A bulk email is the act of sending one email to a large group at once. Marketing messages, newsletters, updates, and invitations typically comprise bulk emails. ACC offices often have the need to send bulk emails for these and other purposes.
Services such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and others often handle the sending of these emails through their platforms. These platforms require configurations and adjustments to send the emails so they are delivered and are not marked as spam and/or malicious messages.
If your office or department has purchased or plans to purchase an account with a third-party bulk email service which generates an email where “@austincc.edu” appears on the right side of the @ symbol for the “from: address,” you must follow the guidelines below.
Note: ACC office and departmental-level accounts for third-party bulk email providers are paid through from their respective departmental budgets.
A collegewide/enterprise third-party bulk email vendor account for sending to external email lists or external/internal hybrid contact lists does not exist at this time.
The bulk email software that ACC uses to send exclusively to internal contact lists (austincc.edu email addresses only) is called ReGroup. (Guidelines for ReGroup use will be linked here when available.)
From address formatting
An office or group name must be designated in the sender’s address.
No emails should be sent from “Austin Community College” or “Austin Community College District”. Emails can be sent from “The Office of Online Learning Support & Embedded Services at Austin Community College” or similar.
The email “from” address should reflect this in some way.
Ex: learningsupport@austincc.edu
Account owners should make an effort to represent their department or office through appropriate graphics and content, rather than Austin Community College in a general sense.
Email domain authentication
To prevent your emails from bouncing, ACC has authenticated its email domain and configured it with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM).
Avoid being marked as spam or being blacklisted
Your bulk email-sending service should have tools incorporated into the platform that assist with the following best-practice recommendations for bulk email sending.
- Verification of your mailing list
- Avoiding adding suspicious links or attachments
- Always having a plain-text email version
- Including a visible unsubscribe link
- Using a recognizable sender name and address
- Following brand standards for content and design
- Blacklist status monitoring
- Opt-in processes
- Mailing list maintenance
Consult with ACC IT
ACC IT can assist with technical requirements that a third-party bulk email sending service may have in order to meet the recommendations above. ACC IT may be required to:
- Create new email ACC email addresses that can be used for bulk-sending purposes
- Edit and add entries to the DNS file(s)
- Adding emails to a safe senders list
- Allowing third-party IP delivery addresses
- and other technical requirements.
Please submit a Mojo ticket to begin this process.
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