1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:06,000 In this video I'll show you how to set up transactional email with Sparke post but only after you've 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:12,600 tried it as a challenge similar to send grid spark post is a transactional email specialist since they 3 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:18,720 also have a dedicated WordPress plug in and they have a free level that allows for sending up to 100000 4 00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:19,830 emails a month. 5 00:00:19,830 --> 00:00:22,860 It's a great choice for your client sites and your own. 6 00:00:22,860 --> 00:00:28,470 You will probably have a good handle on e-mail that WordPress sends so far but by the end of this lesson 7 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:30,790 you'll be a master OK. 8 00:00:30,820 --> 00:00:38,830 The only thing you need to know is the RL is spark Post dot com and that they do have a free WordPress 9 00:00:38,830 --> 00:00:40,610 plugin in the repository. 10 00:00:40,660 --> 00:00:42,190 Ready go. 11 00:00:43,510 --> 00:00:45,630 OK I hope that went well for you. 12 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:50,170 Only difference here is instead of us try for free. 13 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:56,480 I'm going to be hitting the logon button because I already have a spark post membership. 14 00:00:56,590 --> 00:01:00,720 Also I'm going to go back to the plugins page of my dashboard. 15 00:01:00,730 --> 00:01:07,690 Gray Davis dot com and I'm just going to simply deactivate the send grid plug in. 16 00:01:07,860 --> 00:01:14,070 Now with both of my other MT P or Sendmail plugins d activated. 17 00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:19,710 I'm free to go and find the spark post plug in and get logged into my site. 18 00:01:19,780 --> 00:01:22,710 Spark posts and go ahead and set it up. 19 00:01:23,010 --> 00:01:30,410 So let's the spark posts in the search bar brings it up right there. 20 00:01:30,590 --> 00:01:39,080 4000 active installs right from the install plug in success page or click activate plug in 21 00:01:42,700 --> 00:01:49,020 or right great if I scroll down and look at it Spart post. 22 00:01:49,020 --> 00:01:53,600 Ok I can go to the settings page right from here probably under settings. 23 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:56,600 Yes there is a spark post settings link right there. 24 00:01:56,610 --> 00:02:06,710 Anyway And so now that I have this set up I see I'll go into can see that I used my email address Sparke 25 00:02:06,790 --> 00:02:08,850 post at Greg Davis dot com. 26 00:02:08,860 --> 00:02:15,150 That's actually an email alias but I used it to sign up for Sparke post right. 27 00:02:15,180 --> 00:02:20,060 I've got a hundred thousand emails included in ten thousand email daily limit. 28 00:02:20,220 --> 00:02:23,180 Wow that's a lot around. 29 00:02:23,190 --> 00:02:27,210 Let's go back to that spark post plug in. 30 00:02:27,210 --> 00:02:32,370 I'm going to use it send email using Skype first and then what are my choices here. 31 00:02:32,370 --> 00:02:37,330 The API is the default or I could use as a.p with two different ports. 32 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:38,750 Let's try using the API. 33 00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:42,640 So I need an API key from SPARC first. 34 00:02:42,670 --> 00:02:48,020 So OK back to spark post you're going to go under my account. 35 00:02:49,380 --> 00:02:54,000 And then I have AP guys here send email to me. 36 00:02:54,000 --> 00:03:01,300 Now I'm going to create a new API key that's when I'm going to call. 37 00:03:01,870 --> 00:03:05,730 This is my Greg Davis duck API key. 38 00:03:05,830 --> 00:03:07,400 Just give it all permissions 39 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:15,480 I can just let it come from any IP address and click add API. 40 00:03:15,510 --> 00:03:15,800 OK. 41 00:03:15,810 --> 00:03:20,320 Now this is this was true of second grade and it's true of sparkplugs. 42 00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:24,630 They're only going to show this to me once and when I never get away from here I won't be able to see 43 00:03:24,630 --> 00:03:25,040 it again. 44 00:03:25,050 --> 00:03:27,710 So I'll click copy. 45 00:03:27,760 --> 00:03:28,450 All right. 46 00:03:28,670 --> 00:03:35,960 And then I'm actually going to go in to a document on my computer and save this API key in a text document 47 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:41,500 where I can find it later a puzzle video now just for a second OK I'm back. 48 00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:45,600 I don't know if you made a quick note of this but I've got a little notification here. 49 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:46,230 Hey there. 50 00:03:46,290 --> 00:03:49,810 I'm using the sandbox domain and it's good for testing. 51 00:03:49,890 --> 00:03:53,660 But I can only send 50 e-mails with that domain. 52 00:03:53,670 --> 00:04:00,300 So I've got to set up my own sending domain to send more e-mails but I'll just use this domain for testing. 53 00:04:00,300 --> 00:04:05,250 At this point I'll go through setting up your own sending domain with Sparke post after I've set it 54 00:04:05,250 --> 00:04:07,470 up and tested it with my wordpress site. 55 00:04:07,830 --> 00:04:15,090 So for now I have my API key copied on the clipboard and I'm going back to the 8 to the Wordpress dashboard 56 00:04:15,450 --> 00:04:23,070 and I'm just going to paste the AP API key in there and I don't need to use templates at this point 57 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:35,010 or overrides could actually come I can use my own name from for a from name and I can use it as my email 58 00:04:35,010 --> 00:04:37,480 address at my domain. 59 00:04:37,650 --> 00:04:41,980 Right now Ptomaine must match with one of your varified sending domains and when left. 60 00:04:41,990 --> 00:04:46,180 Thank Greg Davis dot com will be used as an email domain. 61 00:04:46,280 --> 00:04:46,570 OK. 62 00:04:46,620 --> 00:04:52,340 I wonder if that will work for testing but if I just say save changes and see what it tells me right 63 00:04:52,470 --> 00:04:56,870 I'm going to be using that testing spark post-box. 64 00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:03,800 Let's if I sent a an email to testing at Greg Davis dot com. 65 00:05:03,810 --> 00:05:12,220 My testing email address and sure I can show debugging messages and let's click send test email test 66 00:05:12,220 --> 00:05:13,630 email could not be sent. 67 00:05:13,810 --> 00:05:21,660 Probably because I put this email address as the from email. 68 00:05:21,790 --> 00:05:23,410 Let's see if change is right there. 69 00:05:28,190 --> 00:05:29,590 Let's try one more time. 70 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:42,900 I wonder if you ran into this problem as well because I haven't verified my Greg Davis doc sending domain. 71 00:05:42,900 --> 00:05:45,870 I believe that's why I'm getting this error right here. 72 00:05:45,990 --> 00:05:47,480 It says message. 73 00:05:47,500 --> 00:05:54,510 Invalid domain right here that pretty much tells me I'm going to need to because I am sending from an 74 00:05:54,540 --> 00:05:56,990 actual Web site here. 75 00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:58,410 Greg Davis dot com. 76 00:05:58,410 --> 00:06:03,980 I'm going to have to verify that domain up here before I can test the email. 77 00:06:04,020 --> 00:06:04,830 So let's click. 78 00:06:04,830 --> 00:06:06,720 What does it say right here sending commands. 79 00:06:06,750 --> 00:06:09,490 It's not ready to send from Greg Davis daka. 80 00:06:09,690 --> 00:06:14,740 I have to complete at least one of the below to verify my domain ownership. 81 00:06:15,060 --> 00:06:17,870 So SPF we're familiar with that DK. 82 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:23,450 I am familiar with that or email verified by email. 83 00:06:23,460 --> 00:06:25,830 So I wonder if you went through this process. 84 00:06:25,890 --> 00:06:32,640 If I have to I have to verify my ownership by email and they'll send me an email to either abuse that 85 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:34,960 Gray Davis dot com or postmaster. 86 00:06:35,250 --> 00:06:37,140 Greg Davis dot com. 87 00:06:37,290 --> 00:06:44,730 So in my case I can actually create an email address where I host my email as you saw in a previous 88 00:06:44,730 --> 00:06:46,940 video at Rackspace Cloud. 89 00:06:47,070 --> 00:06:50,740 Pause the video right now and create that. 90 00:06:50,840 --> 00:06:58,270 So as you remember I host my Greg Davis dot com email at Rackspace apps and so I've logged into Rackspace 91 00:06:58,610 --> 00:07:03,970 to my control panel and you can see here I've created an alias called post-master and it might take 92 00:07:03,970 --> 00:07:04,890 several minutes. 93 00:07:04,930 --> 00:07:13,390 In my experience it comes very very quickly and so will click verify email right here says Email sent 94 00:07:13,810 --> 00:07:19,100 and if I go into my mailbox OK here's my message from Sparke post. 95 00:07:19,110 --> 00:07:26,010 Please verify your sending domain and I'll just click on this link and it will open Sparke post in another 96 00:07:26,010 --> 00:07:33,060 tab in my browser probably giving me a message that I have had success verifying my domain. 97 00:07:33,060 --> 00:07:38,730 Great so now they believe that I own Greg Davis dot com and so they're preventing people from abusing 98 00:07:38,730 --> 00:07:44,850 domains and sending spam from other people's domain names and that's great that makes it safer for us 99 00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:45,490 all. 100 00:07:45,780 --> 00:07:52,260 And I'll show you in a little bit later how to set up an SPF manually at your domain and a DK. 101 00:07:52,260 --> 00:07:58,590 I am for better sending and I would want to set both of those up manually so that I can get them done. 102 00:07:58,650 --> 00:08:03,210 You can see this is a little bit more complicated than send good which had that easy system and had 103 00:08:03,210 --> 00:08:04,860 SPF and DK. 104 00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:08,510 K I am set up for me. 105 00:08:08,670 --> 00:08:15,000 Ok so I'm back in the Wordpress dashboard in the spark post plug in settings page and since my settings 106 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:23,940 should all just be the same I can actually see I am going to use my own name and I want this email address 107 00:08:23,940 --> 00:08:31,500 to be the email that the from email is and again I'll try to send to my testing email address that's 108 00:08:31,500 --> 00:08:36,060 10 send that test email test e-mail sent successfully. 109 00:08:36,060 --> 00:08:39,180 Great because they have verified my domain name. 110 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:42,430 Now open up my email program and let's check it out. 111 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:47,730 I'll read them in my email program and I've got that email from Spart post. 112 00:08:47,730 --> 00:08:48,760 Open up. 113 00:08:48,810 --> 00:08:49,720 It says part. 114 00:08:49,750 --> 00:08:50,610 Post email. 115 00:08:50,610 --> 00:08:54,190 Test in the subject and says Hooray you've got mail. 116 00:08:54,210 --> 00:08:54,900 Regards. 117 00:08:54,900 --> 00:08:55,350 Excellent. 118 00:08:55,350 --> 00:08:57,460 Well let's look at the view source. 119 00:08:57,510 --> 00:09:00,150 Look at the headers just like we did before. 120 00:09:00,150 --> 00:09:06,390 I've got a DKIM signature actually that they've set up for me automatically just like send agreed my 121 00:09:06,390 --> 00:09:11,900 authentication results look good Sender Policy Framework is a pass. 122 00:09:12,150 --> 00:09:13,790 That's great. 123 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:16,620 And let's go over to the DKIM. 124 00:09:16,710 --> 00:09:18,880 Now that is a fail in this case. 125 00:09:18,930 --> 00:09:23,920 The key is not found in my DNS and that was actually expected. 126 00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:30,360 Sparkplugs takes a little bit more manual set up to make the DKIM failed and I will expect the D-mark 127 00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:37,440 to also fail which it did but I'm receiving e-mail straight from Sparke post with just an email verification 128 00:09:37,740 --> 00:09:39,020 which is good news. 129 00:09:39,450 --> 00:09:44,880 Now I'm wondering how it went for you as a student were you able to create a special e-mail address 130 00:09:44,880 --> 00:09:52,920 called abuse or postmaster at your domain name or did you look at some of the instructions regarding 131 00:09:52,950 --> 00:09:57,050 creating an SPF record and a DKIM record. 132 00:09:57,510 --> 00:10:00,990 Well either way is possible to do. 133 00:10:01,110 --> 00:10:08,500 And if you looked it up the SPF record has to be configured in the DNS records for your domain name. 134 00:10:08,610 --> 00:10:13,350 And that depends on how your DNS is being set from your domain name. 135 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:14,170 For me. 136 00:10:14,290 --> 00:10:22,290 I've showed you before at Greg Davis dot com I point the name servers directly at my site Ground server 137 00:10:22,590 --> 00:10:29,970 and therefore I can change the DNS settings within my site Ground see panel. 138 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:38,040 In another case I have the DNS zone file here available to me in Go Daddy where I can set different 139 00:10:38,220 --> 00:10:45,960 SPF records DKIM records in different kinds of DNS records depending on how you have it set up. 140 00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:51,220 You may have had a different set up than me that I used in this video. 141 00:10:51,450 --> 00:10:56,940 Just like around many topics with web site development you may have had to look up on Google or try 142 00:10:56,940 --> 00:11:02,940 and figure out by looking on the Internet and information about how to do certain things hopefully you 143 00:11:02,940 --> 00:11:06,900 were able to do a little bit of research and find where you needed to be. 144 00:11:06,900 --> 00:11:14,370 For me I need to open the see panel for Greg Davis dot com and there's some different DNS settings that 145 00:11:14,370 --> 00:11:15,930 I need to make over here. 146 00:11:16,020 --> 00:11:20,490 But let's look and see what Sparke post tells me to do. 147 00:11:20,490 --> 00:11:27,900 So what I need to do is make a DNS record within Greg Davis dot com that the host name is Gray Davis 148 00:11:27,900 --> 00:11:28,770 dot com. 149 00:11:28,770 --> 00:11:32,400 It's a text record or a t text record. 150 00:11:32,460 --> 00:11:40,230 And this is the value that I need to put in there so that Sparke post has my domain verified via an 151 00:11:40,230 --> 00:11:41,570 SPF record. 152 00:11:41,700 --> 00:11:45,190 So I'll copy that which is copied to my clipboard. 153 00:11:45,190 --> 00:11:54,560 Now if I go back in to see panel I know that advanced DNS zone editors what I want and now I want to 154 00:11:54,560 --> 00:12:05,440 add a txt record so let's see the hostname is name in this case we know that it's Greg Davis dot com 155 00:12:05,700 --> 00:12:09,230 is what it asked me to put right there. 156 00:12:09,260 --> 00:12:14,200 It's a text record and the data that I want there is right here. 157 00:12:16,680 --> 00:12:19,250 TTL means time to live. 158 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:24,200 And I'll just use the standard number that all of my other zone file records use. 159 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:27,160 Fourteen four hundred. 160 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:33,490 It's basically a time that it will go back and recognize changes. 161 00:12:34,010 --> 00:12:40,800 All right I've added the DNS record and we can go back and refresh Sparke post right away to see if 162 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:48,600 they recognize it now DNS changes especially at the domain level can take 24 to even 48 hours to propagate 163 00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:52,160 across the Internet based on your DNS provider. 164 00:12:52,260 --> 00:12:58,080 I'm aware that site ground I think when I'm controlling it with the C panel is very fast go daddy has 165 00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:01,030 a domain registrar is also very very fast. 166 00:13:01,140 --> 00:13:09,050 But I've had slower domain registrars in my past when I've looked at domains from client sites and such. 167 00:13:09,060 --> 00:13:15,580 So let's just go back and see if I just test the SPF record. 168 00:13:16,770 --> 00:13:21,820 Nope it looks like it needs to propagate across the internet. 169 00:13:24,710 --> 00:13:29,780 Looks like this is a slightly different DNS record than I had before. 170 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:37,430 Possibly because I already had an refresh this page after I had verified it with the postmaster's email 171 00:13:37,430 --> 00:13:38,090 address. 172 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:42,370 So I just copied this here and let's go ahead and change that. 173 00:13:42,370 --> 00:13:51,000 So if I have named Greg there's that come here is where's my text record. 174 00:13:51,090 --> 00:13:53,460 Looks like I've got a bunch of nice ones. 175 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:54,940 I do have some D. 176 00:13:55,240 --> 00:13:57,930 DK I am records here. 177 00:13:58,200 --> 00:13:59,280 Where's my text record. 178 00:13:59,280 --> 00:14:00,830 Here it is. 179 00:14:00,830 --> 00:14:03,530 Now this last one right here. 180 00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:13,080 I've actually got some leftover text records in here from a Rackspace email from setting up my domain 181 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:14,960 with Rackspace. 182 00:14:15,060 --> 00:14:22,380 And so for this one I'm going to they're not using that right now and not using Rackspace to send email 183 00:14:22,380 --> 00:14:25,020 from Greg Davis dot com from the Web site. 184 00:14:25,020 --> 00:14:26,510 I'm going to get rid of that one. 185 00:14:26,730 --> 00:14:30,690 And I am going to edit this text record. 186 00:14:30,870 --> 00:14:41,340 So instead of having that long one I'm just going to paste the short one at record write so successfully 187 00:14:41,340 --> 00:14:49,330 updated that DNS record and let's see if I go back up here and see if that will work. 188 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:56,880 That looks much better a nice green checkbox. 189 00:14:57,020 --> 00:14:57,410 Excellent. 190 00:14:57,410 --> 00:15:04,550 Now what does it say I need to do to get a DKIM record so I could see that I could have DKIM records 191 00:15:04,850 --> 00:15:07,940 inside of my domain inside a C panel. 192 00:15:07,940 --> 00:15:14,280 You know what I might do is I might just remove my old DKIM records. 193 00:15:14,290 --> 00:15:16,520 There is one and there is one 194 00:15:22,060 --> 00:15:27,060 know from and delete that one and delete this one. 195 00:15:30,990 --> 00:15:37,640 Great now and free of DKIM records right now and I'm going to be adding a new record right here. 196 00:15:40,790 --> 00:15:42,650 So it's a text record. 197 00:15:42,860 --> 00:15:49,790 The hostname is not my domain but it is a different domain key with a special character from Sparke 198 00:15:49,790 --> 00:15:50,840 posts. 199 00:15:51,140 --> 00:16:02,160 Copy that as the hostname place the name there I'll go 14 400 as normal. 200 00:16:02,220 --> 00:16:04,110 This is going to be a text record. 201 00:16:04,110 --> 00:16:07,860 And now I just need the last piece of data I can just copy it. 202 00:16:07,860 --> 00:16:17,340 You can see it's very long because it's very secure for email pay set there and click add record. 203 00:16:17,550 --> 00:16:17,960 Great. 204 00:16:17,970 --> 00:16:18,740 OK. 205 00:16:18,810 --> 00:16:20,610 I look at it it's right down here. 206 00:16:20,660 --> 00:16:20,850 Yeah. 207 00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:22,680 That's that domain key. 208 00:16:22,690 --> 00:16:28,800 Now let's see if it recognizes it I'll test that DKIM record. 209 00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:31,540 Oh a nice green check box. 210 00:16:31,540 --> 00:16:37,090 You can see that it takes a little bit of doing sometimes to get everything set up right and everyone's 211 00:16:37,090 --> 00:16:44,010 situation is a little bit different depending on where your DNS is held and how your domain is set up. 212 00:16:45,230 --> 00:16:50,900 Now I've just done a quick test after waiting a few minutes to let the DNS propagate a little bit. 213 00:16:50,900 --> 00:16:57,020 I put my name and my e-mail address back in there and I sent an e-mail to testing it. 214 00:16:57,020 --> 00:17:00,100 Greg Davis dot com and sent that test e-mail. 215 00:17:00,380 --> 00:17:04,430 I did receive an email from Gilia Gray Davis dot com. 216 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:10,640 And then I also checked out the source and under authentication results I was very happy to see that 217 00:17:10,640 --> 00:17:14,840 I had got the SPF pass right here. 218 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:19,420 Also I've got a DKIM pass which was excellent. 219 00:17:19,700 --> 00:17:24,410 And if you followed over a little bit further I actually got a D-Mark pass which is something that Sparke 220 00:17:24,410 --> 00:17:30,330 post is preventing me which is the most secure you can get in this lesson. 221 00:17:30,350 --> 00:17:35,660 I challenged you to configure a new service Sparke post that you probably hadn't used before. 222 00:17:35,660 --> 00:17:39,500 If you had to look up some information to get it set up right then great. 223 00:17:39,500 --> 00:17:42,690 Sometimes that's what makes web development interesting and fun. 224 00:17:42,710 --> 00:17:46,640 You need to be creative to solve problems in the next few videos. 225 00:17:46,670 --> 00:17:51,980 We'll get into marketing email and how you can connect third party services like MailChimp to WordPress 226 00:17:51,980 --> 00:17:58,370 Web sites by setting up an email app to inform you or your clients can collect a marketing list of emails 227 00:17:58,430 --> 00:18:00,380 and manage them efficiently. 228 00:18:00,380 --> 00:18:00,800 Let's go