When creating an order or registering on the site, your customers receive service notification emails. The store's functionality also includes sending such emails to the site's managers.
In this guide, we will look at the email settings from which trigger service emails are sent.
To configure, go to Settings → General Settings → Email Settings.
There are two options to configure email sending in your store:
Sending via Cartum SMTP;
Configuring a third-party SMTP.
What is SMTP
SMTP — Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a simple mail transfer protocol. Essentially, it is a set of rules by which the store sends mail to your recipients.
Option 1: Sending emails via Cartum's SMTP server
This option is set by default in every new store on Cartum — immediately after creation, your emails are already sent to customers and managers.
Emails to customers
Emails to customers are sent from the email address [email protected]. This is the address your customers will see in the From field of their mailboxes.
Until the domain is connected, they are sent from our test domain ([email protected]), after connecting the domain, your real domain name will be indicated in the address.
Sender's Email
In the Email for letters field, you can specify another address on your domain. It is advisable that this address is real.
Also specify the Sender's name, which will more clearly inform the customer about the sender of the email. This can be the full or abbreviated name of your store.
Attention:
When sending emails via Cartum's SMTP, you cannot specify email addresses from gmail.com or other email providers in the Email for letters field. Such emails are guaranteed to end up in spam or will not be processed by the "receiving side" at all.
Cyrillic and other non-Latin characters are not allowed in the mailbox name.
What to do to prevent emails from going to spam?
To improve email delivery, additional settings need to be made on your domain:
Reply-to address for emails
The address from which service emails are sent is not a real mailbox, it is impossible to receive replies to it. But if you plan to receive feedback from customers, you need to specify an existing address in the Email reply-to for orders field, which may differ from the Email for letters.
For this setting, you can specify a mailbox whose domain differs from the store's domain.
Emails sent to store managers
Emails to store managers are always sent from [email protected].
Why this is: email services regularly work on improving the user experience of receiving mail, including constantly implementing new filters for emails to end up in spam. To better deliver service emails and reduce their loss, we have implemented sending through a trusted email service.
Option 2: Sending emails via a third-party SMTP
If you have your own mail servers or want to use email provider SMTPs (gmail.com), we recommend setting up this email sending option.
For this, in the general settings section:
In the Email for letters field, specify the address from which emails will be sent to your customers, this can also be an address like
[email protected].In the Sender's name field, specify a clear name — this can be, for example, the full or abbreviated name of the store.
Enable the Use SMTP checkbox.
If you use the SSL protocol, enable the Use SSL for SMTP checkbox.
Enter the data provided by your service in the SMTP server, SMTP port, SMTP user name, and SMTP password fields.
Save the settings.
Emails sent to store managers
Emails to store managers when using third-party SMTP servers are sent from the address specified in the Email for letters field.
Reply-to address for emails
If you plan to receive feedback from customers, you need to specify an existing address in the Email reply-to for orders field, which may differ from the Email for letters. This should be a real working mailbox that receives emails.
Example: setting up mail on Gmail's SMTP server
Using the SSL or TLS protocol, you can send emails to users via the smtp.gmail.com SMTP server.
During setup, authentication is required using a Gmail or Google Workspace username and password. The device uses these credentials each time it attempts to send an email.
To set up sending emails via Gmail SMTP:
First, fill in the Email for letters, Sender's name fields, enable the SMTP and Use SSL for SMTP checkboxes.
In the SMTP server field, specify smtp.gmail.com.
In the SMTP port field — 465.
SMTP user name — your full Google Workspace address.
In the SMTP password field — a 16-character app password set up in your Google account.
Save the settings.
If all settings for Gmail SMTP are correct, but emails are not being sent, Google recommends following this link and performing the recommendations provided.
Before following the above recommendations, make sure you are logged into the browser with only one account for which you need to grant permissions. If it is not possible to temporarily log out of other Google accounts and leave only one, use incognito mode in your browser.
Common mistakes when setting up email
You did not complete all the necessary settings
Check yourself against the checklist:
Sending via Cartum's SMTP server
In the Email for letters field, email addresses from gmail.com or other email services are not specified.
If you need to receive emails from customers, a real email address is specified.
No other fields in the settings are filled in except for Email for letters, Sender's name if necessary, and/or Email reply-to for orders.
If a Email reply-to for orders is specified, it is a real mailbox that can receive emails.
Sending via a third-party SMTP server
The Email for letters field is filled in, it does not contain extraneous text other than the email address.
The Sender's name field is filled in, it contains meaningful text indicating your store — its full or abbreviated name. The field does not contain additional texts, domains, or email addresses.
The SMTP server checkbox is enabled.
All other settings fields are filled in.
The password field contains the app password.
If a Email reply-to for orders is specified, it is a real mailbox that can receive emails.
Gmail system failed to verify that this email was sent from here
This error may occur if in the general settings in the admin panel, in the Email Settings section, you specified, for example, an email from gmail.com, but did not complete the full setup according to our instructions (examples above on this page). In this case, Gmail directs emails to the Spam folder because the system could not verify that the sender is [email protected].
In the email settings, it is advisable to specify a valid email because customers may sometimes reply to order emails and would like to receive a response from you. By specifying a domain-type email and leaving the default settings, you will solve the problem of sending emails, but you will not have the opportunity to reply to customer emails.
Also, the Gmail mail server will inform you that the domain did not encrypt this message. Therefore, if you need emails to be encrypted and not end up in the Spam folder, be sure to complete the full setup of sending emails via a third-party SMTP and use SSL encryption.