Sending more than 5,000 marketing emails per day automatically makes you a “bulk sender” in the eyes of major email service providers. Amazon Pinpoint steps in to solve these challenges. The platform offers essential features like domain verification and one-click unsubscribe options. You can send up to 200 messages within 24 hours to unverified addresses, which helps you manage email campaigns while meeting compliance requirements effectively.

Let us show you how to Send Bulk Emails Using Amazon Pinpoint. Our comprehensive walkthrough covers everything from project setup to campaign launches that will set you up for success.

What is Amazon Pinpoint?

Amazon Pinpoint is a complete customer engagement service from AWS that helps organizations connect with their audience through multiple messaging channels. The platform works as a communication hub that brings together channels, segments, personalization campaigns, and customer trips into one unified tool.

The platform uses Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) infrastructure to deliver bulk emails reliably at scale. Pinpoint lets you arrange communications, set up scheduled campaigns and create multi-step customer trips, unlike manual email sending.

The service supports several communication channels beyond email:

• Push notifications
• SMS text messages
• Voice messages
• In-app notifications
• Custom channels

Set Up Amazon Pinpoint for Bulk Email

Amazon Pinpoint requires three key steps to start sending bulk emails effectively. You’ll need to create a project, verify your identity, and enable the required channels.

Create a new Pinpoint project

A project serves as the foundation for your email campaigns in Amazon Pinpoint. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and go to the Amazon Pinpoint console
2. Click on “Create a project” and enter a descriptive name (up to 64 characters)
3. The Configure features page lets you set up channels immediately or choose “Skip this step” to configure them later

Project names become permanent after creation. Your projects organize all your communication efforts by collecting settings, customer information, segments, and campaigns in one place.

Verify your email address or domain

Amazon Pinpoint requires identity verification before you can send any emails:

For email addresses:

1. Select “Email identities” under the Email section in the navigation pane
2. Choose “Verify email identity” and enter your email address
3. Look for a verification email from no-reply-aws@amazon.com
4. Click the verification link that remains valid for 24 hours

For domains:

1. Select “Domain” as the identity type from the Email identities page
2. Enter your domain name and click “Verify domain“
3. Add the provided CNAME records to your DNS configuration
4. Verification can take up to 72 hours

This process confirms ownership and stops unauthorized use of your identity.

Enable email and SMS channels

Your project needs channel activation after creation:

For email:

1. Go to Settings and select “Email“
2. Click “Edit” next to Identity details
3. Choose “Enable the email channel for this project”

For SMS (optional):

1. Select “SMS and voice” from Settings
2. Click “Edit” in the SMS settings section
3. Select “Enable the SMS channel for this project”
4. Set your spending limit and default message type

Your Amazon Pinpoint project becomes ready for bulk email campaigns after completing these steps.

Build and Import Your Contact List

Amazon Pinpoint requires you to define your audience before reaching out to them. Segments are the foundations of any bulk email campaign that determine your message recipients.

Create dynamic and imported segments

Amazon Pinpoint provides two distinct segment types that target your communications effectively:

Dynamic segments continuously evolve based on attributes you define. These segments automatically update to include or exclude users based on your criteria when you add new endpoints to Amazon Pinpoint or modify existing ones. You might create a segment of all customers who use version 2.0 of your app on Android devices or customers who live in Los Angeles.

Here’s how to create a dynamic segment:

1. Go to the Segments tab in your Pinpoint console
2. Select “Create a segment” and choose “Build a segment”
3. Name your segment (e.g., “Active Mobile Users”)
4. Configure segment groups by applying filters based on demographics, location, behavior, or user attributes
5. Save your segment

Imported segments stay static and unchanging. These work best when you already have customer lists outside of Amazon Pinpoint. Amazon Pinpoint cannot estimate the size of imported segments when creating campaigns, unlike dynamic segments.

Upload CSV or JSON files for static segments

Follow these steps to import existing contacts:

1. Prepare your data file in CSV or JSON format with appropriate attributes. You need at minimum:
   • Address (email)
   • ChannelType (EMAIL)
2. Your file must meet these requirements:
   • Uses UTF-8 character encoding
   • Is not compressed
   • Contains no more than 20 attributes per endpoint
3. Open the Pinpoint console and go to Segments
4. Select “Create a segment” then “Import a segment”
5. Choose “Upload files from your computer” or upload to Amazon S3 first
6. Select your prepared file(s) (up to 10 files simultaneously)
7. Provide a segment name or use the default (file name without extension)
8. Click “Create segment”

You can use imported segments as base segments and apply filters to refine your audience further. This method combines the benefits of importing existing lists with dynamic filtering flexibility.

Note that healthy contact lists are vital for successful email campaigns. Third-party or purchased lists can lead to complaints and harm your sender’s reputation.

Create and Launch Your Email Campaign

You can start crafting and launching your email campaign after setting up your project and creating segments. Amazon Pinpoint simplifies this process with its template features and scheduling options.

Design your email using templates

Amazon Pinpoint’s email templates let you create, save, and reuse content for multiple campaigns. These templates include reusable components called template parts – subject lines, body content, and settings for non-HTML fallback content.

Steps to create an email template:

1. Go to “Message templates” in the Pinpoint console
2. Click “Create template” and select “Email” as the channel
3. Choose a descriptive name (must begin with a letter/number and can contain up to 128 characters)
4. Add your subject line and design your message content

The email design process lets you switch between HTML view for manual code editing and Design view for the rich text editor. You can also add a personal touch to your messages by including variables that reference user’s specific attributes like first name or location.

Choose your target segment

Your next step after designing the email is selecting the audience segment that will receive your campaign:

1. Select either “Use an existing segment” or “Create a segment” on the “Choose a segment” page
2. Dynamic segments are required if you’re using an event-triggered campaign
3. You can specify a “segment hold-out” percentage to exclude random recipients and test your campaign’s effectiveness

Schedule and send your campaign

Amazon Pinpoint gives you four flexible scheduling options:

• Immediate delivery: Your campaign goes out right after creation
• One-time scheduled delivery: Pick a specific date and time for sending
• Recurring campaigns: Set up repeated sends (daily, weekly, monthly) with start and end dates
• Event-triggered campaigns: Your campaigns automatically send when customers take specific actions

Time-based campaigns can be sent based on each recipient’s local time zone, which helps boost engagement rates by delivering at the right times.

The final step is clicking “Launch Campaign” to activate your bulk email send through Amazon Pinpoint after reviewing all settings.

How much does Amazon pinpoint charge?

Amazon Pinpoint uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model. You pay only for what you use, with no minimum charges or contract negotiations. This makes it easier for organizations to start their bulk email campaigns.

The pricing structure has several key components:

Monthly Targeted Audience (MTA) charges:

• The first 5,000 endpoints each month come free
• Additional endpoints cost USD 0.00 each
• Each endpoint gets charged once per calendar month
• SendMessages API or Pinpoint SMS and Voice API users don’t pay this charge

Application event collection:

• Your first 100,000,000 monthly events are free
• Each event after that costs USD 0.00

Email sending costs:

• Standard pay-as-you-go rates based on volume
• Amazon SES pricing page shows detailed costs

In-app messaging:

• The first 15,000 API requests monthly come free
• Each additional request costs USD 0.00

What is the difference between Amazon SNS and pinpoint?

The fundamental differences between Amazon SNS and Amazon Pinpoint are vital to your bulk email strategy.

Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) we designed for machine-to-machine communications. It works best with transactional messages rather than marketing communications. SNS might be enough if you need basic SMS messaging without extra channels or detailed analytics.

Amazon Pinpoint stands as a complete multi-channel customer engagement service built for application-to-person (A2P) communications. SNS focuses on notification delivery, while Pinpoint has:

• Channel versatility – Supports SMS, email, push notifications, voice, and custom channels like messenger apps
• Marketing capabilities – Provides sophisticated tools for targeted messaging, tailored recommendations, and campaign management
• Advanced analytics – Offers detailed metrics to measure user engagement and campaign effectiveness
• Audience segmentation – Makes shared user segments based on attributes, behaviors, and demographics

Conclusion

How to Send Bulk Emails Using Amazon Pinpoint that comply with standards and work effectively. Its strong features include domain verification, segmentation tools, and live analytics. These capabilities let businesses target specific audiences with timely campaigns.

The Amazon Pinpoint setup process follows clear steps that both technical and non-technical users can handle. Organizations pay only for what they use with its pay-as-you-go model. This makes it a smart choice for companies regardless of their size.

Choosing between Amazon SNS and Pinpoint becomes clearer when you know their distinct features. SNS handles basic notifications well. Pinpoint shines with advanced marketing campaigns that need detailed segmentation and multiple communication channels.

Tools like CampaignHQ make bulk email campaign management easier when used with Amazon Pinpoint. The right combination of tools and proven methods will give a solid foundation for email campaigns that boost participation and meet deliverability requirements.

FAQ

What is the new name for Amazon Pinpoint?

AWS End User Messaging has become the new name for Amazon Pinpoint’s SMS, MMS, push, and text-to-voice messaging features. This change only affects these specific communication channels. Amazon Pinpoint’s marketing features such as campaigns, journeys, segmentation, and analytics keep their original name.

What is Amazon Pinpoint used for?

Amazon Pinpoint connects businesses with their customers through targeted messages across multiple channels. The platform lets you reach your audience through push notifications, in-app notifications, emails, text messages, voice messages, and custom channels. Marketing teams and developers can send personalized messages at the right time to boost customer engagement.

Is Amazon Pinpoint a CRM?

Some sources call Amazon Pinpoint a “fully managed customer relationship management (CRM) service“, but it’s really a customer engagement tool. Traditional CRM systems manage customer data across sales, marketing and service teams. Pinpoint focuses on the communication part of customer relationships.