Every email Tendlio sends to a customer waits in a list on your site first, and goes out from there through the sending method you set up. While sending is Off, the emails stay in that list and no customer gets them. Once you switch sending to Live, Tendlio works through the list within your daily sending limit.
Where you see your emails #
On the Email sending page, under Settings, the Waiting emails section has four numbers:
- Waiting: emails that haven’t gone out yet.
- Sent today: emails that went to customers today, next to your daily limit when you have one.
- Skipped: emails Tendlio decided not to send, for example because the customer unsubscribed.
- Failed: emails that still couldn’t be sent after several tries.
Once there are skipped or failed emails, a list under the numbers shows the latest ones: Recently skipped, and why for skipped emails, and Failed emails (gave up after retries) for failed ones. Further down the page, Email analytics (last 30 days) counts what went out. For longer periods, open Reports → Email report.
The order emails go out in #
Tendlio sends waiting emails a batch at a time: about once a minute while your site has visitors, and when you open a Tendlio page in your WordPress admin. While sending is Live, you can also click Send waiting emails now, in the Waiting emails section, to send a batch right away. When more emails are waiting than can go out at once, they go in this order:
- Cart reminders and offers from Recover sales.
- Review requests.
- Campaign emails, including an email you send from a customer’s page with Send to this customer.
- Welcome emails and second-order nudges.
Among emails of the same kind, the oldest goes first.
Tendlio also spaces out the automatic emails each customer gets. A welcome email, a second-order nudge or a review request waits until at least 3 days have passed since the customer’s last automatic email, and a cart reminder counts as one. Cart reminders themselves go out without waiting, because they’re about a cart the shopper left a short while ago. In Advanced mode, you change the gap under Minimum gap between automated emails, on the Welcome email tab of Welcome & second order.
The daily sending limit #
The daily sending limit is the most emails Tendlio sends to customers in one day. You set it under Daily sending limit, in step 4. Go live on the Email sending page. If you leave the field empty, the limit depends on how your emails go out:
- Brevo: 200 a day. Brevo’s free plan allows 300, so the difference leaves room for other emails that go through the same Brevo account, such as your store’s order confirmations and password resets, and for tests and retries.
- Amazon SES: the daily quota Amazon gives your account, once Check my SES status has read it. Until then, Tendlio sets no limit.
- WordPress: Tendlio sets no limit, and your email provider’s own daily limit applies.
A number you type in the field always applies, whichever way your emails go out. The daily count starts again at midnight UTC, which can be a different hour where you are, and Sent today counts from that moment.
When the limit is reached, the rest of the waiting emails go out the next day, in the same order. A big campaign can take weeks to reach everyone.
How the limit is shared #
- While you have a daily limit, a campaign can use up to 70% of each day’s limit. The rest stays for your other emails, so cart reminders, review requests and welcome emails still get through while a long campaign is going out.
- When welcome emails or second-order nudges are waiting, Tendlio keeps the last 10% of each day’s limit for them. They come last in the order above, and without that share, a busy day could leave nothing for them.
- Cart reminders and offers also have a limit of their own, Daily recovery email limit on the Recover sales page, in Advanced mode. It starts at 50 a day and applies even when your store has no daily limit. If you clear that field, only your store’s daily limit applies to them.
When your email provider says no #
Your email provider has its own daily limit, and another tool that uses the same account can use it up. When your provider refuses emails for that reason, they wait for the next day and don’t count as failed. The Email sending page then says your sending account has reached its own provider limit.
When an email doesn’t go out #
On a staging copy of your store, Tendlio doesn’t send customer emails at all, and the Email sending page says so. Tests to yourself still work there.
Skipped emails #
Tendlio skips an email when sending it would be wrong or pointless: the customer unsubscribed, you turned that kind of email off, you canceled the campaign, or the customer already did what the email was about, for example finished their order. Recently skipped, and why gives the reason for each email.
Tendlio also skips cart reminders, review requests, welcome emails and second-order nudges that have waited more than 14 days, because a reminder that arrives weeks late reads as a mistake. Campaign emails stay in the list however long they wait. While sending is Off, step 4. Go live tells you how many waiting emails are already past 14 days. Once you switch to Live, Tendlio drops them, and the Waiting emails section says how many it dropped.
Failed emails #
When your email provider refuses an email for a reason other than its own limit, Tendlio tries it again after 5 minutes, after 30 more minutes, and after 2 more hours. That makes four tries. If the last one fails too, Tendlio gives up and lists the email under Failed emails (gave up after retries), with the error your email provider gave. If the error is one that trying again won’t fix, such as a Brevo API key that was rejected, the page tells you right away and names the setting to check.
Clear the lists #
- Clear failed / skipped removes the skipped and failed emails from the lists, and from the Skipped and Failed numbers.
- While sending is Off, Delete N waiting emails deletes every email that’s still waiting, so you can start fresh before you switch to Live. Tendlio adds new automatic emails afterwards as usual.
Unsubscribes and bounces #
Tendlio checks your unsubscribe list at the moment it sends each email, so a customer who unsubscribes doesn’t get an email that was already waiting. A customer can unsubscribe from one kind of email or from all of them.
If you send through Brevo and connect its webhook (see below), Brevo tells Tendlio when an email bounces or a customer marks it as spam. After a hard bounce or a spam complaint, Tendlio stops emailing that address. If you send through Amazon SES or WordPress, bounces don’t come back to Tendlio, so check them in your provider’s own dashboard.
Email analytics #
Email analytics (last 30 days), on the Email sending page, starts with Sent: how many emails went to customers in the last 30 days, counted back from now, so today is included. When some of them went out through Brevo, three more cards appear:
- Open rate: the share of delivered emails that customers opened.
- Click rate: the share of delivered emails in which a customer clicked a link.
- Bounce rate: the share of emails that bounced. It turns red at 5% or more.
Brevo reports opens, clicks and bounces back to Tendlio through its webhook, so until you connect the webhook (see below), all three rates stay at 0%. The rates count only emails sent through Brevo. If some of your emails went out another way, the page says how many it left out of the rates, instead of counting them as unopened.
To connect the webhook, copy the address under Connect Brevo webhook on the Email sending page. In Brevo, open Transactional → Settings → Webhook, add that address, and choose the events delivered, opened, click, hard bounce, soft bounce and spam. The section shows only while your emails go out through Brevo.
The Email report #
Reports → Email report shows your email figures for 30, 90 or 365 days, or for a range you pick:
- Opens and clicks: Sent, and the three rates, for all your emails in the period. The rates appear when some of those emails went out through Brevo, and they stay at 0% until the webhook is connected. The report counts completed days, so what happens today joins the figures tomorrow.
- Did the last campaign lift sales?: the orders placed by the people your most recent campaign reached, before it went out and after.
- Campaigns: each campaign with its audience, subject, status and the date its first email went out. Recipients shows how many people Tendlio has added to your waiting emails so far, out of everyone the campaign is for.
Why sending works this way #
Why there’s a daily limit #
Spam filters notice when a domain that has sent few emails suddenly sends thousands in one day. With a limit, a big campaign goes out over several days instead.
Why welcome emails keep a share #
Campaign emails go out ahead of welcome emails. Without the shares above, a long campaign could use the whole limit every day, and Tendlio would drop a welcome email that waited behind it for more than 14 days, without ever sending it.
Additional resources #
- How to set up email sending and switch it to Live: choose how your emails go out, and switch sending to Live.
- Who you can email (consent, in plain words): what your customers see when they unsubscribe.
- How to check that your emails reach the inbox (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Emails aren’t going out
- How to send a campaign to your customers
Frequently asked questions #
Why does Sent today reset at an odd hour? #
Tendlio counts its sending day from midnight UTC, which is a different hour wherever your clock isn't on UTC, for example 1 or 2 am in Berlin and 7 or 8 pm in New York.
My campaign is taking weeks. Can I make it faster? #
Raise the Daily sending limit on the Email sending page, if your sending plan allows more. A campaign can use up to 70% of each day's limit, so raising the limit is how you speed it up.
Why is an email under Skipped when the customer never unsubscribed? #
Unsubscribes are one reason of several. The Recently skipped, and why list gives the reason for each email, for example that the customer finished their order before the reminder went out.