Email campaigns: setup, reconnecting, and deliverability

For operators running (or trying to start) email outreach to creators from their own mailbox.

The short answer

Email campaigns send from your own Gmail, Outlook, or custom-domain (SMTP) mailbox, connected once via Manage Emails. Emails come from your real address and replies land in your normal inbox. If a campaign pauses with Permission Issue / Reauthenticate, the fix is almost always: Manage Emails → Refresh on that address. Sending is deliberately paced (default 60/day per address) to protect deliverability, so you won't see a big burst.

Connect a mailbox

Dashboard → Outreach → Email Campaigns → Manage Emails (top of the page) → Add Email, then pick:

• Gmail — OAuth sign-in with Google.
• Outlook — OAuth sign-in with Microsoft.
• Custom domain (SMTP) — enter host, port (587 STARTTLS or 465 SSL/TLS), username (usually your full email), and password. If your provider has 2FA (Gmail/Yahoo/iCloud/Fastmail, etc.) use an app password from that provider's security settings, not your login password.

Then create a campaign: New Campaign on the Email Campaigns page → choose which connected mailbox to send from → pick recipients (new affiliates, a CRM group, or an uploaded email list) → set the per-campaign daily message limit → write your subject and body → start it. (Note: email campaigns don't have follow-up sequences or send scheduling — those live on Automations.)

"Manage Emails" is not the same as the Cruva app email

The mailbox you connect here is the address you want to send campaigns from. It has nothing to do with the address Cruva generated when you installed the app. Manage Emails lives on the Email Campaigns page, at the top.

Fix "Permission Issue" / "Reauthenticate"

This means the mailbox's send permission expired or was revoked. In order, try:

1. Manage Emails → click the Refresh (reauthenticate) icon on that address, and complete the sign-in. This alone fixes it most of the time.

2. If it's a brand-new address that has never sent mail: log into that mailbox directly and send one real email to anyone, then reauthenticate in Cruva.

3. Workspace/business domains (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365): your admin may need to allow third-party app access before reauthentication will succeed.

You do not need to add any Cruva-specific SPF/DNS record just to connect a Gmail address — connecting the account is enough.

"No email found" / "where is Manage Emails?"

If a campaign says no sender email is available, you haven't connected a mailbox yet (or it was removed). Go to Email Campaigns → Manage Emails → Add Email. The table shows "No emails associated with this shop found" until you connect one.

The daily email limit (default 60)

Each connected address has a daily send limit, default 60, editable to any value between 1 and 150 in Manage Emails (pencil icon on the address). The cap exists to protect your domain's reputation and avoid spam flags — sending hundreds at once from a fresh mailbox gets you blocked.

Raise it gradually as the mailbox builds a good sending history.

Domain authentication & staying out of spam

To keep campaign email out of spam, authenticate your sending domain at your email/DNS provider:

• Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in your provider's admin (e.g. Google Workspace) and DNS host (e.g. GoDaddy).
• These records live with your provider, not Cruva — Cruva doesn't supply an SPF value to paste in. Once your domain is properly linked to Gmail/Outlook, sending works normally.

"It says sent 4 but I don't see them in my inbox"

Two things:

1. You won't see them in your Inbox — check your Sent folder. Outgoing campaign mail sits in Sent, not Inbox.

2. Sends are paced. The campaign trickles emails out over time to avoid spam flags, so the count climbs gradually rather than all at once. If Sent looks momentarily behind, it's usually just provider lag.

Replies from creators land in your normal inbox as usual, since the mail is sent from your real address.

Common problems

"Why does my email campaign keep stopping?" Most often: the mailbox lost permission (reauthenticate), the daily limit was hit (resets next day), or it ran out of recipients with valid emails. For groups/new_affiliates sources, only creators with a known email are contacted — upload an email list for broader reach.

"Campaign shows Completed with people remaining." The remaining recipients were already emailed (by this or another campaign) or resolved to 0 eligible. Turn on the Auto Resolve Conflicts toggle (it migrates creators from prior conflicting invites) and check the recipient list has active addresses. See the statuses article.