Click & Pay (Salesforce): Dispatch - Email - Mass Email

This article includes instructions for:

SendGrid Integration

SendGrid and Click & Pledge are connected in CONNECT (login.connect.clickandpledge.com).  To use this integration, you’ll need a SendGrid account. SendGrid's free trial will not work with Mass Email , you need at least the Marketing Campaigns Basic Plan to create and manage contact lists. For details please see CONNECT: 3rd Party Integrations - SendGrid – Click & Pledge.  

⚠️ Before You Begin: Email Domain Verification

Before you can send mass email through Dispatch, you must complete two one-time setup steps outside of Click & Pledge. These are requirements of SendGrid and Salesforce, not Click & Pledge, and must be completed by your organization's IT staff or whoever manages your email domain.

Before you begin: You will need access to your organization's DNS settings to complete these steps. If you are not sure who manages your domain, contact your IT department before proceeding.

Step 1: Authenticate Your Sending Domain in SendGrid

SendGrid requires you to verify that you own the domain you are sending email from. This is called Sender Authentication. Without it, your emails are more likely to be flagged as spam or blocked entirely.

This is a one-time setup that involves adding DNS records to your domain.

Tip: SendGrid provides step-by-step instructions for this process. See SendGrid: How to Set Up Domain Authentication for current guidance.

Step 2: Verify Your Email Domain in Salesforce

Salesforce now requires organizations to verify ownership of any non-Salesforce email domain used to send email from a Salesforce org. If this is not completed, Salesforce will substitute a different sending address for your emails.

⚠️ Important: Salesforce will begin substituting unverified email addresses between June 29, 2026 and July 27, 2026. If you have not verified your domain, your emails may appear to come from an address your patrons do not recognize. Complete this step as soon as possible.

Note: This requirement applies to the Core Salesforce Platform only. It does not affect Marketing Cloud or Marketing Cloud Advanced.

See Salesforce Help: Email Domain Verification for current instructions.

Once both steps are complete, return here to continue setting up Dispatch.

After the connection is established login to Salesforce and go to Click & Pay Suite > Dispatch > Email > Mass Email > Settings to complete the setup of Mass Emailing using SendGrid.

Things To Do Before You Create A Message

After you update Settings and before creating a Message, ensure you have the following created or assigned:

• Update Account Settings
• Unsubscribe Group
• Custom Fields
• Senders
• Lists

Update Settings in Dispatch

ACCOUNT DETAILS

Account Settings

Click the "Sync Account Details" button.  This will bring in the account contact from SendGrid.  Edit the contact information if necessary.

Alert Settings

Click the "Sync Alert Settings" button.  If there are no Alert Settings in SendGrid, add new alerts.  You may create alerts for Email Credit Usage and Email Statistics Summary.

Mail Settings

Event Settings - add email addresses to forward bounces to or receive spam reports .

Suppression Settings - Add addresses/domains that should never have the email suppressed.  Or you may allow automatic purging of bounce records after a specified period of time.

Legacy Template Settings - Allows you to customize outgoing HTML emails.

NOTE:  

SUPPRESSIONS

NOTE: A minimum of one Unsubscribe Group must be created to assign to a Message.

Global Unsubscribe – When a user unsubscribes from all the emails they are receiving.

Group Unsubscribes – Allows the user to unsubscribe from a certain type of email without unsubscribing from all emails.

Bounces – Emails that have been rejected by the recipient’s email server or sent back to the SendGrid server because of an issue with the recipient address.

Spam Reports -The email has been marked as spam by the recipient

Blocks – Emails may be blocked by the recipient’s email server for a reason related to the message, but not the email address of the recipient, e.g., the sending IP address, or message content.  Because the blocks are message-specific, messages to these address(es) will be blocked going forward.

Invalid - Emails that were sent to an invalid email address

Unsubscribe Groups – A way to organize different types of email communications so that recipients can choose which kinds they want to receive—or stop receiving—without unsubscribing from everything
 

CUSTOM FIELDS

Custom fields allow you to add extra information about a recipient to be used as merge fields in your messages.  Custom fields are completely customizable to the use cases and recipient information you need.

NOTE: Custom fields that begin with a number will cause issues when sending with Marketing Campaigns

WARNING:  Deleting a custom field deletes the values for that field across the Contact database.  In addition, Single Sends. Automation Emails using a custom field as a tag, or segments using the field as a condition will be broken.

For additional information about what happens when fields are deleted and troubleshooting, please see the SendGrid article at https://www.twilio.com/docs/sendgrid/ui/managing-contacts/custom-fields

Three types of custom fields may be created.

• Date – allows you to select contact before, after, or on a specific date, .e.g., 1/1/2025
• Text – allows you to add specific text for your recipient.  Limited to 1,000 characters.
• Number – allows you do use criteria such as “greater thank,” “less than,” or “equals” a specific number, e.g., the “age” of your recipient: 27.

There are preloaded, unremovable reserved fields in your SendGrid account used to trace metrics for your contacts.

SendGrid auto-populates six reserved fields:

 
SENDERS

You can create multiple Senders to send messages from different names or departments, allowing for tailored branding per campaign.

To add Senders click the "+Create Sender" button and complete the required fields.

LISTS

NOTE:  If you wish for the mass email stats to be included on the Contact layout, the list being used must include the Contact ID.

Existing Contacts in SendGrid

If you have an existing SendGrid account with contacts, click the Sync Contacts button to bring in your existing contact list(s). 

Add New Contacts to SendGrid

There are three options to add new contacts:  Existing Report, Existing Campaign, or Upload .csv.

NOTE:  In each of the three options select one of the following:

• Add contacts and include in a new list.
• Add contacts and include in an existing List.

For each option, you will enter a Distribution List Name and map the Email column in the file you are adding to the Email Custom field in SendGrid.  In the mapping you may add additional columns included in your report to be used as merge fields in the newsletter.

Existing Campaign
 Click the "New Contact" button and select Existing Campaign.

• You may choose to add contacts and include in a new list or add contacts and include in an existing list.
• Add the Distribution List Name
• Select the Campaign you are creating the list from.
  • Set up Field Mapping.  Select the Contact Fields to map to the Custom Fields

Existing Report
 Click the "New Contact" button and select Existing Campaign.

• You may choose to add contacts and include in a new list or add contacts and include in an existing list.
• Add the Distribution List Name
• Select the report Folder you are creating the list from.
• Select the Report you wish to use. 
  • Set up Field Mapping.  Select the Report Column to map to the Custom Fields.

Upload CSV 

This allows you to create a list of recipients to add as contacts in Dispatch These recipients do not need to be contacts in your Salesforce Instance. If they are not, you may create a Salesforce Contact for the recipients in this list.

The Download button will download a template that has the columns for Email, First Name and Last Name.  You may also add additional columns with contact information and map these columns to custom fields

After adding your Distribution List Name drag the file you are uploading in from File Manager.

After uploading your file, you may choose to Create a Salesforce Contact for the recipients in your file. 

Complete the mapping and Save.

Create a Message

In Dispatch under Mass Email go to Marketing > Messages
Click "+ Create a Message", choose a template and compose your message.  All templates are displayed but you may select from Newsletter, Thank You, or Acknowledgement.

The message is customizable. Message Settings, Recipients, Salesforce Campaign and Scheduling in the settings on the left must be completed.
 

SETTINGS
Message Settings

Note:   If you check the box for Engagement Plan, you will add the Salesforce Campaign and set the scheduling as part of the Engagement Plan creation.

Required fields are Message name, From Sender, Subject, and is this an Engagement Plan message?

Recipients

Select the list to be used and the Unsubscribe Group.

Salesforce Campaign:  

Select your Salesforce Campaign and the member status for this message.

Note:  If Engagement Plan was selected in the Manage Settings box you will not be required to select the Campaign Member Status.

Scheduling

You may send the message

• Immediately
• As a recurring Campaign (select the first send date, how often it will be sent, and when it will end).
• On a specific date and time.

ELEMENTS

Elements allow you to go beyond simple text input formatting your message and adding features that enhance readability, visual presentation, and functionality.  These include Typography, Media, Layout, Button, Social and Footer.

PROPERTY

After selecting Property, click in any area of the message to see the properties of that area.  Properties may be edited.
 

MERGE TAGS

Merge tags are used to add information in Salesforce to the message, e.g., First Name in a Salutation.  Available merge fields include Contact fields Click & Pledge has set as default, fields that have been preset by SendGrid, and custom fields you may have added to SendGrid.

Engagement Plan

The engagement plan creates a strategic approach to design and sending campaign messages that not only reach the target audience but also track and respond to their interactions. You create messages to align with campaign goals and distributed email. As recipients engage—whether by opening, clicking, or donating—their campaign member status is automatically updated to reflect their level of interaction. This dynamic tracking enables more personalized follow-up actions, such as sending appropriate emails on specific dates based on each member’s status. The plan ensures a responsive and adaptive communication flow that enhances engagement and supports campaign success.

Note:  Create all the messages you will be sending out before you create your engagement plan.  Additional engagements steps may be added at any time.

To create an Engagement Plan:
1. Go to Engagement Plans > New Engagement Plan
2. Fill out the following:

• Name your plan.
• Select a message template.
• Create a Salesforce campaign.
• Set the initial send date and time.
• Define message status stages (e.g., Opened, Clicked, Ignored).
• Save.

3. Click Add Engagement Steps to build your drip sequence.  
 

Sending the Message

When you are ready to send the message, go to the Message list, click the Action icon, and click "SYNC".  This will sync with SendGrid and send the message to your patrons.

With the Action icon you may also Edit, View Stats, Duplicate, Preview or Delete.
 

Tracking email activity on the Contact Record

There is a C&P Dispatch Stats component that can be added to the Related tab on a Contact Record. This will show the open count, clicks count, Dispatch Messages, Type, and Engagement Plan.