1.5 Transactional Email
Prerequisites
Before you start, make sure you have:
- Business email set up (Section 1.3)
- At least one form, booking system, or checkout on your site (or coming soon)
Step-by-Step
Understand the difference
Transactional vs marketing email use different infrastructure. Your Google Workspace email is for you to send manually. Transactional email uses a dedicated sending service so automated messages don’t get flagged as spam.
Create your account and verify your domain
Add the DKIM and SPF records your provider gives you to your DNS. Similar process to Section 1.3.
Create your first template
A simple booking confirmation or enquiry auto-reply. Plain text performs better than heavy HTML for deliverability.
Connect to your forms and booking system
Most booking platforms have direct Postmark integration. Contact forms connect via webhook or automation tool.
Send a test
Confirm it arrives in inbox, not spam. Test with Gmail AND Outlook.
See Postmark's domain verification guide for screenshots of the dashboard, DKIM setup, and template editor.
- Using your regular business email for automated sends — it will eventually get flagged as spam
- No auto-reply on contact forms — customers assume their message was lost
- Skipping transactional email entirely until something breaks
Set up a catch-all address (e.g. [email protected] via Cloudflare Email Routing) to handle bounce notifications. Forward it to your main inbox.
You're Done When
- Postmark (or equivalent) account created and domain verified
- At least one transactional template created
- Test email delivers to inbox on Gmail and Outlook
- Contact form sends auto-reply to enquirer