How to Configure WP Mail SMTP for Email Marketing

Have you heard about WP Mail SMTP? It is a WordPress plugin that helps you send emails reliably, ensuring easy deliverability. Installing the plugin to your website can be key to send promotional emails easily with no problems. To know more about WP Mail SMTP, let us show you how to install it and what SMTP is and how it works.

What Is SMTP?

Simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) is a protocol for email transmission. Message transfer agents and mail servers utilize SMTP to receive and send emails.

Proprietary systems like Microsoft Exchange and webmail systems like Gmail can utilize non-standard protocols in their systems, but all of them use SMTP to receive and send emails from outside their systems.

How Does SMTP Work?

In simpler terms, SMTP acts like shorthand that lets a server divide the different parts of a message into sections or categories, so the other server understands. If a message is sent, SMTP converts the message into strings of text separated by codes to determine every section’s purpose.

Why Use WP Mail SMTP?

The plugin primarily lets you send emails successfully. It fixes your email deliverability by customizing WordPress to utilize an SMTP provider for sending emails.

It also allows you to control the emails your website should send and to keep track of your emails automatically in your website.

How to Install WP Mail SMTP

To get started with the plugin, you must install it first on your WordPress website. Go to Plugins from your Dashboard menu and select Add New.

Type “wp mail smtp” in the search box and wait for the plugin to appear in the search results. Once it does, click Install Now and then Activate on it.

Go to the plugin’s settings to configure your email system.

On the settings page, your email is automatically used. For From Name, you can change it to your name to make it more personalized.

For the Mailer section, select the type you will use. We recommend not to use PHP because it marks your email as spam.

From our example, we will use Other SMTP.

Log in to your control panel and go to Email. Choose Email Accounts.

On the page, you will see the same email you used on WordPress. Click Connect Devices from your email row.

From there, you will see the settings for your email system. Copy the name of the domain listed in the Outgoing Server field under the Secure SSL/TLS Settings section and paste it in the SMTP Host field in the settings of the plugin on WordPress.

Choose SSL for Encryption. For SMTP Port, WordPress automatically fills in the port number, which is the same as what you have in your control panel.

Authentication should be on, and you should provide the username and password for it. For the username, it is the same as what you see in the username field in your control panel. By default, it is usually your email address.

The password should also be the same as what you use for the email or username in your control panel. If you cannot remember it, you can simply reset the password by going back to the Email Accounts page.

Choose Manage from the row.

Create the password for the email or you can generate it by clicking Generate. 

Copy or take note of the password and then click Update Email Settings at the bottom to save the changes.

Go back to WordPress and paste the password. Click Save Settings.

You can perform an email test to check if it works by going to the Email Test settings.

You should receive the email once you do this.

Conclusion

Using WP Mail SMTP makes things easier for you in terms of email delivery. Before installing the plugin to your WordPress website, make sure you understand how SMTP works to benefit your content marketing strategy.

Follow our guide in installing WP Mail SMTP now and start generating leads and increasing conversions!