (though not always) seen in eCommerce. It's information that must be delivered to the recipients inbox.

Imagine you got an angry phone call from your electricity provider because you didn't pay a bill due to not receiving any notice. Maybe you weren't ever able to login to your online banking account because you forgot your password/access code and had no way to recover it. Or you purchased a lovely gift for that special someone in your life and didn't receive any form of confirmation afterwards. It'd be annoying right?

These are all scenarios that transactional email can help with and HubSpot offers a variety of ways to send transactional email.

How you can send transactional email with HubSpot

There are a multitude of ways to leverage transactional email within HubSpot and in the next section we're going to look a them in more detail. Please note that in order to send transactional email from HubSpot you will need to purchase the transactional email add-on.

1) via your HubSpot portal

TLDR: Everything is done within HubSpot. You create, send and report on the performance of the email within Hubspot. No APIs required!

If you're logged into your HubSpot account you can "create and send email". It's simple and efficient. If you're familiar with creating and sending marketing emails from HubSpot then this won't be anything new to you. The only difference being that you'll be stipulating whether or not the email is of a "transactional" nature as per this article vs a "marketing" email. You'd simply select "Transactional" from the dropdown as shown below:

Once created these emails are then able to be sent to lists and/or saved for use within workflows. You'll also be able to report on them via the email performance dashboard. It's important to understand the engagement of your transactional emails just as much as it is your marketing emails.

This method is ideal for those who need to:

• Update customers in bulk of changes in terms & conditions, legal information, contractual information.
• Send customers information relating to their subscriptions/contracts using workflows upon request.

As well as sending transactional email directly from within your HubSpot portal you can also do this programmatically using the API. HubSpot provides a "Transactional Email API" that facilitates just that. There are two components to this API namely the SMTPI and Single Send APIs.

PLEASE NOTE: Transactional emails sent via this method count towards your total monthly email send limit.

2) via SMTP API

TLDR: Total control of the email. You create and trigger the send externally. The email is then sent through HubSpots servers and you report an analyze the performance directly from within HubSpot.

Using the "SMTP API" you have complete and total control over the email structure. You simply use the API to trigger the send of those emails externally from HubSpot. Unique to the SMTP API is the ability to add attachments in the form of PDFs (or other file formats) and also to send email without creating contacts within HubSpot which can be particularly helpful in the case of password resets.

The SMTP API is all based on tokens. Those tokens contain a username and password to connect to the HubSpot SMTP servers. You can generate tokens using the API or from within your HubSpot portal. Once you begin sending emails via the SMTP API you're then free to report on the performance of your emails by navigating to "Settings > Marketing > Email" and clicking on the "SMTP" tab. From here you will see all of your tokens (each representing a specific type of email) and you can click into them to view their performance.

The SMTP API is useful for those wanting to:

• Retain complete and total control of the emails HTML and send logic.
• Dictate whether or not the recipient should be created as a contact within Hubspot.
• Have visibility as to the performance of those emails and the interactions with links contained within.
• Ability to analyze the performance of transactional emails sent via their external applications and/or eCommerce systems.

PLEASE NOTE: Transactional emails sent via this method count towards your total monthly email send limit.

3) via Single Send API

TLDR: The best of both worlds. You create the email within HubSpot and decide when to send it using the API. You can also inject external data into the body of the email and then report on the performance of the email within HubSpot.

The "Single Send API" is the best of both worlds when it comes to sending transactional email from HubSpot. You create the email directly from within HubSpot and as a result enjoy all of the email editing, personalization and smart content features it provides. You are then able to programmatically send those emails as required. Whats more is that you can inject data into the body of those emails that doesn't have to live within HubSpot.

The Single Send API is useful for in the following scenarios:

• Your content marketing team wish to retain control over the email templates and want to leverage the likes of smart content and/or personalization.
• You wish to include data in the body of the email that doesn't necessarily have to populate a contact property.
• You want a way to trigger email sends using the API from your external application and/or system.

PLEASE NOTE: Transactional emails sent via this method count towards your total monthly email send limit.

Why transactional email requires a dedicated IP

So we've looked at the different ways that exist when it comes to sending transactional email from HubSpot. Another important thing to be mindful of is that sending transactional email requires a dedicated IP and there is a very good reason for this...

Imagine you rented a car whilst on holidays. You're driving to a nearby beach only to get refused entry by the authorities as the registration plate has raised some flags. Turns out a previous driver had been driving that car dangerously. As a result the authorities are on the look out and aren't taking any chances... bummer!

When it comes to email deliverability various Inbox Providers (Gmail, Outlook.com, AOL etc.), don't want to take any chances. They're going to look for the slightest reason to refuse entry. However when it comes to transactional email we can't afford to take those chances. We need to get those emails delivered to the recipients primary inbox.

As a result a dedicated IP, completely clean of all "blemishes" must be utilized. This ensures upmost deliverability. When sending transactional emails from HubSpot they're sent from a separate IP then marketing emails. This ensures that you're not polluting the transactional email IP with potential spam complaints and/or hard bounces associated with your day to day marketing email activity.

What happens if you send marketing information in the form of a transactional email

Some of you might be asking why don't I just send all my email as "transactional email"? Truth be told, technically you could decide to do it but this is like saying "what if I decided to drive on the wrong side of the road to get past the traffic jam". It's not best practice, it's dangerous and it's going to cause some major issues!

If someone rings the cops to report a car driving up the road on the wrong side they're going to respond very very quickly and you're going to face the full extent of the law. This is the exact same as someone receiving marketing email cloaked as transactional email. As soon as they mark that as spam that is going to have an EXTREMELY negative impact on your sending reputation for both your marketing and transactional emails. So don't take the risk!

So there you have it! An overview as to what transactional emails are and how you can send them from HubSpot to meet your business's needs. Thanks as always for taking the time to read and if you've any questions please leave a comment.