About Amazon SES

Built on top of the AWS architecture, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is a service that allows users to send emails at scale. The service is fairly limited and in the past has been favored by developers for sending transactional email only. Using Amazon SES directly requires developing a custom mechanism for processing bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes, and is required.

Amazon SES does NOT manage email campaigns, templates, or engagement reporting (opens, clicks).

Email Marketing via Amazon SES

Using a platform like BigMailer allows you to avoid custom development for using SES and have analytics and asset management features. Here are some benefits of using BigMailer in conjunction with your Amazon SES account:

• Automatic handling of bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes
• Support for bulk + auto/drip + transactional email campaigns
• Email campaign engagement tracking and reporting
• Powerful segmentation (custom data fields and campaign engagement) and geo-targeting
• Drag-and-drop email template editor with image hosting and template library plus HTML editor option
• UNLIMITED brands, user/client sub-accounts (with permissions), custom templates, and image hosting

Unlike traditional email marketing platforms that don’t support all campaign types BigMailer allows you to manage all your marketing campaigns in one place at a single low price, with all your unsubscribes/bounces/complaints fully in sync between all emails. 

Using Amazon SES for transactional email?

If you already use Amazon SES for your transactional email, using BigMailer with your existing SES account allows you to:

• Store and manage your email template in an editor in BigMailer (no application code changes needed for updates).
• Automatically place your subscribers into a List to send marketing emails to.
• Send automated email sequences to new subscribers.
• Keep your bounces and complaints synced up with your marketing lists.
• See engagement analytics for your transactional emails.

If you are considering use of Amazon SES for your transactional email it’s best to setup on BigMailer from the beginning.

$0 up to 1000 contacts, only $1 per 1000 contacts with unlimited sending on paid plans.

Amazon SES Email Marketing Providers – Comparison

All Amazon SES customers have an option to add a dedicated IP for $25 per IP per month.

BigMailer vs. Sendy

Unlike BigMailer, Sendy requires hosting on your own server, so your performance and sending speed will depend on the server size/capacity. On the smallest/cheapest server your campaign can take all day to go out, instead of <1hr on a hosted solution. Sendy also doesn’t offer a drag-n-drop email template editor and you have to manage your IP reputation yourself.

BigMailer vs. Hosted Solutions

Compared to other hosted email platforms that connect to Amazon SES BigMailer offers several advantages:

• Opportunity to consolidate ALL email types in one platform (transactional, marketing, automation).
• Ability to manage multiple connections to Amazon SES, ideal for managing clients or multiple brands/projects.
• Two template editors to choose from – HTML for developers and drag-and-drop for marketers.
• See engagement analytics for your transactional emails (and optimize template without dev work).
• Help when you need it – chat support 7 days a week

Interested in other comparisons? See our comparison pages for bulk email marketing service providers and Amazon SES vs SendGrid.

Getting an Amazon SES Account out of Sandbox Mode

Newly created Amazon SES accounts are automatically placed in sandbox mode. To start sending emails to your subscribers you need to get your new SES account out of sandbox by submitting a request to Amazon and specify daily sending limit you would like.

Verifying a sender domain that you own can help speed up response and approval, while only having a gmail/yahoo email address associated with your account is likely to result in rejection. Most customers get their requests resolved within 1-2 business days. You can find more detailed information in this article about submitting a request to Amazon.

Setting up Multiple Amazon SES Accounts

When you manage multiple brands, products, websites or clients, it’s practical to set up and manage multiple Amazon SES accounts. If you’re part of an agency, your clients may already have their accounts established with high sending limits built up. Unlike its competitors, BigMailer offers support for easily managing multiple Amazon SES accounts and assigns them to your brands.