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5 things to consider how to pick the right API for Transactional email

Written by Posted On Thursday, 19 September 2019 03:56
5 things to consider how to pick the right API for Transactional email

You filled up your online shopping cart and finished checking out all of the products that you bought. A few minutes later you receive an email outlining your purchases and payment for that transaction. This email is what we refer to as transactional emails. Emails that are sent out upon completing an action or transaction in an establishment - digital or otherwise.

Using transactional email enables businesses to send email messages in bulk through the use of APIs or SMTP servers. Just a few additional configurations or using API codes in email automation to the API, especially with the help from a useful reference, and the service is set to manage the sending your mass emails according to your needs. Current popular transactional email automation services are Amazon SES, Mandrill, Mailgun, Postmark, and ElasticMail.

5 Things to Consider When Choosing The Right API

Similar to choosing a new phone or laptop, employing API services has the capability to make life easier and become a good investment in the long run, but requires planning and careful consideration. Is this the best path to take for your business? Is this the best option considering your resources and limitations? The easiest way out is selecting the cheapest available service, but may not be the best way on how to pick the right API for transactional email.

There are a number of aspects that need to be considered when selecting the email automation service for your business. Things such as the scope of the services, its performance against industry and marketing trends, capacity for scalability, the efficiency of service, and the quality of support and documentation provided.

  • Diversity in services provided

Are there any tools or features aside from sending transactional emails?

Having solid, fast, and efficient transactional email automation and email marketing APIs are great. However, there are a lot more tools and services that email management and automation service are capable of providing.

Tools such as email validator API helps you go through and verify user sign-up information and cull out emails that do not exist. While temporary email API and services provide users the capability to create temporary emails that they can use and discard later on. These emails help users avoid spam and unwanted emails from cluttering their emails. These are but some of the potential tools that email management services can offer. Look for the service and API that offer you an array of options to choose from and potentially enhance your email marketing processes. 

  • Performance and delivery metrics

There are metrics available to evaluate the performance of potential apps against set industry and marketing trends. Certain attributes such as the following are measurable and universal to these email management and automation services and applications.

  • Delivery speeds - how fast emails are delivered to their intended recipients.
  • Delivery times - the time it takes for emails to be sent and received.
  • Inbox rates - how many of the emails sent are directed to the Inbox instead of the Spam folder.

Knowing and testing out these aspects of the service will provide you with a better understanding of how well the app will perform for you and your email marketing and automation needs. 

What is the average deliverability?

If the service provider diligently monitors its application and services, you have access to monitoring records of their delivery speeds, delivery times, and inbox rates. Delivery speeds and times for popular email service providers such as AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, Apple, and Outlook are made available for your perusal.

Aside from performance metrics, reading up on real-life customers and delivery reviews of their apps and services online, on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets, provides actual feedback on the performance of the API or service.

How well does it perform for you?

Test the service yourself. You can set up free trial accounts and do a test run on the API or service. This will help get a feel for the app and how it performs according to your needs.

  • Efficiency of service

Aside from performance metrics, also look for efficiency in the services provided. The more efficient the email management service or API is, the more resources - time, cost, and effort - you save.

How fast can the service send out emails?

Delivery times, delivery speed, and inbox rates are some of the major aspects of email management that matter. Look for a service provider that sends out transaction emails of email marketing content fast, using the least amount of resources, and ensures that the mail gets into the recipient’s inbox.    

How efficiently does the service use its resources to complete tasks?

Time, costs, and effort are resources that impact your business the most. Having a service that not only provides you with quality service but also takes up the least amount of your resources is a boon to your business. This does not necessarily mean that you go for the cheapest service available, instead select the service capable of providing you the quality and efficient services you need at a manageable cost.

  • Scalability of API and services

Is the API and SMTP service scalable?

With various digital platforms out in the market and consumed by the masses, businesses are hard-pressed to expand their presence to reach as many of their target audience as possible. Look for email management service providers equipped with APIs, tools, and services that are able to manage a rapidly growing number of correspondences and processes. The capability to deliver and monitor transactional emails or other forms of email marketing across various platforms are also a necessity.

  • Quality of customer service and documentation

Customer support is another major avenue that businesses communicate with their clients. And quality documentation and customer support services make for great customer support service.

What is the quality of documentation available?

Employing email services providers and their applications and APIs requires that you go through developer documentation. This provides you with all the necessary information about the APIs and applications that manage your emails. Collaborating with service providers capable of providing comprehensive, readable, up-to-date, and user-friendly documentation goes a long way into making this task easier. 

What are the ways that customer support is provided?

Problems with deliveries and customer communication inevitably arise; missing emails and communication are expected and can build up to increased support requests and costs. A provider capable of providing you the full history and monitoring records of all emails sent out will be a boon to your business. This will help you address concerns about missing emails or communication problems with your customers and help manage support costs.

Make Informed Decisions

All these considerations aim to smoothen out the process of picking the right API for your transactional email and email marketing automation. These tools, services, and APIs are made available to lessen the burden of these processes and enhance the overall management and experience. It is only a matter of making informed decisions that make the largest impact for your business, especially in selecting tools to help your business processes. Use these criteria, and more of the same out there, to select the service or API that is best emails management and email marketing tool for your business needs.

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