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How to create custom HTML content for an automatic follow-up email sequence

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A couple months ago we launched our automatic follow-up email feature, which allows you set a an automatic timed sequence of emails to be sent to your recipients until they reply or open. Sometimes this is also known as a drip campaign.

In the GMass interface inside Gmail, it's easy to set the text of the follow-up email using the default "Send this text above original" option, but this option is limited to just text and no formatting. Still, this option will suffice for most users wanting to use the automatic follow-up email feature.

If the plain text option doesn't suffice for your purposes and you want to apply formatting like hyperlinks or bolded text to the actual follow-up email, then you need to choose the Custom Message option rather than Send this text above original.

If you select "Send custom message" then you must select a pre-saved message from the dropdown.

This article will teach you how to create that content that can be chosen in the dropdown.
In order to set formatted content as a follow-up email, you first need to create the content and save it in the GMass system. The way you do that is easy:
  1. Hit the Gmail Compose button and then create the content of the follow-up in the Compose window.
  2. The Subject can be anything you like -- when the actual follow-up email is sent, the Subject will be ignored since it's the Subject of the original campaign that will be used.
  3. Set the To address to yourself.
  4. Hit the red GMass main button.
An example of composing the custom message content that will later be used as content for an auto follow-up sequence. Compose an email to yourself and hit the GMass button to save the content into the GMass system.

Now the content is in the GMass system and can be selected from the Custom Message dropdown.

When you go to create your campaign and set the email follow-up stages, you can choose your custom content from the dropdown rather than the text in the text box.

Since the content is now in the GMass system, it can be selected in the dropdown.




Yahoo bouncing emails sent by select GMass users

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Several users have reported that in the last few days, sending to yahoo.com email addresses, and email addresses hosted by Yahoo has resulted in a bounce because Yahoo blocked the email.

Which users were affected?

Only GMass users who sent from a regular Gmail account, meaning an email address @gmail.com or @googlemail.com were affected. Google Apps users were not affected. The issue affected campaigns sent between 2016-07-11 18:28 GMT and 2016-07-14 04:00 GMT.

What exactly happened?

Yahoo has indeed been bouncing emails containing the shared tracking domain for GMass users with regular Gmail accounts (not Google Apps). Specifically, any email sent to an @yahoo.com address containing the domain gmss5.com bounced with this message:

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain yahoo.com by mta5.am0.yahoodns.net. [98.136.216.25].

The error that the other server returned was:
554 Message not allowed - [PH01] Email not accepted for policy reasons.  Please visit https://help.yahoo.com/kb/postmaster/SLN5067.html [120]


This issue does not affect Google Apps users (those using Gmail but with their own company domain), because the shared tracking domain for Google Apps users is different than the shared tracking domain for regular Gmail users. The shared tracking domain assigned to Gmail users was blacklisted by Yahoo, thus resulting in the bounces.

What is a tracking domain?

For an explanation on what a tracking domain is and why it's important for your email deliverability, please see this article on the issue of email blocking and this article on setting up your own tracking domain.

The issue has been resolved

We have now resolved the issue by replacing the blacklisted tracking domain with a new tracking domain, but additionally, we have taken several other clean-up actions:

1. We have updated our reply management filters so that bounce like the sample above is categorized as a block instead of a regular bounce. GMass's reply management system categorizes replies to an email campaign, and in this case, the message above indicates a block rather than a traditional bounce which means the email address is simply invalid.

2. Because previously the reply management system was treating messages above as regular bounces, it means that those @yahoo.com recipient addresses would have been added to the respective account's Bounce list, therefore suppressing sends to that address in the future. Since the recipient address is actually valid, we have removed all affected @yahoo.com addresses from the GMass bounce tables. Approximately 6,000 yahoo.com email addresses (and addresses hosted by yahoo.com) have been deleted from the GMass bounce tables.

3. We have replaced the shared tracking domain used by Gmail users (www.gmss5.com), that was the cause of the Yahoo blocking, with a new tracking domain (which we won't specify here).

Why did this happen, and what can you do to prevent it from re-surfacing?

As we've previously written about, GMass is an intentionally unmonitored system, meaning we don't police GMass usage for spammers. Therefore, in order to prevent your own email campaigns from being negatively affected by a spammer, it's important to set up your own tracking domain. Please read about that in our article: Emails getting blocked? Take this one step to eliminate delivery issues.



GMass Delivers Donations for Charities

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Timely Messages Focused on a Particular Needs Net Great Results

There are so many wonderful organizations helping people and animals around the world, it’s hard to narrow your choices to the ones that fit your needs. What makes people give in the first place?

Researchers have looked into why people donate, why they don’t do it as much as they would hope to, and how to bridge this gap. The explanations for charitable giving range from the purely altruistic “I donate because I value the social good done by the charity” to the not-at-all altruistic “I donate because I want to show off to people how rich I am.”

Whatever the reason a person chooses to give, marketing research shows that giving is more frequent when people are reminded of current and specific needs.

Lori Miller, Donor Relations Manager for an animal shelter in western Tennessee says the most effective means for sparking donations is to highlight one particular case and quickly send out an email campaign to regular donors. “When we have a dog or cat come in with special needs, we know it’s going to be expensive, and we know we’ll need help,” she told us. “I can put together an email campaign using GMass in less than an hour and send it out using our list and personalizing the message to each donor.”

Prior to GMass the shelter used an outside marketing firm to build full-color templates, but it took too long and was too expensive. “Our donors appreciate a personal message, straight from our manager, with a brief description of what we need and why we need it. They also appreciate that we’re not spending a ton of money on marketing.”

The email campaign open rates for the shelter average 75% per campaign, and since switching to GMass the shelter’s donor list has grown 18%. “We ask people who visit the shelter to sign up for our newsletter and we use GMass to send it on the first of every month,” said Lori. “It has worked out very well, and about half the people turn into regular donors."

Right now GMass is free, but Lori says they will be happy to pay for the service if and when that day comes. “GMass is easy to manage, easy to use, and easy to track our results,” said Miller.

In addition to features like tracking and automatic follow-up, GMass allows users to insert the recipient’s name right into the subject line, which is a very effective means to boost open rates.

Many other charitable organizations are using GMass for their scheduled contacts to donors, ranging from national non-profits to small, local affiliates and religious organizations. GMass is an extension for the Chrome browser, and works with Gmail. You can download GMass here: www.gmass.co

Political Email Marketing with GMass

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Personal, Direct Messages Sway Voters

2016 is shaping up to be one of the most contentious and important election years in history. Local, state, and federal races are heating up and campaigns for candidates and causes are gearing up to garner votes.

Many voters remain undecided until the moment they step into the voting booth, so it behooves campaigners to be persistent, consistent, and responsive right up to the finish line. 

Experienced marketing professionals and winning campaign managers know that the campaign that wins the race is the one that does the best job delivering their message to undecided voters.

An article from NPR.org “Political Campaigns Go Social, But Email Is Still King” said that “on the Democratic side, the Obama camp took 90 percent of their online money from emails in 2012.” That’s impressive, and indicates the high impact of email marketing.

GMass is the ideal platform for savvy political campaign strategists to design, build, and deploy email blasts. Some of the features that are particularly effective for reaching voters are:

Tracking – You’ll know who opens your emails and who clicks on your calls to action.

Personalization – Placing your recipient’s name into the subject line and body of the email boosts the open and click rates for your campaigns. GMass makes this an easy step.

Automatic Follow-Up – Set a campaign once, and let it run. Voters who don’t open or click your
message after the first send will be sent automatic reminders if you wish. This feature saves time and increases overall effectiveness.

Mail-Merge – Connecting your list of donors to GMass is seamless and makes setting up campaigns easy.

GMass is a ★★★★★ reviewed extension on the Chrome Web Store and works with any active Gmail account. One of the best GMass features is that because the emails are sent through your Gmail account, they are less likely to be stopped with spam filters. GMass users enjoy the highest delivery, open, and click rates in the email marketing industry.

I'll soon ask you to subscribe to GMass

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It's been quite a journey. GMass started as my passion project, because I wanted an easy way to send email campaigns from my Gmail account using Gmail's own interface and Compose Window.

 I wrote the first line of code for GMass in June of 2015 from a hotel room in Honolulu and released the first version of GMass in September of 2015. Since then:
  1. GMass has had over 40,000 signups.
  2. My developers and I have spent over 3,000 hours writing code.
  3. I've interacted with over 1,200 users by email, Gchat, iMessage, phone, and Skype.
  4. GMass has sent 42,000,000 emails, all through users' Gmail accounts.
  5. I've invested over $300,000 of my own money into building and marketing GMass.
  6. I've launched 31 new features.
  7. I've registered and hosted over 800 .xyz and .us domains so that my users can have dedicated tracking domains, at no charge to my users.
The time has come to convert GMass from a free service to a paid service. It's the only way I can continue building the product, supporting users, and upgrading servers to handle load. I hope that you've had an excellent experience with GMass so far and will consider supporting it through a paid account.

I'll be sending you details on pricing soon, but generally, pricing will range from about $7/month to about $20/month per user, depending on whether you have a regular Gmail or Google Apps account, and whether or not you use auto follow-ups. If your organization is on Google Apps, you'll also be able to purchase a team-plan for multiple users. I've attempted to make pricing affordable for everyone including non-business users, but I will also provide an option for continuing to use GMass without pay in exchange for some promotional help.

If all goes according to plan, I'll announce a pre-sale in a few days, with the goal of fully converting to a paid system on August 15.

My primary focus over the next couple of weeks will be getting all this ready. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, I'm all ears.

GMass Pricing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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First, here's the GMass Pricing page.

Q: I thought GMass was free. Why is it not free anymore?

A: GMass has been free since it was launched in September of 2015, but starting on August 15, 2016, I will be charging for it. It's the only way I can continue to provide an outstanding service to my users. See my previous post on my decision to start monetizing.

Q: Do I have to upgrade to a paid account? Can I just keep using my free account?

A: Free accounts are limited to sending to 50 email addresses at a time. All other features work with free accounts.

Q: Why is pricing different for Gmail users versus Google Apps users?

A: Google Apps users have more sending ability than regular Gmail users. Google publishes that Google Apps users can send 2,000 emails/day while regular Gmail users are limited to 500 emails/day. Because of the greater sending capacity, more server resources are used to service Google Apps users.

Q: How do I know whether I have a Gmail or a Google Apps account?

A: If your Gmail account ends in @gmail.com or @googlemail.com you have a Gmail account. If your Gmail account ends in your own domain, like @abcwidgets.com, for example, then you have a Google Apps account.

Q: I manage multiple Gmail accounts, and want to use GMass with all of them. Do I get a discount?

A: If you're a Google Apps user then you can buy a Team Plan for your Google Apps domain, and save on the per-user cost. If you're a regular Gmail user with multiple regular Gmail accounts, we don't offer a discount because it would be difficult to implement such a system. With Google Apps, it's easy to track how many accounts comprise a team because they all use the same domain.

Q: How does GMass pricing compare to other Gmail email marketing solutions?

A: GMass pricing falls in the middle, being more expensive than YAMM but less expensive than say, Yesware. Value-wise, however, there's simply no comparison. GMass is the most powerful, full-features, and easiest to use email marketing and mail merge solution for Gmail. If you subscribe to GMass and don't agree with that statement, let us know, and we'll happily refund you your current month's payment.

Q: What will the GMass footer look like?

If you choose a Minimal Plan, a footer will appear on your sent emails. The footer will look similar to the link below:

Email marketing inside Gmail

Q: I see the GMass footer on the bottom of my sent emails. Can I pay extra to have it removed?

A: Yes, the footer only appears if you're subscribed to a Minimal plan. Both the Standard and the Premium plans do not force the GMass footer on your emails.

Q: If I purchase a Google Apps team account, what plan do my individual users get subscribed to?

A: All team plans are for the highest level, Premium account. So all members of your team will have a Premium account.

Q: How do I upgrade from one level to the next?

A: Contact support by emailing support@gmass.zendesk.com. In the near future you will be able to upgrade and downgrade to different levels on your own.

Q: How do I cancel my paid account and downgrade to a free account?

A: Contact support by emailing support@gmass.zendesk.com. In the near future you will be able to cancel your paid account on your own.

Q: My Gmail account has become disabled. Therefore I can't log in to follow the cancellation procedures. How do I cancel?

A: If your account has become disabled, GMass will automatically cancel the account and stop all billing for it.

Q: What will I see on my credit card?

A: The charge will say "GMASS".

Q: Do you accept other forms of payment, like cash, check, or Bitcoin?

A: We currently are only accepting credit cards, but will accept other payment forms shortly.

Q: Do you have a discount for non-profits?

A: Yes, if you are a Google Apps user with a .org or .edu domain, you will enjoy 30% off the published prices.

Q: I'm a nonprofit or educational user. I see that you give a 30% discount, but when I go to subscribe, the price shown doesn't reflect a 30% discount. Why not?

A: The discount is actually calculated after you subscribe and can't be shown at the time you subscribe and enter your credit card. -- but you have our assurances that a 30% discount will be applied to your initial payment and all recurring charges.

Q: On what date will I be billed?

A: GMass will remain free to use until August 15, 2016. If you subscribed during our pre-sale (before August 15), and you choose a monthly plan, you will be billed on the 15th of every month. Otherwise you'll be billed on the anniversary of the date you signed up.

Q: I want to send a 1,000 person campaign but don't want to upgrade to a paid account. Can I just use my free account to send to 50 people 20 times?

A: Yes you can, but we prefer you don't do that. If you're getting a lot of use out of GMass, we hope you'll agree that it's worth the small investment for an amazing email marketing service.

Q: I really need GMass but can't afford it. Can I wash dishes instead?

A: We don't have any dirty dishes, but if you have a blog with at least moderate readership, we'd love a blog post describing what you like about GMass and how you use it for your organization. Contact support for more details.

Q: Do you charge sales tax?

A: No.

Q: I have disconnected my Gmail account from GMass by disabling OAuth -- what happens now?

A: GMass will detect that it has been disconnected and will automatically stop all billing for your account.

Q: What happens if I try to send a large campaign from a free account?

A: The send will fail and you'll get a message in the yellow bar at the top of your Gmail account indicating that the send failed. You'll also then be given the option to upgrade to a paid account.

Q: What happens if I try to configure auto follow-ups from an account without auto follow-ups?

A: The send will fail and you'll get a message in the yellow bar at the top of your Gmail account indicating that the send failed. You'll also then be given the option to upgrade to a paid account.

Q: I only need to send an email once a quarter. Can I subscribe, then send, then cancel?

A: Yes, you can. You will have to pay for the whole month though, but feel free to subscribe during just the months when you need to send. During the time that you're not subscribed, all other features, like reporting, will still work.

Q: What features won't work with a free account?

A: All features work with a free account. The only restriction with free accounts is that you can't send to more than 50 email addresses at a time.


Team Pricing FAQ:

Q: Who has the authority to buy a team plan for a Google Apps domain?

A: Anyone that belongs to your domain can create a GMass Team Account.

Q: What happens after I subscribe to a team plan?

A: All existing GMass accounts for your domain are converted to premium accounts, and all future GMass signups from your domain will be converted as well. At the beginning of ever period, we'll bill you for the number of users you chose during plan selection, and at the end of every period, we'll count your users to see if you're over the number of users your plan allows, and if so, bill you the difference.

Q: Can I purchase a team plan at the Minimum or Standard levels?

A: No, Team Plans are all at the highest, Premium level.








GMass maintenance starting in about an hour, at 4PM CST

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GMass is back up and running! We went over hour maintenance window by about an hour -- sorry about that.

Spammers, GMass, and why your legitimate emails are ending up in Spam or being flagged as scam

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We've had several users in the last few days report that emails they are sending with GMass to their own Gmail addresses are ending up in the Spam folder or even worse, are flagged as being as a scam.



Why is this happening?

As we've mentioned before, because GMass has been a free email marketing system for so long, it attracts a plethora of spammers. GMass is an unmonitored system, and when you send emails with open and click tracking, the domain that gets inserted into your emails is the same domain that gets inserted when a spammer sends. If Google flags that domain, then this results in emails ending up in Spam or being flagged as a scam.

What is this domain you are talking about? Do you mean the domain in my email address?

No, that's separate. We are referring to a domain that gets inserted into the body of your email in order to make open and click tracking work. This is what we call a "tracking domain". Typically it is something like gmss10.net. Here's an example:



How do I separate my legitimate emails from the spammers' email?

You need a dedicated tracking domain for your GMass email campaigns. If you implement this, you essentially guarantee yourself 100% deliverability.If you don't, you are risking the chance of getting poor Inbox deliverability.

I want a dedicated tracking domain. What's my next step?

If you are able to add a DNS record for your domain...

You can easily set up a branded tracking domain for your GMass accounts that is based on your OWN domain name. Just add a CNAME record for the tracking domain you choose (track.abcwidgets.com for example) to point to "gmass.co". Detailed setup instructions here.

If you can't add a DNS record or this is too technical for you...

If you don't know how to manage DNS records, I can provide a dedicated tracking domain for your accounts.

Which is better: setting up a dedicated tracking domain based on my own domain, or having you provide one to me?

If you know how to manage your domain's DNS settings, as mentioned in the prior question, it is preferable that you set up a tracking domain based on your own domain. The "hover effect" is optimized here -- when your recipients hover over a link in your email campaign, and notice where it points before they click, they are more likely to click if they recognize your domain. The GMass-provided dedicated tracking domains will never look as polished as your own, but it's simply a matter of cosmetics. The 100% deliverability is achieved either way.

Why do you let spammers use GMass?

GMass by design is an unmonitored system. I chose to do it that way because Google already shuts down spammer accounts for us, so there's really no need for GMass to have its own monitoring in place. That said, even Gmail's spam and abuse detection isn't perfect. So some spam does still get sent by Gmail accounts, and when that happens, domains included in those spam messages get flagged, including the shared tracking domain that GMass uses to implement open and click tracking.

If the shared tracking domain gets flagged, can't you just switch it out for a different one?

Yes, we do switch out the shared tracking domain periodically, but inevitably, spammers will cause the new shared tracking domain to get flagged, causing the issue to surface again.

Is this a new issue for GMass, or has this been happening for a while?

This is a relatively new issue. In the past, even though the shared tracking domain would get flagged, emails would bounce with a block notification. We can then detect that and assign a dedicated tracking domain to the affected user to eliminate the issue going forward. Now, however, we are noticing emails are still getting delivered, but just going to Spam. That wasn't happening before.

Can you detect if my emails are being flagged?

In some cases we can, and in some we can't. If your email is flat out blocked by a recipient, then a bounce is generated. GMass then detects the block and reports it to you under the GMass Reports folder. We also send a daily report to those users experiencing a lot of blocking encouraging to get a dedicated tracking domain. However, in cases where the email isn't outright rejected, but is instead routed to the Spam folder or is flagged as a scam, we have no way of knowing this, so we can't detect it and then inform you. That's why it's best to be proactive and get a dedicated tracking domain even if you're not having delivery issues.

If I turn off open and click tracking, will that solve the issue?

Yes, you can also achieve 100% perfect deliverability by turning off open and click tracking, but you really don't have to if you go through the simple process of setting up a dedicated tracking domain. Then you get the best of both worlds: perfect deliverability and detailed analytics.

This is too hard. I don't understand. Can you just set this up for me?

Yes, just tell me that's what you want. If you're unable to create a dedicated tracking domain based on your own domain, you can have one of ours. Just email me at support@gmass.zendesk.com and request a dedicated tracking domain, and I will take care of all the setup for you.

If you can easily set this up for me, why don't you just do it for every GMass user?

Because that would be really expensive and time consuming. Over 45,000 accounts have signed up for GMass, and it's only been available for 11 months. If we had to register 45,000 domains, one for each user, we'd be incurring huge expenses. If we just do it for the people that ask, it's much more manageable.

I sent some test emails with GMass and they landed in Spam, and then I used a different service, and they went to the Inbox. Doesn't that mean that people are blocking GMass?

No. People are blocking the shared tracking domain that GMass uses, which is why its advantageous for each legitimate GMass user to use their own dedicated tracking domain, one that nobody else uses. That way, you can never get mixed up with a spammer's emails, and your emails will sail through to the Inbox. The reason it may not happen with another provider, is because the other provider hasn't been a free service, and therefore detracts spammers rather than attracts spammers.

What about GMass's IP addresses? Do they have a good reputation?

No email is actually sent from GMass's IP addresses, so GMass IPs are irrelevant. All email is sent from our users' own Gmail accounts, meaning the emails are sent from Gmail's IP addresses, and Gmail's IP addresses have the best email sending reputation in the world.

I'm an experienced email marketer and have used other platforms prior to GMass and never had this issue. Why does GMass have this issue?

Because GMass has been a long-time free and unmonitored system. No other email marketing system in the world is free and would dare be unmonitored. Every service from MailChimp to Hubspot has systems in place to prevent spammers from sending email. GMass does not. This was decided intentionally, because GMass is a unique service in that it's built on top of Gmail rather than a standalone service.

I find it hard to believe that if I take this one step, I can achieve 100% perfect deliverability. Are you being serious?

Absolutely. If you have a dedicated tracking domain and you send with GMass, you will achieve 100% deliverability (except for invalid addresses that legitimately bounce).

Isn't GMass about to start charging for services? Will that change anything?

Yes, on Monday, August 15, when GMass places limits on free accounts can do, this issue will be substantially mitigated. However, it is still a best practice to set up your own dedicated tracking domain.

So other than getting a dedicated tracking domain, do I need to do anything else to ensure my email goes to the Inbox?

As a best practice, you should set up SPF if you're a Google Apps user. If you have just a regular @gmail.com or @googlemail.com account, you don't have to do anything.

I have received confirmation from you that my dedicated tracking domain is in place. How do I use it?

Don't do anything differently -- just send as you normally would. The dedicated tracking domain will be inserted automatically into your emails.


How many emails can you really send with GMass and Gmail?

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Gmail officially claims that with a regular Gmail account you can send 500 emails/day and with a Google Apps account you can send 2,000 emails/day. In fact, I've even claimed that with GMass, if you're a Google Apps user, you can send a 10,000 recipient campaign, where GMass will evenly distribute the campaign at 2,000 emails/day for 5 consecutive days.

So if you're using GMass, you should be able to send 60,000 emails/month (2,000/day x 30 days in a month) from a single Google Apps account, right? As it turns out, that usually isn't the case.

In working with over 40,000 accounts in the last year, we've noticed that Google often throttles the number of emails a particular account can send based on a variety of factors, including:
  • How old the particular Gmail or Google apps account is (the older, the better)
  • How many conversations exist in the account (may existing conversations are better)
  • Whether the account has sent mass emails before (if it has, then you're better off)
  • The content of the mass emails (non-spammy content)
  • The bounce rate of the overall account (the lower the better)

We don't have exact rules on how Google decides how many emails an account can send at a particular time, but here's what we've observed:
  • A brand new Gmail account (ending in @gmail.com or @googlemail.com) with no history has very limited sending ability. Sometimes you are limited to 10 emails right when the account is created.
  • A brand new Google Apps account, where the organization itself is new to Google Apps, also has very limited sending ability.
  • A brand new Google Apps account, where the organization has a history with Google Apps, can send near the 2,000 emails/day limit almost right away

So what happens when you try to send, and Google decides you are over limit?

Using GMass, you'll notice that Gmail will start bouncing the emails and the bounce notification will look like this:

This is the Bounce you'll see if GMass sends an email when your account is over limit.

If you are in the Gmail interface, and you try to send a regular email with the regular blue Send button, you'll be stopped with a popup that looks like this:

This is the error you'll get if you try to send an email with the regular Gmail Send button when your account is over limit.

What does GMass do when it detects that your account is over limit?

GMass looks for bounce notifications like the one shown above to determine if your account is over limit. In fact, while it's sending your campaign, it's also simultaneously monitoring for these bounces. If the bounces start to appear, and you are technically under the 500 or 2,000 limit, then GMass pauses your campaign for an hour and tries to continue sending later.

Does GMass re-send the emails that have already bounced?

No, GMass won't automatically re-send the emails that have bounced with an over-limit message, but you can easily re-send these messages if you feel like your account has more sending power. Use the manual follow-up tool, the @ button near the Search field, choose your campaign, and choose the "Over Limit" category. A Compose window will launch with the email addresses of those that bounced previously. Then load the campaign using the Load Content dropdown in the Settings box, and hit the GMass button to re-send to those people.

Special Privilege for Google Apps Users

If you have a Google Apps account, and you've reached your limit and are unable to send emails, you have the option of having your Google Apps administrator "reset" your account. This is done through the Google Apps admin console. By resetting your account, your daily quota is immediately reset. This option, however, can only be used 5 times per year per account, so use this sparingly...only in situations where you've hit your limit and you absolutely need to send more email, whether it's through GMass or person-to-person email with the regular Send button.

Does subscribing to a paid GMass account improve my ability to send?

No, it does not. Whether you have a free or a paid GMass account, your sending ability is the same and is determined by Gmail, not by us. We've had users express surprise that they subscribed to GMass, yet still couldn't send as many emails as the Gmail published limits, so it's important to know that GMass has no ability to control how many emails you can send.

So how many emails can I really send with GMass and Gmail?

If you have a Gmail account with an excellent reputation, you'll usually get your 500 email limit for the first 24 hours but only a subset of that for the second 24-hour period. Meaning, if you send 750 emails, where GMass sends the first batch of 450 now (so you have a buffer of 50), and the remaining 300 24 hours later, that usually works. Avoid sending 900 though, because then you would need your full sending ability during the second 24-hour period.

If you have a Google Apps account with an excellent reputation, you'll usually get the full 2,000 email limit for the first 24 hours but only a subset of that for the second 24-hour period. So, you can probably send 3,500 emails, where 1,950 go out the first day, and the remaining go out on the second day, but if you were to send 4,000 emails, you might get some bounces on the second day.


Now you can set your own tracking domain in GMass

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I've written extensively about the importance of having a dedicated tracking domain for your GMass account. Previously, to get your tracking domain into GMass or to request one, you had to email our Support team. Now, you can either set your tracking domain or request one all on your own.

If you have added a DNS record and set up your own tracking domain:

Compose a new message in Gmail, put trackingdomain@gmass.co in the To field, and put the tracking domain you created in the Subject. Then hit the main GMass button.

In this example, my Google Apps email address is ajay@wordzen.com, and I'm setting track.wordzen.com as my tracking domain.

Note: For instant approval, your tracking domain must contain the domain of your Gmail email address. Meaning, if you are john@abcwidgets.com, your tracking domain should be something like track.abcwidgets.com. If your email address domain and your tracking domain don't match, your request will be accepted but will need manual approval For example, if ajaygoel999@gmail.com attempts to set track.wordzen.com as a tracking domain, the request will be accepted and then reviewed by GMass support staff.

If you are requesting that we provide you with a dedicated tracking domain:

Compose a new message in Gmail, put trackingdomain@gmass.co in the To field, and put the word request in the Subject. Then hit the main GMass button.

In this example, I am requesting GMass to assign me a dedicated tracking domain, because I don't want to bother with DNS records.

Sending limit of free accounts will change to 50 emails/day

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Starting Wednesday, August 31, 2016, we will be changing the sending limits for free accounts.

Previously, a free account was limited to sending 50 emails at a time, with no restrictions on how many total emails it could send per day. For example, if a free user wanted to send 1,000 emails, the user could split his email list into 20 batches of 50 email addresses each, and send 20 times.

Starting on Wednesday, however, we will be placing an additional restriction on free accounts of 50 sent emails per 24 hours.

We are doing this to curb the abuse of free accounts.

How to stop GMass from sending emails from your Gmail account

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There are lots of reasons why you may need to stop GMass from sending emails from your Gmail account: GMass may have started sending a multi-day campaign, but then in the middle, you decide you want to stop. You may have set auto follow-ups on a particular campaign, but you can't handle the volume of replies you're getting, so you may want to stop GMass from sending any more auto follow-ups. Your account may have been hacked, and the hacker installed GMass and configured it to send emails over time.

Here's how to stop GMass from sending emails.

If you want to cancel a particular mail marge campaign:

If you have a scheduled mail merge, it will show under the "GMass Scheduled" label. To cancel and prevent it from sending at its scheduled time, just remove the "GMass Scheduled" label from the Draft, and that will prevent GMass from seeing it. The scheduled job will error out and prevent the mail merge campaign from sending.

This also applies to a large campaign that has been set to send over multiple days. If after a couple of days, you decide you don't want the rest of it to send, just remove the "GMass Scheduled" label, and further sending will be prevented.

If you want to stop auto follow-ups from sending for a particular campaign:


After you've launched a campaign with automatic follow-ups, you can edit the auto follow-up settings using the red "Follow-up Campaigns" (@) button near the Search bar. If you change your mind and now wish to prevent auto follow-ups from sending, just set the "Days" to 0 for any particular Stage.


If you want to disconnect GMass from your Gmail account and prevent GMass from sending any emails in the future:

Go to: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions



Find GMass listed here, and click the REMOVE button.

How to stop GMass from sending emails from your Gmail account

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There are lots of reasons why you may need to stop GMass from sending emails from your Gmail account: GMass may have started sending a multi-day campaign, but then in the middle, you decide you want to stop. You may have set auto follow-ups on a particular campaign, but you can't handle the volume of replies you're getting, so you may want to stop GMass from sending any more auto follow-ups. Your account may have been hacked, and the hacker installed GMass and configured it to send emails over time.

Here's how to stop GMass from sending emails.

If you want to cancel a particular mail marge campaign:

If you have a scheduled mail merge, it will show under the "GMass Scheduled" label. To cancel and prevent it from sending at its scheduled time, just remove the "GMass Scheduled" label from the Draft, and that will prevent GMass from seeing it. The scheduled job will error out and prevent the mail merge campaign from sending.

This also applies to a large campaign that has been set to send over multiple days. If after a couple of days, you decide you don't want the rest of it to send, just remove the "GMass Scheduled" label, and further sending will be prevented.

If you want to stop auto follow-ups from sending for a particular campaign:


After you've launched a campaign with automatic follow-ups, you can edit the auto follow-up settings using the red "Follow-up Campaigns" (@) button near the Search bar. If you change your mind and now wish to prevent auto follow-ups from sending, just set the "Days" to 0 for any particular Stage.


If you want to disconnect GMass from your Gmail account to prevent GMass from sending any emails in the future:

Go to: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions



Find GMass listed here, and click the REMOVE button.

Video interview with GMass founder, Ajay Goel, on Growth Hacker TV

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Check out this just-released Growth Hacker TV video interview with Ajay Goel, the creator of GMass.


In this video, Ajay discusses the meteoric rise of GMass and the transition from a free service to a paid subscription service.

What the "An Error occurred, but the error response could not be deserialized" error means

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If you've sent a Gmail mail merge campaign with GMass and were notified that this error was generated while sending to your email addresses:

An Error occurred, but the error response could not be deserialized

you might be perplexed, since the error doesn't provide any actionable information. This is an error that is generated by the Gmail API when GMass connects to your Gmail account to send your mail merge campaign. While there's not much information available from Gmail as to the cause of this error, we've found that the usual cause is the user of large attachments or inline images.

Gmail states that emails can be up to 25MB in size, and GMass places a further size limit of 12MB per individual email message, but still, Gmail may generate this error even if you are under both of these limits. The solution is to simply reduce the size of your email, either by shrinking your inline images, host your images and refer to them relatively in your HTML code, or by reducing the size of or eliminating attachments.

This Stack Overflow article corroborates our theory about this error.

Don't make this copy / paste mistake with Gmail and GMass

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If you've sent an email campaign with GMass, or even a test message to yourself, never copy/paste that message from your Sent Mail or Inbox into a new Compose window. Why?

Once the email is sent, elements of it are personalized to each recipient, like the unsubscribe link, the click-tracked links, and the open-tracking pixel. If you then copy/paste that email, which has already been tagged specifically for one recipient, into a new GMass campaign, then everybody that gets the new campaign will get an unsubscribe link that unsubscribes just that one email address, and links to click that will make it look like that one email address is clicking (not the actual recipient) and all opens will be registered to that one address.

In fact, this rule doesn't apply to just GMass. It applies to any email marketing system, even traditional ESPs like MailChimp and JangoMail. If you use a traditional ESP to send yourself a test email, never copy/paste that test email back into a new campaign to send to hundreds of email addresses.

Update on Saturday, June 11, 2016:

GMass is now preventing emails that contain already click-tracked links from being sent. If you copy/paste an old sent campaign into a new campaign and use the GMass button to send it, you may receive a yellow status message error that looks like:



To correct the issue, you'll need to modify your links, so that they link to the actual website you wish to send your recipients to, rather than the GMass click-tracked URL.

What should you do instead?

For loading prior GMass content into the Gmail Compose window, use the Load Content dropdown.

New Gmail Mail Merge Feature: Manually Import or Remove Unsubscribe Addresses

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If you've been using GMass for your mail merge campaigns in Gmail, you can now easily add email addresses to your account's Unsubscribe List.

As a reminder, any email addresses on your Unsubscribe List will be suppressed from your GMass campaigns -- that means they will be eliminated from any campaign you send with the GMass button. Additionally, if you're a Google Apps user and you've enabled Global Unsubscribes, you can also use this feature to suppress email addresses across all other GMass accounts of the same domain.

To manually add email addresses to your Unsubscribe List:


1. Launch a regular Gmail Compose Window.

2. Set the To field to unsubscribe@gmass.co.

3. Type anything you like in the Subject Line, so long as it's not blank.

4. Paste in a list of email addresses to unsubscribe as the body of the message, with each email address on one line.

5. Click the GMass main button.

Important: Be sure to hit the red GMass button, and not the regular Gmail Send button. Hitting the regular Send button won't accomplish anything.

You can use this method to unsubscribe thousands of email addresses at once. For example, if you're switching from a traditional email service provider like MailChimp over to GMass, you may want to take all of your unsubscribe addresses from MailChimp and import them into GMass.

To remove email addresses from your Unsubscribe List:

If you've accidentally unsubscribed yourself, or if you a particular email address has unsubscribed but now wants back on your email list, you can remove an address from your Unsubscribe List. Follow the same procedure as above, but set the To field to resubscribe@gmass.co.

Final Thoughts:

If you're unfamiliar with the unsubscribe feature of GMass, learn how to add an Unsubscribe Link to your mail merge campaigns in Gmail.

How to cancel your paid Gmail Mail Merge subscription to GMass

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If you want to cancel your subscription to GMass's Gmail Mail Merge system, you can do that yourself.

Be sure to hit the GMass button and not the Send button to cancel your GMass subscription.


1. Launch a regular Gmail Compose Window.

2. Set the To field to cancel@gmass.co.

3. Type anything you like in the Subject Line, so long as it's not blank.

4. Optionally, please tell us the reason for your cancellation in the Body of the email. This is optional.

5. Click the GMass main button. Your subscription will end immediately and your account will go back to being a free account limited to sending 50 emails/day.

Important: Be sure to hit the red GMass button, and not the regular Gmail Send button. Hitting the regular Send button won't accomplish anything. 

Another note: You must be logged into the Gmail account that has the GMass subscription you wish to cancel.


How to change or update the credit card for your GMass subscription

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If you've previously subscribed to a paid GMass plan, at some point you may need to change or update the credit card associated with your account. This is how you do it.



1. Compose a new email in Gmail and set the To field to card@gmass.co.

2. Type anything you wish for the Subject and Message.

3. Click the main GMass button. Do not click the Gmail Send button.

4. You'll then get a link at the top of your screen to change your credit card. Click that link. You'll be taken to a web page with a button to enter your new credit card.

You can now transfer your subscription to another account

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Many users have asked us to transfer their paid GMass subscription from one account to another, so we've now built a way for you to do this yourself. You can now transfer a paid GMass subscription to another Gmail account.

Why would you want to do this?

1. Perhaps you accidentally subscribed the wrong account. Instead of canceling and re-subscribing, you can just transfer the subscription over.

2. Perhaps you changed your mind after subscribing, because you realized that a different Gmail account has a better reputation and more sending ability than the account you originally subscribed.

How to transfer your GMass subscription

In this example, I'm about to transfer my paid GMass subscription from ajay@wordzen.com to meredith@wordzen.com. Note that you can't tell from the screenshot that the account I'm logged into is ajay@wordzen.com.

1. Launch a new Compose window in Gmail from the account that already has the paid GMass subscription.

2. Set the To field to transfer@gmass.co.

3. Set the Subject to the Gmail account that you wish to transfer the GMass subscription to.

4. Hit the main GMass button. (Do not hit the blue Send button.)

Important notes about transferring a subscription

1. You can only transfer a subscription from an account with an active subscription to an account that is currently free.

2. Both accounts must be of the same type, meaning both must be regular Gmail accounts or both must be Google Apps accounts.

3. A GMass account must exist for both accounts for the transfer to take place.
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