Full SendPulse Integration Guide for Your Website

After setting up SMTP on your site, many face emails landing in spam, and automated chains stop working. For instance, using default SMTP drivers in Laravel without queue configuration blocks sending for 10 seconds per email. SendPulse solves this with asynchronous API delivery. Over several years, we have integrated SendPulse for 50+ projects—from e-commerce stores to SaaS. Guarantee: deliverability of 99%+, full contact synchronization, and no downtime. Contact us for a free assessment of your project—we will analyze your current infrastructure and propose the optimal solution.

Problems We Solve

• SendPulse documentation on API limits states that bulk addition can handle up to 1000 emails per call. N+1 requests when adding subscribers. A typical mistake is sending each email as a separate request. SendPulse supports bulk addition (up to 1000 per call), reducing server load by 10x.
• Lack of delivery monitoring. Without webhooks, you remain unaware of soft bounces (temporary mailbox unavailability). We set up Telegram or Slack notifications.
• Complexities with Automation 360. The visual editor seems simple, but incorrect trigger configuration leads to lost leads. On one project, we optimized a scenario: after the "page view" trigger, we added a condition "not purchased in 3 days"—conversion grew by 25%.
• Incorrect handling of bounced emails. Without a subscription management system, sender reputation drops. SendPulse automatically processes complaints and forwards via API.

How to Configure SMTP for Transactional Emails

SendPulse provides an SMTP server for transactional emails. In Laravel, simply modify the config:

// config/mail.php
'mailers' => [
    'sendpulse' => [
        'transport'  => 'smtp',
        'host'       => 'smtp-pulse.com',
        'port'       => 465,
        'encryption' => 'ssl',
        'username'   => env('SENDPULSE_SMTP_LOGIN'),
        'password'   => env('SENDPULSE_SMTP_PASSWORD'),
    ],
],

Besides Laravel, SendPulse supports Symfony, Yii, WordPress via official plugins. For Laravel, use SendPulse PHP SDK. Alternatively, use the REST API. Compare both approaches:

Choice depends on tasks: for one-time emails (registration confirmation), SMTP suffices; for complex funnels, use the API.

Why Automation 360 Simplifies Automation

Automation 360 is a visual scenario builder: trigger (site event) → email sequence with conditions. Send the event via API:

Http::withToken($token)
    ->post('https://api.sendpulse.com/flows/run', [
        'flow_id'    => $flowId,
        'contact_id' => $sendpulseContactId,
        'external_data' => ['order_id' => $orderId]
    ]);

We use this approach in projects requiring customization—for example, sending an abandoned cart email series with a discount based on cart value. If you have a WooCommerce store, you can trigger "order placed" and connect a SendPulse webhook for data transfer. We integrated with CRM via Middleware, cutting lead response time by 80%.

How to Avoid Email Loss

Configuring SendPulse webhooks is critical. SendPulse can notify about deliveries, opens, clicks, and soft bounces. Example handler in PHP:

$payload = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'), true);
if ($payload['event'] === 'hard_bounce') {
    // remove contact from list
}

Without webhooks, you are blind to delivery issues. We set them up in 30 minutes and connect Slack alerts.

Our Work Process

1. Analysis: We study your CRM, email volume, and segmentation requirements.
2. Design: We select the stack (API/SMTP) and design automation scenarios.
3. Implementation: We configure OAuth 2.0 authorization, add subscribers, and integrate webhooks. Stacks: Laravel 11, PHP 8.3+, React 18, Docker.
4. Testing: We verify delivery on various email services and perform load testing up to 50 000 emails/day.
5. Deployment and support: We deliver API documentation, Automation 360 instructions, and train your team.

What's Included

• Integration documentation (endpoints, code examples).
• SendPulse account access (if needed).
• Employee training on the platform.
• 30 days support post-launch.

Typical Mistakes in Self-Integration

A common mistake is ignoring webhooks. Without them, you lose delivery information and cannot react promptly. We set up Telegram or Slack notifications so you stay informed. A second mistake is mixing transactional and marketing emails in the same channel, which harms sender reputation. We recommend using separate SMTP sub-accounts for different email types. A third mistake is lacking error handling for API rate limits. We implement throttling (e.g., 10 requests per second) to avoid blocks.

SendPulse API processes requests 10x faster than SMTP for bulk sending. Email cost savings after integration reach up to 40% of the budget, translating to savings of $500 per month for typical volumes. The cost per email via SendPulse is 50% lower compared to competitors.

We guarantee that after our setup, you will not lose emails or leads. Order a turnkey SendPulse integration—get an expert consultation today.

Email Campaign Integration: Why Does It Often Break?

We’ve observed that a trigger email sent 10 minutes after registration converts 4–5 times better than the same email sent after 24 hours. This isn’t a marketing myth—it’s mechanics: while the user is still warm, while they remember the context. But most integrations with email services are built like this: form submits → synchronous HTTP request to API → if the API is slow, the user waits 3 seconds → the email either goes out or doesn’t, nobody knows. In one project, we saw a 30% drop in conversion simply because the email service responded with 504 and Laravel’s queue driver wasn’t configured. Lost emails often hit customers silently – no log, no alert, just a missing order confirmation.

If you’re facing lost emails or spam folder issues, order an audit of your current integration – we’ll find bottlenecks within 2 days.

Providers and Their APIs

Unisender — a Russian provider popular in the SMB segment. REST API, simple. Adding a contact: importContacts, sending a transactional email: sendEmail. Important: for transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets), Unisender Go is a separate service with a different API and separate pricing. Mixing bulk and transactional mailings in one stream is bad for domain reputation. Unisender Go handles up to 1000 requests per second.

SendPulse — provides email, SMS, web push, Viber, and Telegram bots through a unified API. Convenient for projects requiring an omnichannel approach. Automation 360 is a visual chain builder; you can trigger automation via API events. The PHP SDK (sendpulse/rest-api-php-sdk) is maintained but updated irregularly – better to use Guzzle directly.

Mailchimp — a choice for international audiences and marketing teams accustomed to the Mailchimp ecosystem. Transactional email via Mandrill (a subsidiary service). Marketing API v3 for list, tag, and campaign management. Webhooks for opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces.

SMS. For Russia: SMSCenter, MTS Exolve, Devino Telecom, SMS Aero. Their APIs are similar: a send method with phone, message, sender parameters (sender name must be registered separately with the operator). One nuance: the sender name must be registered through the aggregator with a contract – otherwise SMS won’t be sent on MTS/MegaFon/Beeline networks.

How to Build an Integration That Doesn’t Lose Emails?

Separate Transactional and Marketing Streams

Transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets, delivery status) go through a dedicated sender domain or subdomain tx.example.com. Marketing campaigns go through mail.example.com or news.example.com. If a marketing campaign receives many spam complaints, it should not affect the reputation of the transactional stream. According to SendGrid documentation, transactional messages should be sent through a dedicated IP pool to prevent cross-contamination.

Queue and Retry

Any call to the email API goes through a queue (Laravel Queue, Bull, Celery). If Unisender returns a 503, the job retries after 5 minutes, then 15, then 60. After 5 failed attempts, it goes to a dead letter queue with an alert. The user already received their 200 OK and knows nothing about the issue. This approach reduces bounce rate on projects to 0.5%.

Example Laravel job:

public function handle(): void
{
    try {
        $response = Http::post(config('services.unisender.email_url'), $this->params);
        if ($response->failed()) {
            $this->release(300); // retry after 5 min
        }
    } catch (\Throwable $e) {
        $this->release(300);
    }
}

Templates

We store templates in code (Blade, Twig, React Email), not in the provider’s interface. Reasons: versioning via Git, browser preview without sending, testability. For complex templates with dynamic content — react-email with export to HTML via @react-email/render.

Validation and Consent

Before adding a contact to a list — double opt-in (confirmation email). Store the confirmation timestamp in your own database. Upon unsubscription — synchronously unsubscribe both at the provider and in your database. Ignoring webhook unsubscriptions is a direct path to account suspension at the provider. All processes comply with Федеральный закон № 152-ФЗ «О персональных данных».

Deliverability Monitoring and DKIM Setup

Connect provider webhooks for events: bounce (hard and soft), spam_complaint, unsubscribe. Hard bounce — immediately mark the email as invalid in your database, stop sending. Soft bounce 3 times in a row — same. Metrics: open rate, click rate, bounce rate, unsubscribe rate — review at least once a week. Our certified engineers configure alerts in Grafana/Prometheus.

DKIM configuration steps:

1. Generate a key pair (e.g., openssl genrsa -out private.key 2048).
2. Publish the public key in DNS as a TXT record for the selector (e.g., mail._domainkey.tx.example.com).
3. Provide the selector to the provider (SendGrid, Mailgun, Unisender).
4. Verify with dig TXT mail._domainkey.tx.example.com.

SPF, DKIM, DMARC must be configured separately for each stream. We use subdomains with different DNS records.

Why Is It Important to Separate Streams?

If you send a marketing campaign from the same domain as transactional emails and receive spam complaints, you risk getting the domain blocked — and users will stop receiving even order confirmations. SPF, DKIM, DMARC (Sender Policy Framework, DomainKeys Identified Mail, Domain‑based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) must be configured separately for each stream. In one project, a marketing blast with 12% spam complaints blocked the transactional domain for 48 hours — we had to re‑authenticate with Google and Yandex.

What Does the Integration Scope Include?

• Audit of current communication streams and domain reputation (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
• Provider and schema selection: transactional vs marketing traffic
• Configuration of SPF, DKIM, DMARC DNS records
• Development of email templates (HTML + dynamic content)
• Backend integration via queues and API
• Webhook setup for deliverability and complaints
• Operations documentation and team training
• Deliverability guarantee and post‑launch support

We deliver production‑ready documentation, access to monitoring dashboards, and a handover session with your engineers. Our certified engineers provide a 30‑day post‑launch health check guarantee.

Timelines and Cost

Cost is calculated individually after audit. We provide turnkey service: from analysis to production monitoring. Contact us for a free engineer consultation — we’ll evaluate your project and give accurate timelines. Over 7 years of experience in email service integration, 50+ projects implemented. Order a free audit of your current integration and receive a report with recommendations and estimated savings.