Mailer

The Mailer plugin is a tool to send emails to your WordPress users. That’s all. Simple, effective, zero learning curve.

When you need to communicate with your registered users, the straight way to do it is by email. Well, with Mailer, it works like you’re used to an email client: start a new email, write the subject and the content, select who should receive it.

First installation and Support

You need to download the ZIP package and install it from Plugins/Add New/Upload.

After the first installation, the plugin will update automatically.

You can always update it by hand, downloading and reinstalling the ZIP.

UPDATE: the link was wrong, it’s ok now!

Download the Mailer plugin

For support, feature requests, critiques and compliments, please use the comment section of this page.

Sending an email

It’s like creating a new post. On the left side menu, select “Emails/Add new”. Compose the email, select the Audience, and press Send.

You can even publish the email if you want it to be visible on the site, but it’s not required.

Since you may have a big number of users, Mailer takes care to send your messages at the configured speed (see the Settings).

Useful tips and tricks

The excerpt can be set with a very short sentence, and it will be shown as an email content preview by some clients, usually Gmail.

Do not add left or right-aligned images; email clients mess up with them. But sometimes they work.

Expert tip. Do not add a big generic image or a giant logo on top of the email: the first part should immediately attract attention.

If you need to duplicate an email, you can use a post duplicator plugin like Yoast Duplicate Post, Duplicate Post, Post Duplicator.

Need help with images? Install Instant Image, a plugin that integrates Pexels and many other image sources.

Run out of ideas? Don’t be scared, use AI.

Yes, you can use shortcodes in your emails; they’ll be rendered. Useful to include banners from Ads plugins. But remember: JavaScript and sophisticated HTML do not work on emails.

Settings

I’ve tried to keep the settings as simple as possible.

  • The sender email is the email address your users see the email come from; by default, WP sets it to wordpress@domain.tld
  • The speed is the number of emails per hour you can send: ask your hosting provider, they know
  • The redirect email, if set, is where all emails are sent (for initial tests, I know you’re scared about mass mailing all the users)

A few setting details and problem solutions

  • Never set as sender email an address like @gmail.com, @outlook.com and the like: those providers don’t want sites to send email with their domain, and probably you will be marked asa spammer
  • If you need to send with your Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, …, account, install an SMTP plugin and connect the site with those providers.
  • Speed and WP scheduler: emails are sent every 15 minutes. Ask your hosting provider to set up a wp-cron.php trigger if you experience slowness.
  • Database usage. Emails are “custom post types”; you can delete them and empty the trash to clean up the database. When uninstalled, Mailer removes even its own settings; nothing should be left behind.

Emails are not sent

This is a common issue on WP, even with big hosting providers. Start here:

  1. Install WP Mail Logging: it lists all the emails sent by WP
  2. if an email is listed without errors
    • if you do not use an SMTP plugin, it means your hosting provider is dropping it; contact the provider
    • if you use an SMTP plugin, contact the provider of the SMTP service

If may want to read an explanation for email delivery failure with WP (and it’s not a problem of WP or plugins…).

Use a reliable email delivery service

Many of them have free plans, and they all can be connected to your site with an SMTP plugin.

  • Gmail (for a very limited number of emails, you need an SMTP plugin able to connect)
  • Outlook (not recommended due to too many problems)
  • Sendgrid
  • Mailjet
  • Mailgun
  • SMTP.com
  • SMTP2Go
  • ElasticEmail
  • PostMark
  • SparkPost

SMTP plugins

There are many, and usually you don’t need a pro version. I used:

  • WP Mail SMTP (the most diffused)
  • FluentSMTP (very nice)

Managing roles in WP

WP has some roles that can be used immediately, like Administrator, Contributor, Subscriber and so on, but they’re not so useful.

To extend the roles, you can use specific plugins, like:

Membership Plugins

If you manage a community of users, you may prefer install a membership plugin.

Those plugins not only manage the roles, but you can sell subscriptions, control the content visibility and so on. They manage the role change, for example, when a subscription expires.

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