The problem: You're sending email through your WordPress website, say from a user-submitted form of some kind, and if you're using Gmail, it shows 'via [servername]' next to the name of the person who sent it.
The solution: You need to whitelabel your email!
How long will this take? About ten minutes.
Skill level required: Beginner/Intermediate
How to do it:
1. Choose a transactional mail service. There are many to pick from: SendGrid, PostMan, SparkPost, Mandrill (made by MailChimp), and Green Arrow are just a few. For the purposes of this post, let's choose SendGrid.
SendGrid allows you to send up to 40,000 emails over the course of a 30-day trial. After that, their cheapest plan is $9.95 per month, and scales up from there. Don't want to pay anything? Here's where you get to do your due diligence and find a solution that works for you.
2. Visit SendGrid and create a SendGrid account. Choose the free option for now.
3. Install the SendGrid plugin in your WordPress website. Wordpress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Search for "SendGrid" > Install.
4. In your WordPress dashboard, activate your SendGrid plugin.
5. Still in your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings and find SendGrid.
6. On the General tab, choose your authentication method. This will consist either of your SendGrid username and password, or your API key.
I chose to authenticate with my API key.
7. Choose how to send mail from the dropdown menu just below. I chose to send it with API.
8. Under Mail Settings, enter your name and other info. Aside from the name and sending address, you can leave these fields blank.
9. Under Statistics Settings, you can choose whether to add categories for statistics-gathering purposes. I just left this blank for now.
10. Scroll down a little further and use the Test Email area to send a test email to yourself.
If you've got this working so far, you're in good shape. But you're not done yet. My test email ended up in my own spam box. That's no good. And it still says 'via sendgrid.net' next to the sender's name. Let's suppose you want to get rid of that, too.
The next thing you need to do is whitelabel your email account.
So...
11. If you like, you can watch this handy-dandy little movie the nice SendGrid people made for those who felt clueless, like me. This movie explained quite a bit. Don't bother making popcorn. It's only eight minutes.
12. In your SendGrid account, go to your whitelabel settings.
13. Click on Add Domain.
14. You will need to add a subdomain and your top level domain on the window that appears. This confused me at first, since I couldn't imagine why I needed to set up a whole new subdomain just to fix my email problem, but the movie guy in step 11 explained that the subdomain actually needs to be one that ISN'T in use already. So, I just picked "email" and entered that word into the subdomain field. This word can literally be anything, but keep in mind that people who receive your emails are able to see it in your email headers.
Then, enter your top level domain (that's the domain of the WordPress website sending the email) into the Domain field next to it.
15. Leave Automated Security on, or turn it off, as you see fit. I left mine on.
16. Click Save.
Now, here's where I might lose a few of you, so hang on tight. You need to make some additions to your DNS records to make this all work.
17. Log in to your DNS provider, whoever that may be.
When you click Save in Step 16, the SendGrid people will show you three records that must be entered at your DNS provider or your registrar. I use CloudFlare for all my DNS needs, so that is where I went next.
If you don't use CloudFlare or any other CDN, you will likely need to go to the place where your domain is registered (a.k.a. your registrar) to enter the following information. Whever your DNS is handled, that is where you go next. (If you don't know where to go, it's probably your registrar. If you don't know who your registrar is, go here and look up your domain.
If your DNS is handled by CloudFlare, you will enter those three records the SendGrid people just gave you at the top of your domain screen. They will either be CNAME or TXT records, depending on whether you left automated security on or off.
If you're not using CloudFlare, the method you use to add these records may vary slightly. Contact tech support at the service you use if you don't know how to add them.
18. Now, return to your whitelabel settings screen at SendGrid and click Validate.
It may be a few hours before your changes are propagated, but mine were validated right away.
Now when our website sends automated confirmation emails to us or to site visitors who have submitted a form, it no longer says 'via s1.kickassd.com' in the header, but just has the name of the person who sent it.
William Kowalski
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