Transactional emails are messages that are necessary to complete a transaction or process a recipient has already started with you. They’re typically one-to-one, sent to existing customers, and contain information the recipient expects (for example, receipts or password resets).
Transactional emails are available in Act-On by request as an add-on purchase. Transactional sending requires strict adherence to Act-On’s policies and must not contain any marketing or advertising material.
Quick Reference: Transactional Email in Act-On
- What it’s for: One-to-one messages required to complete an existing transaction or process.
- What it’s not for: Newsletters, promotions, coupons, or broadcast messaging.
- How it sends: Uses IP addresses dedicated to transactional sending to support inbox placement.
- Suppression behavior: Opt-outs and email fatigue are bypassed, but domain-based suppression still applies.
- Who can use it: Admin users only.
- Critical setup tip: Do not select a subscription category for transactional emails.
- Duplicate handling: Duplicates are not suppressed—clean your list before sending.
Examples
Examples of transactional email
- Receipts and purchase confirmation
- Shipping confirmation and order tracking
- Product registration
- Password reset emails
- Disruptions to products and services (like software downtime or facilities being closed)
- Form submission confirmation. Learn more
These are not transactional emails
- Newsletters
- Coupons or deals for existing customers
- Reminders about a transaction that was not completed
- All-customer emails not connected to past transactions
How does Act-On handle transactional sending?
Act-On sends transactional emails from IP addresses dedicated to this purpose. This helps support high inbox placement rates. Act-On will also bypass opt-outs and email fatigue logic to prevent transactional emails from being suppressed; however, domain-based suppression will still take place.
Act-On’s transactional sending policy
Because these messages are treated very differently from marketing emails, Act-On has strict policies governing this feature. To keep transactional IPs high quality, we monitor transactional messages and may revoke this feature from accounts that use it inappropriately. Please talk to your Account Manager if you need more information.
Instructions
How to request the transactional email feature
To purchase Act-On’s transactional email add-on:
- Contact your Account Manager and provide the following:
- The specific business cases you have requiring this feature
- When you need to start sending transactional messages
Please note: This feature may take two weeks or longer to be approved. - The account IDs that will need to use the feature
- Examples of each type of transactional message you will send
- Messages that are not shared and approved during this step will need to go through a longer approval process before they can be sent
- Our legal and compliance team will review your request – once approved, you will receive an order form to sign
- After the order is signed and processed, this functionality will be added to your account
How to send transactional messages
Try it like this
- Open your message in the Email Composer.
- In Settings, find Transactional Email.
- Select This is a transactional email.
- Review the tips below before you choose recipients and send.
- In the Email Composer in the Settings tab, under Transactional Email, select This is a transactional email:
Important tips
- When creating a transactional email, do not select any subscription category, as this may affect email deliverability.
- Ensure your list does not contain duplicate contacts before sending. As part of this feature’s design, duplicates are not suppressed. You can run manual maintenance and remove duplicates from your list if needed.
- Remember: transactional sending bypasses opt-outs and fatigue logic, but domain-based suppression may still prevent delivery to some domains.
- Keep content strictly transactional. Including marketing or promotional material can violate policy and may lead to loss of this feature.