The purpose of this article is to guide you through what needs to be done to send emails from LeadByte using your own domain.  We provide the front-end creation and scheduling, SMTP companies like sendgrid.com, mandrillapp.com and mailgun.com handle the delivery.

The article will cover:

- Type of email delivery in LeadByte
- Our default sending domain for email delivery to Buyers
- SMTP companies
- What we need from you to be able to send via your own domain
- Managing bounces
- Link tracking
- Multiple SMTP accounts
- Bulk Email - Considerations/Advice
- Common problems as to why emails are not sending

Type of email delivery in LeadByte
Within LeadByte emails are sent via Deliveries or Responders.  Email deliveries are most commonly used when a Buyer needs an email notification of when a lead is assigned to them.  Responders are used to typically send confirmation emails or marketing emails to new leads. You can use our route for sending delivery emails.  You are not able to send responder emails without having your own route.

Our default sending domain for email delivery to Buyers
We use SendGrid to send emails from the system.  This includes Email Delivery and all notifications to you (the client).  The default sending domain is leadByte.biz.  This can not be changed unless you have your own route (SMTP).

SMTP companies
An SMTP provider delivers to email!  There are many providers on the market.  We use SendGrid.  To help you decide which is right for you, this article should help.  The most popular choice based on our clients is SendGrid.

What we need from you to be able to send via your own domain

Once you have decided which SMTP provider to use, we will need the following from you:
- Your sending domain i.e. leadbyte.com
- Your chosen sending account* i.e. news@leadbyte.com
- Your chosen reply-to email i.e. feedback@leadbyte.com
- Your domain for tracking clicks i.e. track.leadbyte.com (this is optional)
- SMTP Host i.e. smtp.sendgrid.net
- Port i.e. 587
- Username**
- Password 

* It is important that the email addresses you provide are active accounts.  Accounts should have live inboxes that are monitored to help with deliverability and reputation.
** With SendGrid this is an API key.  We advise Restricted access key with the permission Mail Send.

Please communicate the above through our ticketing system.

Managing Bounces
Each of our partners provide you with the ability to add a web hook for hard bounces, the URL's for each of our partners are below:

SendGrid
https://{insert}.leadbyte.co.uk/api/bounces/sendgrid.php

Mandrill
https://{insert}.leadbyte.co.uk/api/bounces/mandrill.php

MailGun
https://{insert}.leadbyte.co.uk/api/bounces/mailgun.php

Remark: Replace {insert} with your account name.

Link Tracking
We automatically add LeadByte click tracking to emails.  If you want to track clicks in LeadByte using your own domain, we advise that you create a CNAME on your domain and point it to trkemail.leadbyte.co.uk.  You will require DNS access on your domain to create a CNAME for this.  We have seen an increase in deliverability when the URL links match the sending domain.

Multiple SMTP accounts
SMTP accounts can be configured at campaign (list) level, which means If you have multiple SMTP accounts you connect each SMTP account to individual campaigns in LeadByte.  For example, you may wish your Danish list to route though SMTP.com, your Australia list through Mailgun.com and all other lists through SendGrid.com

Bulk Email - Considerations/Advice
Although we are not an ESP, you have the facility to broadcast to all (or a segment) of your opt-in leads.  Much like responders, it will need to be connected to an SMTP partner of your choice.  It does not have to be the same as your responder setup either!  

We would advise that you consider the impact bulk emailing has with your IP Reputation.  In our opinion, it would be good practise to keep responder separate to bulk.  There are various points you can consider (below):

1. Keep the same SMTP Partner i.e. SendGrid but have a sub account for Bulk/Responders.  If you do this, have a separate IP Address.   If you do this, make sure that unsubscribes are global (shared across both).

2. Use a different SMTP Partner for Bulk/Responders.  If you do this, make sure that unsubscribes are global (shared across both).

3. Keep the same SMTP Partner but add more IP Addresses to the account to load balance the sending.  If you do this, research best practise.

Your SMTP Partner however is the best sound-board for the perfect setup.

Common problems as to why emails are not sending

1. Your content has spam keyword triggers
2. You are not set up technically correct i.e. SPF records, DMARC
3. You do not have credit on your SMTP account (happens a lot, set up auto-top up)
4. You do not have consent and humans are marking your emails as spam