Cloudways has partnered with Elastic Email to help you maximize email deliverability for your applications. This guide will walk you through activating the Elastic Email add-on, verifying your domain(s), testing your SMTP configuration, and downloading logs.

4. Select a Package based on your monthly email volume requirements.

5. Click Subscribe to activate the plan.

Once you subscribe to an Elastic Email package, you need to connect it (“bind” it) to the Cloudways server(s) from which you’ll be sending emails.

Domain verification proves you own the domain and authorizes Elastic Email to send emails on your behalf. All relevant DNS records must be added and propagated before verification can succeed.
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You will need to add or update the following DNS records at your Domain Registrar or DNS hosting provider. The exact steps for adding DNS records vary depending on your provider, but the required record types and values are the same.

SPF stands for “Sender Policy Framework”. SPF is an email authentication method. SPF helps servers authenticate that messages appearing to come from a specific domain are sent from servers authorized by the domain owner. It helps protect your domain from phishing and spoofing, and it also ensures that your messages are delivered correctly.

You will need the following information while pointing SPF record.

If you have subdomain(s), then you need to replace @ with the subdomain, e.g., support in the Name/Host/Alias field.

Tip

DKIM stands for “DomainKeys Identified Mail”. It is also an email authentication method that adds a digital signature to every message. In addition, DKIM allows receiving servers to confirm that the domain’s owners have authorized mail coming from a domain and that these messages aren’t altered during transit.

You will need the following information while pointing DKIM record.

If you have subdomain(s), then you need to add your subdomain, e.g., support at the end of api._domainkey in the Name/Host/Alias field, so it will look like api._domainkey.support.

Elastic Email “tracks” opens, clicks, unsubscribes, etc. You need to rewrite links and use web pages. Configuring a “tracking domain” brands these rewritten links and pages with your own domain.

You will need the following information while pointing tracking record.

If you have subdomain(s), then you need to add your subdomain, e.g., support at the end of tracking in the Name/Host/Alias field, so it will look like tracking.support.

MX record stands for “Mail Exchange Records”. It specifies a mail server responsible for accepting emails addressed to your domain. In other words, MX records tell which mail servers accept incoming emails for your domain and where emails should be routed if addressed to your domain. Therefore, you need to have the correct MX records to receive emails.

Most users have mailboxes (e.g., “[email protected]”) configured to receive emails; therefore, if you have a mailbox from any third-party service, e.g., Rackspace, Gsuite, etc., you have MX records already configured with it; thus, you don’t need to point any additional records, and you can move to the next and final DNS record. If you don’t have a Mailbox, you can use an inexpensive Rackspace Email Add-on on Cloudways Platform.

DMARC stands for “DMARC is short for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance”. It is also an email authentication protocol that ensures the proper authentication of emails. SPF and DKIM are prerequisites of DMARC and must be implemented before setting up a DMARC policy.

A DMARC policy allows a sender to indicate that their emails are signed by SPF and DKIM and tells a receiver what to do if neither authentication methods pass, such as junk or bounce the email. Please note that the DMARC policy on your domain will affect all of your emails sent from that domain, not only the emails sent using Elastic Email; therefore, please ensure you are using the SPF and DKIM for all your email delivery.

There are three different ways to point DMARC records based on your requirement.

Option 1 — Setup your DMARC policy with a simple, most common DMARC record. In this option, you will not receive any reports.

Option 2 — In this option, you will receive reports. The DMARC Reports will come to the email you specify in ruf= and rua= parameters.

When you no longer receive negative reports, change your DMARC policy from “p=none” to “p=quarantine”, which will not necessarily bounce email, but indicate to the recipient server they should consider quarantining it (junk or spam folder).

Option 3 — You will also receive reports with this option. When you are satisfied that you are validating all the emails from your domain(s) with SPF and DKIM, change the policy to reject, which will bounce the emails that do not pass SPF and DKIM validation.

If you have subdomain(s), then you need to add your subdomain, e.g., support at the end of _dmarc in the Name/Host/Alias field, so it will look like _dmarc.support.

After configuring all the DNS records, it’s time to verify your domain on the Cloudways Platform using the following steps:

After you’ve activated the Elastic Email add-on, binded your server, and verified your domain, you can send a test email directly through Cloudways to ensure everything is set up correctly.

Click Send Test Email.

If everything is correct, you should receive the test email in your inbox.

Elastic Email tracks each email’s journey (opened, clicked, unsubscribed, etc.). You can download these logs directly from the Cloudways Platform for insights into your email performance.

Common statuses in the log include:

ReadyToSend: The email is in the delivery queue and waiting for its turn to be delivered.

WaitingToRetry: An email will be put into this status if a delivery attempt receives a “greylisting” response from the recipient server or a temporary connection issue.

Sent: If the email status is “Sent”, then the first-in-line recipient server has successfully accepted the email from Elastic Email. No additional information is yet known about the email.

Opened: Elastic Email embeds a 1×1 invisible image pixel in the BodyHTML of your emails. When a recipient opens an email, the image is downloaded. The downloading of the image informs Elastic Email of this activity. When this happens, the email is considered “Opened”. Only emails containing BodyHTML can be tracked for opens.

Clicked: If Click Tracking is enabled on your account, Elastic Email will rewrite the links in your emails. For example, when a recipient clicks a link, the user is briefly directed through Elastic Email and then onto the original target URL. When this happens, the email status will change to “Clicked”.

Unsubscribed: This status means that the recipient used this particular email to unsubscribe from your account.

Complaint: This status means that the recipient has either marked the email as spam in the email client or marked “I did not ask to receive this email” while unsubscribing.

Bounced: If an email has a Bounced Status, then it means that Elastic Email attempted to deliver the email but was unable to. There are very many reasons why this might occur.

Suppressed: If an email status is “Suppressed” it means that Elastic Email did not or was not able to make a delivery attempt. The most common reason for this is when an email is sent to a contact with a suppressed status.

We hope this article has clarified the entire process of setting up the Elastic Email add-on, from activation and domain verification to testing and logs. If you have any further questions or issues:

Happy emailing with Cloudways and Elastic Email!

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