To use Email features (whether Broadcast or Customer Journey), you must first complete "Email channel activation." You can now complete activation yourself directly in the Admin Center: fill in your sender domain details → add the system-generated DNS records to your domain provider → click verify to activate. No separate application is required.
Email, from activation to sending: the full flow at a glance
Getting from activating your Email channel to sending your first email takes three stages. The overall flow is shown below; see the corresponding section or article for the detailed steps of each stage.
- Channel Settings →【Add channel】→ select Email
- Check the pre-creation confirmations and fill in your sender domain details
- Copy the 4 system-generated DNS records and paste them into your domain provider (e.g., Cloudflare)
- Click【Verify DNS】; once it passes, the channel activates automatically and warm-up begins
⚠️ Make sure you have DNS edit permission for the domain, or ask your IT / domain administrator for help.
- Contacts →【Import】→ select the Email channel, with key "Email"
- Download the template, fill in Email and messaging_status, then import
- Create an Email segment based on contact conditions
- In【Broadcast】, select your target segment
- Design the email content
- Send; the system delivers at an automatically adjusted rate based on domain health
💡 You can also add an Email send node within a Customer Journey.
Feature Guide | Email Broadcast →⚠️ Before activating, please confirm that you (or your IT / domain administrator) have DNS edit permission for the sender domain. DNS records usually take effect within a few minutes to a few hours after being added (depending on your provider). Once verification passes, the system automatically performs warm-up (Reputation Building) for the new domain, gradually building sending reputation, with no manual warm-up scheduling needed. 👉 Learn more: Feature Description | Email Automatic Warm-up (Reputation Building)
Step 1: Add the Email channel
Go to Admin Center →【Channel Settings】, click【Add channel】in the top-right, select【Email】, then click【Continue】.
Step 2: Fill in your sender domain details
On the【Sender domain settings】tab, first check the three "pre-creation confirmations," then fill in your Email domain details; the system generates the corresponding DNS settings from the domain you enter.
- I confirm that I have DNS edit permission for the sender domain.
- I confirm that my Email list has recipient consent and complies with the platform's sending policy.
- I have read the EDM email marketing service terms and pricing.
The fields are explained below:
| Sender domain fields |
|
Step 3: Configure and verify DNS
Switch to the【DNS verification】tab. Based on the domain you entered, the system generates 4 DNS records (CNAME, TXT). Complete verification as follows:
- Hand these 4 records to your domain administrator (company IT, a web engineer, or the colleague who originally purchased or maintains the domain). Each record has a【Copy】button on the right.
- Have them log in to your domain's DNS management platform (e.g., Cloudflare, GoDaddy, AWS Route 53) and add the 4 records to the DNS settings.
- After the records are added, return to this page and click【Verify DNS】; once it passes, the Email channel activates automatically.
Set the Proxy status of the DNS records above to "DNS only" (the grey cloud icon), otherwise verification will fail.
How to add the DNS records in Cloudflare
The following uses Cloudflare as an example to show how to paste the records from MAAC's【DNS verification】tab into your domain. Other providers (GoDaddy, AWS Route 53, etc.) work much the same way.
- Log in to Cloudflare and select your domain from the home list.
- In the left menu, click DNS → Records, then click 【Add record】.
- For each record MAAC provides: set Type to CNAME or TXT; paste MAAC's HOST value into Name; paste MAAC's VALUE into Target / Content (use the【Copy】button to paste directly).
- For CNAME records, set the Proxy status cloud to grey "DNS only" (an orange cloud = Proxied will cause verification to fail; TXT records have no such option, so skip it).
- Click 【Save】. Repeat the steps above until all 4 records are added.
- Return to MAAC's【DNS verification】tab and click 【Verify DNS】. DNS may take a few minutes to a few hours to take effect; if it hasn't passed yet, try again later.
Step 4: Verification passes and the channel activates
When all 4 records pass, the page shows "DNS verification passed," your sender domain is verified, and the Email channel activates automatically. You can then click【Import Email contacts】to move on to the next stage.
Email Channel Status
In the Email channel list in Admin Center, you can view the current health status of the Email channel. Based on sender setting completeness and sending health (past 8 hours data), the system displays one of the following statuses.
| Channel Status | Status Description | System Behavior |
| Healthy | Indicates the Email channel is operating normally with good sending quality. At least one Sender Profile in the system has completed verification and is "Active". | You can normally create Broadcasts and set and send Emails in Customer Journeys; Broadcasts send at 100% rate. |
| Building Reputation 🆕 | A newly enabled sending domain, or one that hasn't sent for a long time; the system is automatically warming up and gradually building sending reputation. | Sends normally; the sending rate increases gradually as warm-up progresses, and the daily sending capacity loosens gradually. |
| Not Set | Indicates there are currently no Active Sender Profiles, so sending tasks cannot be executed. | Broadcasts and Emails in Customer Journeys will not be sent. |
| Warning | Indicates incomplete sender domain settings or declining sending health, presenting potential risks. | Usually still allows sending, but a risk warning will appear on the interface; the Broadcast sending rate is automatically reduced to about 50%. |
| Restricted 🆕 | Sending health has further deteriorated, with higher risk. | Sending is still allowed, but the Broadcast sending rate is further reduced to about 20%, and you will receive a reminder notification. |
| Suspended | Indicates the channel has been temporarily forced shut by the system's "Automatic Suspension Policy" to protect sending reputation. | All Email sending will be stopped immediately (0% sending rate); Broadcasts in progress change to "Paused (risk protection)" and resume only after the list is cleaned and your CSM/PO manually restores the domain (they do not resume automatically). |
👉 Learn more: Email Channel Status and Common Solutions
View Domain Health Status and Daily Sending Capacity 🆕
You can check your sending domain's current health status and today's available sending volume in Admin Center at any time to help plan your sends:
Admin Center → Channel settings → select the Email channel → Sending status tab
On the Sending status tab, you can see:
- Domain health status: the current domain status, such as Healthy or Building Reputation.
- Sending speed: the current sending rate; 100% when healthy.
- 8H Hard Bounce (Rate) / 8H Spam (Rate): hard bounces and spam reports (rate) over the last 8 hours.
- Today's sending usage: today's used amount / daily limit (e.g. 0 used / 109,730 per day); usage resets at midnight (in the time zone configured for your account).
The daily sending capacity counts only Broadcast volume; Customer Journey emails are not subject to the daily sending limit. For the full mechanics, see: Feature Description | Email Sending Protection and Domain Health
Phase 2: Import Email Channel Contacts
In the "Contact" page, you can now see the Email status for each contact. This helps you identify at a glance who can receive Emails and who has unsubscribed.
1. Contact Status Definitions
Before sending, please understand the three states of Email contacts:
| Status Display | Definition | Can Send |
| Subscribed | Customer agreed to receive emails, and the mailbox is normal. | Yes ✅ |
| Unsubscribed | Customer clicked the "Unsubscribe" link. | No ❌ |
| Suppressed |
Includes past occurrences of:
*The system will automatically block sending to protect domain reputation |
No ❌ |
2. CSV Import Tutorial and Important Rules
If you have an existing list of member Emails, you can batch import them into MAAC via CSV file:
- Go to "Audience" > Click "Contacts" > Click "Import"
- Click "Import data manually"
- Select the Email channel to import
- Select key value "Email"
- Click "Next"
- Download the dedicated CSV template
- Fill in the Email and messaging_status fields in the CSV template (Required)
- Click "Import" to upload the CSV file
After import is complete, you can view the results in the notification center at the top right and return to the contact list to view the imported Email contacts.
- Reminder: Do not attempt to change unsubscribed users to subscribed via import; the system will automatically ignore this change.
Important Import Restrictions
To comply with international anti-spam laws and protect domain reputation, MAAC has a strict "Irreversible Status" rule:
🚫 You cannot change "Unsubscribed" or "Suppressed" contacts back to "Subscribed" via CSV import.
- If you attempt to change Unsubscribed to Subscribed in the CSV, the system will ignore the status update and only update other fields (such as name, phone number). This is to prevent accidental sending to mailboxes that have explicitly refused or are invalid, avoiding your brand being blacklisted.
Email Unsubscribe and Re-subscribe Mechanism 🆕
The unsubscribe link in every marketing email points to a MAAC-hosted unsubscribe page and uses two-step confirmation to prevent recipients from unsubscribing by accident:
- The recipient clicks the "Unsubscribe" link in the email and is taken to the MAAC unsubscribe confirmation page, which shows "You are unsubscribing from all emails sent from {sender domain}."
- The recipient must click "Confirm unsubscribe" on the confirmation page for the unsubscribe to take effect, and a success page is shown.
- Re-subscribe: The unsubscribe success page provides a "Re-subscribe" link, so recipients who unsubscribed by mistake can immediately re-subscribe and restore their status from "Unsubscribed" to "Subscribed".
- Unsubscribe scope is per sender domain: After a recipient unsubscribes from one sender domain, they are only excluded from that domain's emails. For example, after unsubscribing from
marketing.brand.com, they may still receive emails from another sender domain of the same brand (such asservice.brand.com). A contact's subscription status can be viewed by sender domain in their profile. - One-click unsubscribe exception: Some mailbox providers (such as Gmail and Yahoo) offer "one-click unsubscribe" that unsubscribes directly without the confirmation page; this is a standard mechanism triggered by the mailbox provider.
Unsubscribed contacts enter the system's Suppression list, are automatically excluded before sending, and show the status "Unsubscribed".
Automatic Suspension Policy
To maintain sending quality for all users, the system has an automatic monitoring mechanism. If your sending domain exhibits the following conditions, the system will automatically suspend your sending function:
-
Trigger Conditions (within the past 8 hours):
- Hard Bounce: Sent to too many non-existent mailboxes, bounce rate ≥ 10%.
- Spam Report: Too many users marked your emails as spam, report rate ≥ 0.8%.
-
How to restore?
- You must first use a third-party tool to clean your Email list and exclude invalid lists.
- Import the cleaning results into MAAC to update contact statuses.
- Notify your CSM to assist in applying for restoration. It will be manually restored from the backend after manual review.
⚠️ Email (EDM) channel functions use shared IPs; one abnormal sender can damage all clients. Clients must only use consented, subscribed lists. Do not use purchased or scraped lists.
Enable the CDH "Email" Unify Key for Omnichannel Integration
To get the most out of your Omnichannel Journey, we strongly recommend that when you activate the Email channel, you go to Customer Data Hub (CDH) and set "Email" as a Unify Key.
💡 Why is this critical to your omnichannel strategy?
- Achieve a Single Customer View: Once enabled, the system can automatically recognize and unify a "LINE friend" and an "Email contact" as the same customer. Through identity integration, the system can accurately track that customer's behavior across channels within a journey, ensuring consistent communication.
- Optimize cross-channel reach: You can design smarter automation paths. For example, after the system detects a specific customer, it can first send a lower-cost Email; if the customer doesn't open it, it can then automatically trigger a LINE message to follow up, ensuring messages aren't missed and costs stay optimized.
- Avoid duplicate communication and disruption: If this setting isn't enabled, the system treats the same person's LINE and Email as "two separate individuals." This can cause the same customer to repeatedly receive the same message across different channels in a short time, creating a negative brand experience, and your journey data will not truly reflect the customer journey.
Common Questions (FAQ)
I. Operation and Settings
Q. I have a large Email list but I'm unsure how many are invalid. Will importing and sending directly cause my account to be locked?
To protect your sending reputation, the system performs basic checks during import (such as domain MX records), but if sending results in a high "Hard Bounce" rate after import, the automatic suspension mechanism will still be triggered.
Suggested Action: If your list hasn't been maintained for a long time, it is recommended to use a third-party Email cleaning tool to filter invalid mailboxes first, or test send a small amount to active members who have interacted recently to ensure list health.
Q. DNS settings are too complicated for me, and I don't have IT staff. Can I provide my account and password for you to set it up?
For information security reasons, we cannot ask for your DNS hosting platform account and password to operate on your behalf.
Suggested Action: The system automatically generates the complete DNS records on the【DNS verification】tab. You just need to click【Copy】and pass the records to the vendor managing the domain or your IT staff and ask them to "copy and paste" to complete the setting.
Q. Why can't I change "Unsubscribed" users back to "Subscribed" when importing CSV?
This is a system security mechanism designed to comply with international anti-spam regulations and protect your sending reputation. If a user has expressed they do not wish to receive emails, forcibly resetting the status may lead to high report rates and domain blocking.
II. Email Channel Status
Q: Why does my Email channel show "Not Set", and I can't send Emails in the journey?
This status indicates the system currently has not detected any valid sender profiles (Active Sender Profile). In MAAC, a usable sender profile must meet both "Profile Created" and "Domain Verification (DNS) Successful" conditions. As long as there is no valid Profile, the system will automatically block Email sending nodes in the journey to ensure delivery quality.
Common Reasons:
- Profile not yet created: You may not have created sender information (Sender Profile) yet in【Channel Settings】.
- Domain verification failed: Although a Profile was created, the Sender Domain used by that Profile failed DNS verification (e.g. SPF or DKIM verification failed), causing the Profile to not enter "Active" status.
How to handle: Go to【Channel Settings】→ select the Email channel and confirm that at least one Sender Profile has been created and that all 4 records on the【DNS verification】tab have passed. If DNS hasn't passed yet, make sure the records were added correctly at your domain provider (for Cloudflare, set Proxy to "DNS only"), then return to the【DNS verification】tab and click【Verify DNS】to re-verify.
Q: Why does my Email channel show "Suspended", and all emails have stopped sending?
This status indicates your Email channel has triggered the system's Automatic Suspension Policy. This is to protect your brand domain reputation and shared IP health; the system has forcibly suspended all sending functions.
Trigger Conditions (within the past 8 hours): The system monitors rolling data for the past 8 hours. If any of the following conditions are met, suspension will be triggered:
- Hard Bounce: bounce rate ≥ 10%
- Spam Report: report rate ≥ 0.8%
How to handle: Once suspended, you cannot restore it yourself. You must, in order: ① use a third-party tool to clean your list and remove invalid or high-risk Emails; ② organize the invalid list into a CSV, import it into MAAC, and update its status to "hard_bounce"; ③ once done, contact your CSM or Ops to apply for restoration—after manual review confirms the risk is eliminated, it will be manually restored.
Q: What does it mean when the Email channel shows "Warning"? Can I still send emails?
This status indicates your sender domain settings are incomplete, or recent sending health is declining. Although the system currently still allows Email sending, this is a strong warning. If not addressed, it may cause emails to land in spam folders more easily or even worsen to "Suspended" status.
Common Reasons:
- Domain verification missing: Your Sender Domain verification is incomplete, e.g. SPF passed but DKIM failed (or alignment failed).
- Health decline (past 8 hours): Your sending data triggered the warning threshold — bounce rate ≥ 2%, or complaint rate ≥ 0.1% (no minimum count).
How to handle: If it's a verification issue, contact your IT department to check DNS records (SPF/DKIM). If it's a health issue, we recommend immediately suspending high-risk marketing campaigns, reviewing the source and content quality of recent lists, and cleaning your list to avoid deterioration triggering suspension.
Q: After activation, can I edit my sender settings or add a sender domain myself?
Yes. Now that the Email channel is self-managed, you can add a Sender Domain, create or adjust Sender Profiles, and re-verify DNS on the【DNS verification】tab — all within【Channel Settings】.
III. Unsubscribe
Q: A contact says they unsubscribed but still received an email. Why?
Unsubscribing is per "the sender domain the recipient unsubscribed from." If they still receive emails, they may be coming from another sender domain. You can view the contact's subscription status by sender domain in their profile.
Q: Can I resend to a contact who has unsubscribed?
Unsubscribed contacts are automatically excluded from all Broadcasts. To restore them, the recipient themselves must click the "Re-subscribe" link on the MAAC-hosted unsubscribe page; you cannot manually change them back to subscribed.
Q: Can non-marketing emails (e.g. transactional/notification) be sent to unsubscribed contacts?
No. The system automatically applies the suppression list and it cannot be bypassed; in this version, transactional or notification emails sent via Customer Journey are also subject to the unsubscribe exclusion rule.
IV. Email Function Billing
Q. Why can't I use the "Send Email" node in the journey, and the button shows Upgrade?
This means your Email channel has not completed the activation process. Go to Admin Center →【Channel Settings】→【Add channel】→ Email to complete your sender domain setup and DNS verification yourself; once verification passes and the channel activates, this node will be unlocked.
Q. How is the Email sending function charged? Is there a free quota?
The Email function adopts a "Plan Quota + Overage Pay-per-use" model:
- Plan Quota: The system provides a corresponding free sending quota monthly based on your subscription plan level.
-
Overage Billing: If the monthly sending volume exceeds the free quota provided by the plan, the excess will be charged on a "per email" basis.
(Note: For detailed plan quotas and overage unit prices, please consult your CSM or refer to the quotation.)
Q. How are overage fees deducted? Is a separate top-up required?
Directly deducted from MAAC points, sharing the balance with SMS. Overage fees for Email share the same MAAC Points Pool (CL Points Pool) with SMS/MMS messages. You do not need to open a separate account. As long as the MAAC point balance is sufficient, the system will automatically deduct Email fees; if the balance is insufficient, please top up points according to the existing process.
Q. If email delivery fails (e.g., recipient address does not exist), will I still be charged?
The system has a "Hard Bounce Credit-back" mechanism. The system deducts points at the moment of sending, but if the email is determined to be a Hard Bounce (e.g., mailbox does not exist, domain error) within 24 hours after sending, the system will automatically execute Credit-back, refunding the fee for that email to your account, ensuring you do not pay for invalid lists.
When you complete the channel activation and contact import above, you can start sending Email. To create and send Broadcasts, see: 👉 Feature Guide | Email Broadcast; for Email editor operations and journey node settings, see: 👉 Feature Guide | Email Omnichannel Journeys & Editor Tutorial