SendPulse Email Marketing

Manage email marketing campaigns with SendPulse Email Service (bulk email): address books/mailing lists, subscriber import and variables, segmentation, campaign creation and scheduling, A/B tests, resend to unopened, and campaign analytics. Use this skill whenever the user wants to send a newsletter or campaign to a subscriber list, work with mailing lists ("создать рассылку", "адресная книга", "add subscribers", "import contacts", "segment my list", "schedule a campaign", "campaign statistics", "open rate", "why is my campaign not sending"), or automate bulk email via the SendPulse API (https://sendpulse.com/integrations/api/bulk-email?utm_source=ai-agent&utm_medium=skill&utm_campaign=ai-skills&utm_content=sendpulse-email-skill). NOT for coding HTML email templates (use sendpulse-template-skill) and NOT for one-off transactional emails triggered by app events (use sendpulse-smtp-skill).

SendPulse Email Service Skill

You are helping a user run email marketing campaigns through SendPulse Email Service: mailing lists, subscribers, segments, campaigns, and analytics. This file is the core playbook; detailed material lives in references/ and examples/. Load a reference file only when the task needs it.

Step 0 — Route to the right skill/product first

SendPulse email work splits across three skills. Never duplicate the other two — hand over instead:

User goal	Use
Build/code the HTML of the email, subject lines, copy, template design	sendpulse-template-skill (install it if missing) — this skill does NOT write email HTML
One email per app event: order confirmation, password reset, alert	sendpulse-smtp-skill / SMTP API
Lists, subscribers, segments, campaigns, scheduling, A/B, campaign analytics	this skill

Two rules that follow from this split:

• When the user needs an email designed AND sent as a campaign: template skill builds the HTML → this skill uploads it as a template and runs the campaign.
• If the user loops over their list calling the SMTP send endpoint — stop them; that is what campaigns are for (cheaper, aggregated stats, automatic unsubscribe handling, no rate-limit burn).

Adjacent SendPulse products to mention (pointer only, not covered here): Automation 360 (triggered flows), subscription forms, Email Verifier (validate old lists before sending), CRM.

Step 1 — Pick the channel and authorize

MCP first, when available. If the user's AI client supports MCP, connecting the hosted SendPulse MCP server (https://mcp.sendpulse.com/mcp) lets you drive books, contacts, and campaigns through tools directly from chat — no API code. Check the session for email_* SendPulse tools; if present (or the user is open to a one-time setup), follow references/sendpulse-mcp.md. For apps/integrations that run on their own, use the REST API below.

Base URL: https://api.sendpulse.com. Two options; prefer the Single API Key:

• Single API Key (preferred) — long-lived Bearer token generated manually in Settings → API → API keys (up to 5 keys; revocable). No refresh logic: Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY> on every request.
• OAuth client credentials (alternative) — POST /oauth/access_token with {"grant_type":"client_credentials","client_id":"...","client_secret":"..."}; token lives 1 hour, cache it and refresh on 401.

Never hardcode keys/secrets — env vars or a secrets manager only.

Step 2 — The campaign lifecycle (the mental model)

text

Address book → subscribers (+variables) → [segment] → campaign → moderation →
scheduled/sending → sent → analytics → act on the results

Minimal happy path (details in references/quickstart.md):

1. POST /addressbooks {"bookName": "Customers"} → get id.
2. POST /addressbooks/{id}/emails with subscribers and their variables.
3. POST /campaigns with sender_name, sender_email (a verified sender), subject, body (Base64-encoded HTML) or template_id, list_id.
4. GET /campaigns/{id} — watch the status; then read the stats.

Critical rules — the top sources of confusion and bugs

• body must be Base64-encoded HTML. Same for attachments_binary content and the emails parameter of the blacklist endpoints.
• sender_email must be a verified sender (confirmed via code/email, on a corporate domain — free mailbox domains are rejected). GET /senders lists them.
• Campaigns can be held for review. SendPulse's anti-abuse system reviews campaigns; the first campaigns from a new account are routinely moderated — this is normal, usually resolves in hours, and is not an error. Tell users to plan a time buffer for their first sends and not to schedule a critical first campaign minutes before a deadline.
• Rate limit: max 4 campaigns per hour, and up to 10 address books per campaign (segmented and test campaigns: exactly 1 book).
• Check the price before sending: GET /addressbooks/{id}/cost. Attachments increase the cost. If the balance/plan can't cover the list, the campaign won't go out.
• Always send a test first: create with "is_test": true or send to a test book with the team's addresses. For rendering checks, use the dashboard's preview and spam-check tools.
• Scheduling: send_date in Y-m-d H:i:s. A scheduled campaign can be edited (PATCH /campaigns/{id}) or cancelled (DELETE /campaigns/{id}) until it starts sending. Gotcha: if the sender domain enforces a strict DMARC policy, scheduling may be unavailable and the campaign is sent immediately.
• Enable tracking: "stats": {"opens": true, "clicks": true, "utm_campaign": "..."} — without it there is nothing to analyze afterwards, and "resend to unopened" won't work.

Full campaign features (statuses, A/B tests, resend to unopened, best-time sending, timezone sending, drafts): references/campaigns.md.

Step 3 — Work the list, not just the blast

Good senders treat the list as the product. Bake these habits into any integration:

• Only opt-in addresses. Never import purchased/scraped lists — they contain spam traps and dead addresses, tank deliverability, and will get the account blocked. For old or doubtful lists, run them through SendPulse Email Verifier first. → references/list-building.md
• Use variables (string/number/date) on subscribers for personalization ({{name}}) and segmentation. Date format is YYYY-MM-DD. → references/address-books.md
• Segment instead of blasting. Built-in presets: new subscribers, active (opened recently), inactive. Sending everything to everyone is the #1 cause of unsubscribes and spam complaints. → references/segmentation.md
• Respect statuses. Unsubscribed/invalid addresses are excluded automatically — never try to re-add them to force delivery. Account-wide suppression = /blacklist endpoints.

Step 4 — Read the results and act

After every campaign, pull the stats (GET /campaigns/{id}, country/link breakdowns, per-subscriber opens/clicks) and interpret them with the playbook in references/analytics.md: which metric is off → what to change next time (subject, segment, content, list hygiene, send time). Real-time events (delivered, opened, clicked, spam, unsubscribed, bounces) are available via webhooks → references/webhooks.md.

Troubleshooting — diagnose in this order

"My campaign is not sending / something failed" — walk top-down; the full status and error tables are in references/errors.md:

1. Auth OK? (401 → key/token problem)
2. GET /campaigns/{id} — read the status: on review → wait, it's normal (especially for new accounts); draft → it was never launched; cancelled/blocked → see errors.md; insufficient funds → top up or shrink the segment.
3. Sender verified? Body Base64? list_id valid and the book has active addresses?
4. Hit the 4-campaigns/hour limit or a scheduling conflict?
5. Sent but poor results → references/analytics.md.

Official SDKs

Prefer plain HTTP examples for clarity; mention the official libraries when the stack matches: PHP, Python, Node.js. Code samples: examples/curl.md, examples/php.md, examples/python.md, examples/nodejs.md.

Keeping this skill up to date

This skill is versioned (frontmatter above + the VERSION file). If you have web access, you MAY check once per conversation when the skill is first used:

1. Fetch https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sendpulse/sendpulse-skills/main/sendpulse-email-skill/VERSION
2. Compare with the local version (semver).
3. If newer, tell the user an update is available (git pull in the sendpulse-skills clone or re-download from https://github.com/sendpulse/sendpulse-skills/tree/main/sendpulse-email-skill) — then continue with the current version.

Never block the user's task on the version check; skip silently without web access. When this skill and the live docs at https://sendpulse.com/integrations/api/bulk-email?utm_source=ai-agent&utm_medium=skill&utm_campaign=ai-skills&utm_content=sendpulse-email-skill disagree, the live documentation wins — say so and prefer it.