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 senders you set up once on the Manage Sender Emails page: your own Gmail, Outlook, or SMTP mailbox — or, the recommended option, addresses you create on a verified custom domain (no mailbox or password needed). If a campaign pauses with Permission Issue / Reauthenticate, the fix is almost always: Manage Sender Emails → Refresh on that address (custom-domain senders never need reauthentication). Sending is deliberately paced (default 60/day per address) to protect deliverability, so you won't see a big burst.

Add a sender

Dashboard → Outreach → Email Campaigns → Manage Sender Emails (opens its own page) → Add Email, then pick:

• Custom Domain (recommended) — create addresses like outreach@yourbrandcreators.com on a domain you've verified. No inbox, password, or reauthentication — see the next section for the one-time domain setup.
• Gmail — OAuth sign-in with Google.
• Outlook — OAuth sign-in with Microsoft.
• Custom (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 sender to send from → pick recipients (new affiliates, a CRM group, or a saved list — any list works; the campaign reaches the members that have an email on file) → 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.)

Custom sending domains (recommended)

Instead of connecting a mailbox, you can verify a domain once and then create as many sender addresses on it as your plan allows:

1. Manage Sender Emails → Manage Domains → Add Domain. Enter a domain you control. We recommend a separate domain (e.g. mybrandcreators.com) or a subdomain (e.g. creators.mybrand.com) rather than your main domain, so outreach can never harm your primary domain's reputation.
2. Publish the DNS records shown. Cruva gives you the exact records: three CNAME records that set up DKIM email signing (required), plus a recommended DMARC record — Gmail and Yahoo require DMARC for bulk senders. Add them at your DNS provider (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, etc.).
3. Wait for verification. It's automatic — usually minutes, up to 72 hours depending on DNS propagation. Use the refresh icon next to the Pending badge to re-check.
4. Create addresses. Back on Manage Sender Emails → Add Email → Custom Domain, pick the verified domain, choose the part before the @, and optionally set a sender name (the From name recipients see, e.g. "Sam from MyBrand"). The sender name can be edited any time from the table.

Why it's the recommended option: no passwords or OAuth to expire (so no Permission Issue pauses), authentication (DKIM/DMARC) is set up correctly from day one, and you can spread volume across several addresses on the same verified domain.

One caveat — replies. A custom-domain address has no inbox behind it. Creators' replies go to wherever that domain's mail is actually hosted; if the domain has no mail hosting, you won't receive replies. If reply-handling matters, either add mail hosting for that domain or send from a connected Gmail/Outlook mailbox instead.

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

The sender you set up 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 Sender Emails is the button at the top of the Email Campaigns page — it opens its own page.

Fix "Permission Issue" / "Reauthenticate"

This only affects Gmail/Outlook senders (custom-domain and SMTP senders have no OAuth to expire). It means the mailbox's send permission expired or was revoked. In order, try:

1. Manage Sender 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 Sender Emails?"

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

The daily email limit (default 60)

Each sender address — mailbox or custom-domain — has a daily send limit, default 60, editable to any value between 1 and 150 in Manage Sender 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 sender gets you blocked.

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

Domain authentication & staying out of spam

How you authenticate depends on the sender type:

• Custom Domain senders: authentication is built into setup — the DNS records Cruva shows you when adding the domain handle DKIM signing, and the recommended DMARC record covers Gmail/Yahoo's bulk-sender requirements. Publish them once and you're done.
• Gmail / Outlook / SMTP mailboxes: 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 values to paste in for connected mailboxes. 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. (Custom-domain senders are the exception: they have no mailbox, so there's no Sent folder to check, and replies only arrive if that domain has mail hosting — see the custom domains section above.)

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 — for broader reach, upload your own addresses as a list, or build one from an AI Search with Only show creators with emails enabled.

"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.