assuming we go with self-hosted version, is entering the Mailgun API key and credentials the ony thing we have to take care of? So we can still make use of the Ghost built in email / enwsletter styling capabilities? Or is the setup in a self-hosting a little bit mroecomplex?
Also I am wondering (asuming you self host), any best practices and experiences how to best handle email automations we welcome series? Do you manage post in Ghost and hand them over to Mailgun or do mails reside as a template directly in Mailgun?
Technically, you’ll also have to set up transactional emails through Ghost’s configuration. The Mailgun API key in the settings only takes care of newsletter sending, but the transactional email configuration is necessary for people to be able to sign up (e.g. receive magic links):
Newsletters sent through Ghosts are just Ghost posts published through email. All “content” stays within Ghost and Mailgun just acts as an email interface, sending emails, taking care of all the nasty background stuff, closing the feedback loop (what happens if somebody reports your email as spam, etc.), and feeding analytics back into Ghost.
So far, you can only use webhooks from Ghost to handle automations. The avid Github stalker of Ghost’s repository might have seen that the Ghost team is working on welcome emails though. So, if it’s not time sensitive…might be worth to wait until this feature is released (and no, there isn’t any indication when that might be).
If you are wanting just one welcome email, I would wait for it. If you are wanting a series, I would not wait unless your timeline for needing it is multiple months out. It looks like what is launching soon-ish is a single email.
I have not been aware that the config file is for the transactional emails using SMTP and the admin settings using the Mailgun API are for newsletters and that in sandbox mode the receiver must be whitelisted in Mailgun.
The welcome mail is just an example. We have “evergreen” content that we would like to distribute to new users. I am trying to figure out how to handle that, primarily two questions:
where sits the “brain / logic”, is that a workflow in Make, Zapier etc.? From my understanding Mailgun does not have such “build in” capabilities for these kind of automations (eg. services like Brevo do).
Where are posts managed? I think I prefer to have them in Ghost, this seems mroe sreaight forward than managing on top email templates in Mailgun.
The simplest way to occasionally send newer users an older post would be to get a label on your users in Ghost, using the filtering tool (gear icon), and then create an email-only version of your post, which you then send to just the labeled users.
Thanks, but with this there is too much manual work involved. Also, if all user should receive the same flow of messages you will end up with as many lists / labels as your number of posts. Currently we run a welcoem series with evergreen content with > 20 posts. Admin nightmare for me.
Also, if all user should receive the same flow of messages you will end up with as many lists / labels as your number of posts. Currently we run a welcoem series with evergreen content with > 20 posts. Admin nightmare for me.