🟠 Connect Amazon SES

Amazon SES is the cheapest way to send real volume, at roughly ten cents per thousand emails, and it is the provider most people on a growing list end up using. It is also the fiddliest to set up, because Amazon assumes you are a developer and hides the important parts behind words like identity, sandbox and production access. This guide walks the whole thing, in order, in plain English.

Set aside about thirty minutes. Two of the steps involve waiting: DNS records take a few minutes to spread, and Amazon can take up to twenty four hours to approve your account for real sending.

Step 1. Create the AWS account:

1. Go to aws.amazon.com and create an account. It needs a card, even though SES costs almost nothing.
2. Sign in and search for SES in the console search bar, then open Amazon Simple Email Service.

Step 2. Choose one region and stay in it:

The region selector sits at the top right of the AWS console, showing somewhere like N. Virginia or Ireland. Pick the one nearest the bulk of your subscribers and remember it.

This matters more than it looks. SES is a separate service in every region. A domain you verify in Ireland does not exist in Virginia, and credentials from one region are refused by the other. When someone tells us SES will not authenticate, the region is wrong nine times out of ten.

Step 3. Verify your domain, not just one address:

1. In SES, open Verified identities and choose Create identity.
2. Choose Domain, and enter the domain you send from, for example yourdomain.com.
3. Leave Easy DKIM switched on. Amazon shows you three CNAME records.
4. Add those three records in your DNS, at your domain registrar or wherever your DNS is hosted.
5. Wait, then refresh. The identity flips to Verified on its own, usually within minutes.

You can verify a single email address instead, and it is quicker, but it limits you: only that one address can send, and your email is not DKIM signed, which is the single biggest thing inboxes look at. Verify the domain.

Step 4. Leave the sandbox:

Every new SES account starts in the sandbox. In the sandbox you can only email addresses you have verified yourself, you are capped at two hundred emails a day, and everything looks like it is working right up until real subscribers receive nothing.

1. In SES, open Account dashboard. If you are in the sandbox it says so in a banner.
2. Choose Request production access.
3. Fill in the form honestly. Say what you send, that recipients opt in through a form on your site, and that every email has a one click unsubscribe link, which the Mailer adds for you.
4. Amazon usually replies within a day.

If the request is refused, it is almost always because the answer was vague. Say plainly where your list comes from, how people leave it, and how you deal with bounces.

Step 5. Create sending credentials:

1. In SES, open SMTP settings and choose Create SMTP credentials, or create an IAM user with SES sending permission if you prefer keys.
2. Amazon shows the key and secret once, on that one screen. Copy both now.

These are not your AWS console password, and you cannot look them up later. If you lose them, create a new pair and delete the old one.

Step 6. Put it into the Mailer:

1. Open ResultsAiX Mailer, then Delivery, then Sending.
2. Add a connection, give it a name like Amazon SES, and choose Amazon SES as the provider.
3. Paste the access key and the secret key.
4. Type the region exactly as AWS names it, for example us-east-1 or eu-west-1. This must be the region you did everything else in.
5. Set From name and From email to an address on the domain you verified.
6. Save, then send yourself a test from a broadcast.

Step 7. Settle in without scaring AWS:

• Set Daily limit on the connection to your current SES quota. The Mailer then paces itself instead of being refused halfway through a send.
• Use Warmup on the connection for your first big send. It starts small and climbs each day, which is exactly what Amazon wants to see from a new account.
• Watch bounces and complaints. AWS suspends accounts over them, and it is the fastest way to lose a cheap sending setup. Run Verify Leads over an old list before you mail it.
• The Mailer understands Amazon's bounce and complaint notifications, so hard bounces are suppressed automatically rather than mailed again.

Common problems:

• Nothing sends and the log mentions credentials or signature: the region in the Mailer does not match the region you verified in.
• Only you receive the test: you are still in the sandbox.
• Mail arrives but lands in spam: the DKIM records are missing, incomplete, or the From address is on a different domain from the one you verified.
• Sending stops partway through a big broadcast: you hit your SES quota. Lower the Daily limit or ask AWS for an increase.