This series is divided into four parts:
Sitecore 9 EXM Guide: Part 1 – How to Setup Sitecore 9 EXM in 5 Minutes
Sitecore 9 EXM Guide: Part 2 – Explore Sitecore 9 EXM Reporting
Sitecore 9 EXM Guide: Part 3 – Personalize Your Emails with Sitecore EXM Tokens
Are you beginner in EXM module and want to send your first
email from Sitecore through EXM module, In the tutorial, I am explaining how to
setup EXM module in Sitecore 9 – step by step.
In order to setup the EXM, there are two below prerequisite:

  1. List of emails: – need to provide the list of email subscription which will use in the EXM module to send the email.
  2. Email Delivery Configuration: It could be email cloud or custom SMTP

List of Emails:

You can easily upload the list of emails through list
manager, here I am going to upload the CSV file which consist the first name,
last name and email ids.

Steps:

Just create the CSV file, with below columns

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email Address

Below is the sample record file:



Note: you can use
any disposable email box for testing purpose, I used yopmail.com for the same.

Now, open the Sitecore application launch pad > marketing
application > list manager >

Go to > Create > Create list from file >

Upload the CSV file, which we created in the previous steps
Map the file Column with Sitecore column field:

Click next > List manager will upload the contact the
contacts from file and create in the sitecore

 


Now list manager task has been done, we succcefuuly  imported some sample emails in the sitecore,
which we can use for sending email..
Custom Email SMTP configuration:

To send the email from Sitecore, you must need the SMTP
server configuration, in this tutorial I am using Gmail SMTP settings, because
everybody has the Gmail account and it’s really easy  to configure.

Steps:

  • Go to web.config file of the root folder of the application
  • Change the default setting to custom SMTP setting from web
    config
  • Search the key called “eds:define” in the web.config and
    make sure the value should be “CustomSMTP”


Configure your Gmail setting in CustomSMTP file
Go to App_ConfigSitecoreEmailExperienceSitecore.EDS.Providers.CustomSMTP.config

Update the SMTP setting in smtpSetting node as below (I used Gmail credential)


Now all prerequisites has been configured, let’s play with
EXM module in Sitecore, and send your first email from Sitecore
application 
  • Open the EXM module >
  • Go to sitecore application launch pad, click on email
    experience manager under marketing application:

 

Create the email campaign > Click create > Regular Email Campaign >


Select any predefined template, I selected simple html
message for demo purpose and named it “first_email”  >


In general information tab, you can configure some basic
information of the email campaign for example name, description etc, in the
sender section you can configure “from name” and email, which will show in the
email box.

Note: this is
very important information, as many click rates are depending on the sender
information.


Now, select your list of recipients, we already created the
list in the previous steps, we just need to provide the reference of that list,
as below:

 


Next tab is Message, as we selected the very basic template
– Custom HTML, we can type just the sample html message for testing purpose as
below:

 

Note: you can
play with the html, select the other predefined template or import the custom
HTML template as well.


 All set, ready to go, but wait “prevention is better than
Cure”


We should always test our campaign before rollout to the
customer, and Sitecoe provided this feature called “Review” means actual
Review, send the email for testing first, you can send more than one testing
email using comma separator as below:

 

Check your preview/ testing email –

Let me quickly check my email, whether email came or not
Yes, within a seconds, I got the email as below:


Now I can quickly review the test email and if you are happy
with content and formatting and want to send to all the receipts, then go to
the next steps to delivery tab:

Click on Send message button.. Boom – All done..
Check the actual email as below:


Hope this article will Help You.

Happy Sitecoring..

One Reply to “Sitecore 9 EXM Guide: Part 1 – Setup Your First Email With Sitecore 9 EXM in 5 Minutes”

  1. Hi Ashish,
    I have an issue with EXM data capturing. if i choose plain text html to sent an email with that and open email to check data is capture or not but no data capture with that. even if i choose simple text html or any other html page to sent am email and opened or cliked url then its showing data on particular campaign. so can you suggest why its happening?

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