WordPress: Sending Newsletters

The installation wizard guides the user through the initial setup of the plugin (steps and screenshots show the status from 2017; it looks different in current versions). This initial setup is very minimalist. The configuration of the delivery technology (SMTP) or subscriber lists can be performed later.

In this step, you define the sender address and the name that the recipient sees.

Here you can configure a “minimal form” that can be placed as a widget on the website.

This screen merely provides information about the installation status. This page is likely one of those that will soon disappear from the wizard 😉

Simply enter an email address—preferably one you have access to.

The form was created in Step 2; now you can place the widget via the menu item “Appearance > Widgets.” In block themes, this menu item no longer exists—there you insert the form, for example, with the shortcode [newsletter_form] in the Site Editor. You can also skip this step if you want to perform the integration later or embed the form in another way.

So, that’s it. It is best to now click on Dashboard and go through the functions and options of the plugin.

We specified the sender address in the wizard. This email address is what the recipient sees in their email client. In addition, two other addresses can be configured:

1. The Return Path: this is the bounce address. If the recipient’s mail system cannot process the address, the mail system sends a corresponding notification to the address specified here.
2. The Reply-To address: this is simply the email address that is automatically used when a recipient clicks reply.

We will address the topic of license keys later.

Important: if you use a mail gateway service, these two addresses (Return Path and Reply To) may be overwritten. You can specify the addresses either directly in the integration plugin or in the customer interface of the mail gateway provider. More on this topic can be found in the Advanced Settings section.

Even if it is annoying to take 3 or 4 hours for 1,000 recipients: without significantly greater effort (or budget), it is not possible or sensible to deliver more than 300–400 emails per hour. Receiving systems are usually configured so that after a certain number of emails per hour, they automatically flag all further incoming emails from the delivering mail system as spam and may even bounce them (send them back to the bounce address).

This applies to delivery via your own web server or a standard mailbox. With a delivery service (mail gateway), 10,000 emails per hour and more are realistic according to the plugin documentation. As of 2026, major mailbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo also require newsletter senders to have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for the sender domain, as well as one-click unsubscription (List-Unsubscribe)—otherwise, the emails will end up in spam or be rejected.

Various settings can be configured here, e.g., access permissions to the plugin for editors, log level (collection of technical information), and debug mode (if the plugin should not function correctly). More interesting is the item Send email directly. This option is important, and the On/Off state depends on how the emails are actually to be sent. There are several possibilities:

1. Direct delivery via WordPress: WordPress not only generates the emails but sends them itself. This option will be problematic with many hosters, as WordPress is often configured so that only a few emails can be sent. The risk of abuse by a hacked WordPress installation is simply too great.
2. Delivery via mail service provider and plugin integration: instead of entering SMTP credentials directly, the mail gateway integration is created via a dedicated plugin.
3. SMTP delivery via a mail gateway: here, a mail gateway can be entered via the SMTP section to handle the delivery. This means that the emails are generated by the plugin and passed to the specified server.

For the first and second options, Send email directly must be set to On; otherwise, it should be set to No.

Similar to mail delivery, encoding is only relevant if WordPress itself delivers the emails. If the emails are sent via another service provider, the encoding can be determined through them. By the way, the German translation at this point is incorrect (it says Email Verschlüsselung instead of Codierung).

Status 2026: In current versions of the plugin, these options are named and arranged differently. By default, Newsletter sends via the WordPress mail function; an SMTP plugin, the built-in SMTP function, or one of the add-ons for delivery services is recommended.

Here, content elements can be placed into the template via drag and drop and then filled with content.

In this step, only a title is defined. This is the subject of the newsletter, which is what the recipient sees first. One should be careful here. Titles like “Super Sale! Everything for free” etc. are often perceived as spam.

By default, all recipients are selected. However, you can select one or more lists (or other criteria) to define the recipient group more precisely.

This is mainly about activating Tracking—the statistics can then be followed in real time—and defining the delivery start (date and time).

The option Keep Private refers to the use of the Public Archive extension (formerly Newsletter Archive Extension), which can be used to create a newsletter archive on the website. Newsletters that are intended to be private will not be listed there.

In 2017, the Newsletter plugin did not yet support WPML; subscription at checkout with language lists could only be solved via customizations in functions.php. As of 2026, the plugin officially supports WPML and Polylang (TranslatePress partially): forms and texts can be translated per language, and the subscriber’s language is saved. Details can be found in the documentation on multilingualism.