Send through External Email Services
Send through External Email Services is a Setup feature that allows organizations to route outbound emails from Salesforce through an external email service like Amazon SES or SendGrid instead of Salesforce's built-in email servers.
Definition
Send through External Email Services is a Setup feature that allows organizations to route outbound emails from Salesforce through an external email service like Amazon SES or SendGrid instead of Salesforce's built-in email servers. This provides greater control over email deliverability, tracking, and compliance.
In plain English
“Here's a simple way to think about it: Send through External Email Services routes Salesforce mail through your real email infrastructure - Amazon SES, SendGrid, corporate SMTP. Salesforce mail gains your reputation, scanning, archiving, brand consistency.”
Worked example
The admin at Summit Retail configures Send through External Email Services to route all outbound Salesforce emails through their Amazon SES account. This gives the email marketing team access to SES's advanced bounce handling, reputation monitoring, and delivery analytics, while maintaining the ability to send emails directly from Salesforce records.
Why Send through External Email Services routes Salesforce mail through your real email infrastructure
Salesforce can send email through its own servers, or it can hand each message off to an external email service like Amazon SES, SendGrid, or your corporate SMTP relay. Send through External Email Services is the toggle that makes the latter possible. With it enabled, every outbound email from Salesforce passes through your specified service first - gaining whatever deliverability tooling, archive integration, and tracking the external service provides.
The reason most large orgs eventually configure this is volume and reputation. Salesforce's IP reputation is shared across many customers, and one customer's spam problem can affect everyone else's deliverability. Routing through your own ESP gives you a reputation you control. Set this up before you have a deliverability problem, monitor bounce rates and complaint rates, and treat the configuration as part of your overall email program rather than a Salesforce-specific concern.
How organizations use Send through External Email Services
Routed via corporate SMTP for HIPAA-required scanning; outbound email passes the same checks as employee mail.
Marketing emails sent through dedicated SES IP; deliverability improved as reputation became company-controlled.
All Salesforce email lands in the company-wide e-discovery archive automatically; compliance posture defensible.
Test your knowledge
Q1. In which area of Salesforce would you typically find Send through External Email Services?
Q2. What is the primary benefit of Send through External Email Services for Salesforce administrators?
Q3. Why is understanding Send through External Email Services important for Salesforce admins?
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