Email Hub - GatherCRM
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Email Hub

1. What Email Hub does

Email Hub lets you create and send professional emails directly from GatherCRM.

You can use it for:

  • Individual emails
  • Campaigns to selected contacts or categories
  • Scheduled emails
  • Reusable templates
  • Automated email journeys
  • Personalised emails using merge tags
  • Campaign reports and tracked opens
  • Sent and delivery history
  • Unsubscribe and suppression management

Email Hub uses GatherCRM’s managed sending service and your verified business domain. You do not need to create or manage a separate email-delivery account.

2. Setting up Email Hub

Go to Email Hub → Email Settings.

Step 1: Accept the sending policy

Confirm that you will only email clients, contacts or people who reasonably expect to hear from your organisation.

Do not use purchased, scraped or unrelated mailing lists.

Step 2: Add your sending domain

Enter the part of your email address after the @.

For example, if you send from hello@yourcompany.co.uk, enter:

yourcompany.co.uk

Step 3: Add the DNS records

Email Hub will display the DNS records required to verify your domain.

Add these through your domain or DNS provider. If someone else manages your website or domain, use the available option to send the records to your web or IT contact.

Step 4: Verify the domain

After the records have been added, select Check my DNS records.

DNS changes are not always immediate. If verification fails, wait a little while and try again.

Step 5: Configure approved sender addresses

An administrator can add one or more approved sender profiles. Each profile contains:

  • The From name recipients will see
  • The From email address
  • Who is allowed to use it

For example, you might configure:

  • news@yourcompany.co.uk for everyone in the marketing team
  • support@yourcompany.co.uk for support staff
  • A director’s personal address for that person and selected senior users only

Sender profiles can be available to:

  • All Email Hub users
  • Selected WordPress roles
  • Specific users

Restricted addresses are not shown to unauthorised users. This prevents someone from selecting an executive or shared identity unless permission has been granted.

All sender addresses must use the verified sending domain.

Step 6: Send a test email

Send a test to yourself before sending to contacts. Check:

  • The From name and address
  • The subject
  • Personalisation
  • Links
  • Images
  • Mobile appearance
  • Spelling and formatting

The setup screen also shows your daily and monthly usage limits. Contact GatherCRM Support if your organisation needs higher limits.

3. Sending an email

Go to Email Hub → Compose.

Choose your audience

Depending on your permissions and installed GatherCRM modules, you can send to:

  • One contact
  • Selected contacts
  • Contacts in selected categories
  • A larger campaign audience
  • Secondary records where supported

Archived, unsubscribed, suppressed and invalid addresses are removed before sending.

If you schedule a category-based campaign, Email Hub checks the category again at send time. This means contacts added to or removed from the category before release are handled automatically.

Choose the sender

Use the Send from dropdown to select one of the sender profiles available to you.

If you only have access to one sender, Email Hub will explain that it is your only approved address.

Create the message

  1. Add a clear subject.
  2. Write your message.
  3. Add CC or BCC recipients if needed.
  4. Add an attachment if required.
  5. Insert merge tags to personalise the content.
  6. Preview the finished email.
  7. Send yourself a test.
  8. Choose Send now or Schedule for later.
  9. Review everything before confirming.

Larger campaigns are placed into the background email queue. You can monitor their progress under Email Hub → Queue.

Some users may not have permission to send bulk campaigns. This does not prevent them from sending ordinary individual emails.

4. Using merge tags

Merge tags insert information from each recipient’s GatherCRM record.

Common examples include:

  • First name
  • Last name
  • Company
  • Other configured GatherCRM fields

Insert merge tags using the Merge tag dropdown in the composer.

Always preview and test an email containing merge tags. A merge tag can only display information that exists on the recipient’s record.

5. Using templates

Go to Email Hub → Templates.

Templates are helpful for messages you send regularly, such as:

  • Welcome emails
  • Follow-ups
  • Reminders
  • Event information
  • Client updates
  • Renewal notices

You can create and edit templates, use merge tags inside them, and load them into the composer.

Loading a template does not send it immediately. You can still edit, preview and test it first.

6. Scheduling emails

Choose Schedule for later in the composer and select a future date and time.

Go to Email Hub → Scheduled to:

  • View scheduled emails
  • Preview their content
  • Edit a pending email
  • Change the send time
  • Cancel a send
  • Delete a scheduled email
  • Clone an old or completed email into a new message

A scheduled email uses the permissions and approved sender profile of the person who created it. If that person loses access to the selected sender or no longer has bulk-send permission, the email will not be released.

Scheduled delivery relies on the website scheduler. Emails should normally be released close to the selected time, although exact timing can depend on the website’s cron configuration.

7. Using journeys

Go to Email Hub → Journeys.

Journeys automatically send a sequence of emails to enrolled contacts.

For example:

  • Welcome email immediately
  • Helpful introduction five days later
  • Follow-up seven days after the previous email
  • Trial-expiry reminder 25 days after the journey started

For each step, choose whether its delay is calculated:

  • After the previous email — useful for a sequence where every message follows the last one.
  • After the journey started — useful for fixed milestones such as trial expiry, renewal dates or onboarding deadlines.

Journey steps always run in order. A later step will not jump ahead of an earlier unsent step.

You can also:

  • Duplicate journeys
  • Pause or resume participants
  • Preview individual steps
  • Open the Journey Tracker
  • Review errors or overdue contacts

If business-hour restrictions are enabled, a due email may be moved to the next permitted sending window.

8. Sent and delivery history

Go to Email Hub → Sent.

This is the main history screen for Email Hub. The former separate Logs screen has been merged into Sent.

You can:

  • Search sent emails
  • See whether a message is queued, sent, cancelled or failed
  • Open an email to inspect its content and recipients
  • Clone a previous email into the composer
  • View delivery diagnostics
  • Review earlier delivery records

Large campaigns may initially show as Queued while they are processed in the background.

Older delivery records may contain less detail than newer entries. For example, an older record might not have a stored message body available for previewing or cloning.

9. Checking reports

Go to Email Hub → Reports.

The overview shows:

  • Campaigns
  • Recipients
  • Tracked opens
  • Average tracked open rate
  • Provider events
  • Active suppressions

Open a campaign to see recipient-level activity, repeat tracked opens, delivery events, clicks where supported, and bounce or complaint information.

Open tracking is only an indication of engagement. Some email applications block tracking images, while others preload them automatically. A tracked open does not always mean the person actively read the email, and a missing open does not prove they did not.

10. Managing deliverability

Go to Email Hub → Deliverability.

This area helps protect your sending reputation and includes:

  • Domain and authentication checks
  • Queue health
  • Unsubscribe configuration
  • Suppressed email addresses
  • Provider events
  • Bounce and complaint information

A suppressed address is blocked from future campaign sends. Common reasons include:

  • The person unsubscribed
  • Their address hard-bounced
  • They reported an email as spam
  • An administrator added the suppression manually

Do not remove a suppression simply to force another email through. First confirm that the address is correct and that the person has asked to receive emails again.

Suppression lists can also be imported from CSV where required.

11. Saving copies to Outlook

If your organisation has enabled the Microsoft connection, go to Email Hub → Email Settings and find the Outlook section.

Each user can:

  1. Select Connect Outlook.
  2. Sign in to their own Microsoft 365 account.
  3. Approve the requested mailbox permission.
  4. Enable Save sent emails to Outlook.

When enabled, Email Hub can add a copy of eligible individual emails to that user’s Outlook Sent Items folder.

Postmark still delivers the email. Outlook does not send it again.

This currently applies to individual user-originated emails and scheduled individual emails. It does not add copies of bulk campaigns, journeys, automations or test emails, which prevents an Outlook mailbox from being filled with campaign messages.

If the Outlook copy fails, the original email can still be sent successfully.

If you see An administrator must configure the Microsoft application, the Microsoft connection has not yet been configured for the website. Being a WordPress administrator does not configure the Microsoft application automatically; this requires Microsoft Entra application credentials to be added securely to the website.

12. Top tips

  • Always send yourself a test.
  • Check the selected From address before sending.
  • Keep executive and personal sender profiles restricted.
  • Use shared addresses such as news@… only where appropriate.
  • Keep subject lines clear and honest.
  • Preview every email that contains merge tags.
  • Only email people who expect to hear from you.
  • Never use purchased or scraped mailing lists.
  • Keep messages focused and useful.
  • Use templates for repeated communications.
  • Use After journey started for fixed deadlines.
  • Use After the previous email for ordinary nurture sequences.
  • Check the Scheduled screen after arranging an important send.
  • Monitor the Queue for larger campaigns.
  • Treat tracked opens as a guide, not an exact measurement.
  • Respect unsubscribes, bounces and complaints.
  • Start with smaller campaigns while a new domain builds its sending reputation.
  • Contact GatherCRM Support if you need higher sending limits or help with domain verification.