📋 What you'll need: A business email address on your own domain, and access to your domain's DNS settings (wherever you bought your domain)
⏱ Time: About an hour, once
✅ Output: An email tool set up and verified, so your emails land in inboxes rather than spam
⏱ Time: About an hour, once
✅ Output: An email tool set up and verified, so your emails land in inboxes rather than spam
💡 Already have an email tool?
Skip to "Make Sure Your Emails Land" below, check those four things, and move on. Every tool does the same core job — only switch if yours can't build automated sequences.
Two things matter here: picking a tool that does automated sequences and costs nothing to start, and setting it up so your emails actually arrive. The second is the part people skip, and it's the one that decides whether any of this works.
Choose Your Tool
If you sell services
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) — free up to 10,000 subscribers, which is more than you'll need for a long time. Built around plain-text style emails and simple automations. The strongest free plan available.
MailerLite — free up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month, then around $10/month. Cleaner editor, includes landing pages.
Either works. Kit if you want the biggest free tier; MailerLite if you prefer a simpler interface.
If you sell products
MailerLite or Omnisend — start here. Both handle abandoned cart and post-purchase sequences, connect to Shopify and other store platforms, and start free.
Klaviyo — the ecommerce standard. With the deepest store integration and the best revenue reporting. Free only up to 250 contacts, then around $45/month at 1,500 contacts. Worth moving to once email is bringing in enough revenue to justify it. Not worth it on day one.
Start free, move to Klaviyo when the numbers say so.
⚠️ Whatever you choose, check it can do automated sequences before you commit.
Some cheap tools only send one-off campaigns. Sequences are the whole point of this module — a tool that can't run them is the wrong tool.
Make Sure Your Emails Land
Four things. Your tool walks you through each one, and skipping them is why small businesses end up in spam folders.
The four things to set up
- Send from your own domain. Use you@yourbusiness.com, not a gmail or yahoo address. Gmail and Outlook now reject bulk email from free addresses.
- Authenticate your domain (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). These prove you're really you. Your email tool gives you a few DNS records to paste into wherever you bought your domain. It sounds technical; it's copy and paste, and the tool checks it worked.
- Turn on one-click unsubscribe. Also now required. Your tool has a setting for it.
- Never buy a list. Emailing people who didn't ask to hear from you damages your sender reputation permanently, and it doesn't work anyway.
💡 A clean list beats a big list.
Every few months, remove people who haven't opened anything in six months. It feels wrong to delete subscribers you worked to get, but inactive subscribers drag down your deliverability for everyone else on the list. Your tool can do this automatically.
📌 One more thing while you're here.
In your tool's settings, set your "from" name to your actual name, or your name and your business — "Sarah at Ember & Oak" rather than "Ember & Oak Marketing Team." People open emails from people.
✅ Your platform is set up when:
- Your tool is chosen and your account created
- You're sending from your own domain, SPF/DKIM/DMARC are verified (your tool will confirm this)
- One-click unsubscribe is on
- Your "from" name is a person.
Next: What makes an email get read →
Write Emails People Read
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