Issue #137 Loop WP

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #137 of Loop WP!

Last week, we continued looking at WooCommerce and discussed “Shipping,” which you should consider before setting up your store.

This week is about WordPress and Emails. Something everyone should know about in 2025, and you should know about now!

Let’s go! 👇

Before We Begin

🚨 I was going to chat about AgentWP, but Automattic acquired it on Monday and will shut down in its current form.

🥳 Whilst I would have liked the service to remain independent for longer, well done to James and his team.

I’ve been covering James and his work since the beginning, and in particular, CodeWP:

• WP Wednesdays Issue #90 - CodeWP and ACF to create dynamic backorder messages.

• WP Wednesdays Issue #74 - A First Look.

That “First Look” at CodeWP was almost two years ago and has changed quite a bit over the past two years.

WordPress & Emails

🚨 So, friend, you might be aware I have a weekly email marketing newsletter called “All About Email”.

⚠️ Over the last year, I’ve spoken frequently about Google and Yahoo’s sender requirements and how they impact email marketers and transactional emails from WordPress websites.

✅ In short, if you don’t have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC enabled, you will have difficulty getting WordPress emails into your or your users’ inboxes.

Not following? Imagine none of these email notifications from WordPress reaching you:

• Lost Passwords

• Two-factor login emails

• WordPress update notifications

• User logging

• Security emails

• All WooCommerce-related emails

• …the list goes on.

How Can You Fix This?

⚠️ Google and Yahoo have gradually increased enforcement throughout 2024, which will likely increase in 2025.

⚡️ You need to set up an SMTP transactional email provider.

(You will also need a WordPress plugin to connect everything up.)

Many website hosts do not provide emails, and those who do are pretty frankly terrible at it. Web hosts were never meant to be email providers.

🧠 Kinsta has an excellent document on its stance on emails and web hosting, which is similar to that of many other “good” hosts.

What Are Your Email Provider Options?

💡 There are a lot of factors when choosing an SMTP provider, but it usually depends on:

• Your budget.

• How many contacts/users do you have?

• How many emails do you need to send?

✅ If you are based in the EU, you might want to consider Mailjet.

✅ If you’re not based in the EU and don’t have users based in the EU, then Postmark is a solid option.

Both platforms have Pros and Cons, and both have free plans.

🧠 Site Owners with only a few users or fewer might prefer Postmark, whereas Mailjet has more generous limits.

🥇 However, if you want a balance of features and increased limits (300 emails per day and up to 100,000 contacts), Brevo SMTP is the clear winner.

What About That Plugin?

OK, friend, you’ve settled on your SMTP provider, and you are ready to get those WordPress emails flowing again but need to connect things up to WordPress.

✅ You have many options in the plugin repository. The list below is not exhaustive, but it’s what I use depending on the scenario:

• Postmark - Official plugin from Postmark (perfect when using Postmark as your SMTP Provider)

• Brevo - Official plugin from Brevo (if you use all the features of Brevo, this is the plugin for you)

• Post SMTP - Perfect for using with Brevo (also works with Postmark) and offers a handy logging feature.

• Solid Mail - This is your choice if you want a lighter version of Post SMTP.

Further Reading

🧠 Aren’t familiar with anything I have discussed? Are you still lost as to why this is important?

Then you need to read my newsletters, which contain all the information you need and helpful videos:

• All About Email Issue #145 - Postmaster Tools and CFL update.

• Mail Mondays Issue #127 - Google Postmaster Tools and Yahoo CFL set up videos.

• Mail Mondays Issue #125 - Valuable Tools for Testing Compliance (and more).

• Mail Monday Issue #122 - DMARC, "The Great Gmail Purge" and Segmentation.

• Mail Monday Issue #120 - Easy DMARC Reporting with Postmark.

• Mail Mondays Issue #119 - DMARC Reporting Tools and a note of Mailchimp SPF alignment.
   

That’s it for this week 👋

⏩ The next few weeks for this newsletter will be slightly different due to the Holiday season.

• Next week - A Special Edition. 🥳

• Wednesday 25th - No newsletter (Christmas Day) 🎅 🎄

• Wednesday, January 1st - No newsletter (New Year’s Day) 🎊 🍾

• Wednesday, January 8th - regular newsletter service resumes.

💡 I do have some plans for this newsletter in the new year now that I am using the paid tier of Beehiiv.

I “might” be in touch over the holiday period with some questions and informal updates.

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 The Google Doc contains all the details if you’re interested in sponsoring the Loop WP Newsletter.

🎉 I am now taking bookings for the New Year.

Weekly WordPress News, Tips & Black Friday Deals

This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:

• Blocking & Interfering - WordPress parent company must stop blocking WP Engine, judge rules. (The Verge)

• Robotcop - Enforcing your robots.txt policies and stopping bots before they reach your website. (Cloudflare)

• Purpose? - WordPress isn’t WordPress anymore. (KrautPress)

• New Testing Tool - Generate test data for WooCommerce with Smooth Generator. (WooCommerce)

• Developer Hours - Everything you need to know about WordPress Playground. (Nick Diego & Ryan Welcher)

• The WP Awards - Voting Extended to December 20th. (The WP Weekly)

• Insightful - Gutenberg on High-stakes Sites and Core Roadmaps with Fabian Kägy. (Brian Coords)

• Accessibility - Enhancing WooCommerce for Accessibility with Amber Hinds (Doo_the Woo)

• Taxonomy Queries - Advanced Query Loop 4.0.0 is out with taxonomy controls! (Ryan Welcher)

• I’ll Say Nothing - Jessica Lyschik Wins the WordPress Speed Build Challenge Against Matt Mullenweg. (WP Tavern)

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,