MailStream helps you nurture customer relationships and boost engagement by delivering high-impact email and SMS campaigns directly from your GorillaDesk database—without the “Monthly Fees” of other platforms.
Note: This feature is available exclusively to Growth plan users. Please be aware that pack purchases are non-refundable.
Getting Started with MailStream
1. Enable the MailStream addon
MailStream emails billed at .005 per email. (Just $5/1000 emails.)
Pre-Flight email validations billed at .03 per email. (Read the Email Validation & Sending Policy to learn more)
SMS billed at your standard SMS package rate.
Email validation is only charged once per unique address. Subsequent sends to the same recipient will not incur additional validation fees.
To activate MailStream, you will need to activate a plan, start by selecting your initial MailStream credit.
2. Email Set Up
After activating a plan, you can now proceed to setting up an email that will be used as your from address. This is the email your recipients see in their inbox.
1. Click the 'Add & Verify Domain' button.
Verify that you're sending from a valid email address on a domain you control. This helps keep your emails out of spam folders and protects your reputation by preventing others from using your domain without permission.
2. Enter your email address, you can add a free email or paid email with custom domain.
3. If you add a paid domain, you’ll need to verify your email. Check your inbox for the verification code, enter it, then click “Verify.”
4. Click the Start Authentication button and follow the instructions. This process requires you to log in to your email provider’s website and set up DKIM and DMARC records.
This process helps us verify your domain and ensures your emails are properly authenticated. It improves email deliverability, reduces the chances of your emails being marked as spam, and allows your emails to be sent on your behalf more securely and reliably.
Important Notice When Using a Free Email:
If you use a free email account (e.g., @gmail.com, @yahoo.com) we’ll automatically make a small change to your email address by appending @drip.gorilladesk.com to your address each time you send an email. This change is made on our side, so you can keep using your free email and we'll handle the rest.
If you add a free email account, your sender email will be changed.
For example, if you use cath@gmail.com, the sender may appear as:
cath.gmail.com@drip.gorilladesk.com
This is because we cannot access or configure DNS settings for free email accounts, which are required to properly authenticate and send emails on your behalf.
Free accounts include a daily sending limit of 250 emails. Any remaining recipients in your queue will be automatically processed the following day.
For best results, we strongly recommend using a custom domain or a paid email account.
The benefits of a Custom Domain Email vs Free Email accounts
Better Inbox Delivery: Emails sent from personal accounts (@gmail, @yahoo) often get buried in the Spam or Promotions folders. A business domain tells inbox providers you are a "Safe Sender."
Professional Branding: Removes the messy "via http://gorilladesk.com " or proxy addresses. Your customers only see your name and your brand.
Built-in Trust: Customers are significantly more likely to open an email that comes directly from a business domain (e.g.,
service@yourbrand.com) than a generic personal one.Own Your Reputation: Using your own domain is like building a "credit score" for your business identity. You aren't affected by the bad sending habits of other free users.
Higher Security: It includes digital "signatures" that prove to banks and major email providers that the email is really from you, protecting your business from being impersonated.
3. Manage MailStream Users
Manage team access to MailStream. Each column defines the type of access granted, such as:
Viewer: Can only access reports.
Author: Has access to reports plus the ability to create/edit emails, templates, and automation, but they CANNOT send emails.
Admin: Account user with full access.
4. Add Unsubscribe Link Template
Create your unsubscribe link template. Use this template in your email and SMS campaigns to give recipients an easy way to opt out from receiving future marketing campaign.
5. Create Your First Automated Campaign
Before creating a campaign template, you must first create a customer list. The customer list defines the recipients who will receive your email or SMS campaign.
Click the “+” button in the List section.
Enter a name for the list.
Select a sharing option, then click Save.
Configure the required filters to segment your intended audience.
You can now create an automated campaign directly from the list you just created.
Email Validation & Sending Policy
To maintain high deliverability and protect sender reputation, the following thresholds apply:
Pre-Flight Validation
(Email Validation — $0.03 per email)
20% – 30% invalid emails: A user warning will be triggered.
50% or higher invalid emails: An additional warning will be triggered.
Email validation is only charged once per unique address. Subsequent sends to the same recipient will not incur additional validation fees.
Per-Campaign Monitoring
2% – 3% failure/bounce rate: A user warning will be triggered.
Above 3% failure/bounce rate: The campaign will be automatically stopped.
Global / Account-Level Monitoring
5% or higher failure/bounce rate: All active campaigns will be stopped, and the MailStream plan will be canceled to protect sender reputation
The account will be subject to manual review for reactivation. It may either be reopened or terminated.
1. To begin, click Drip Campaign or Bulk Message. In this example, we will set up a Drip Campaign.
2. Set your campaign recipients and schedule under Campaign Settings.
Campaign Name: Enter your campaign name
Audience: Select a list to be the recipients of this campaign.
Start Campaign: Select the timing behavior of when the messages will be sent after the campaign is started. This will apply after you start to click
Immediately
Delay
Scheduling Campaign: Select the days when the campaign will actively send messages. Messages will not be sent on inactive days.
Sending Time Window:
Unsubscribe Link: It is encourage to ad an unsubscribe link to let recipients opt out and stay compliant.
3. Next, set up your campaign content. Create one or more message steps, which will be sent to your audience according to your schedule.
Compose your email and SMS content from scratch, or use an existing template: for email, go to Settings > Email & SMS Templates > MailStream; for SMS, go to Settings > Templates > SMS Templates.
By default, Step 1 is set to 'Send Immediately' and cannot be changed. You can only configure a specific send delay for each following step in your campaign.
Campaigns
The Campaigns list is where you can find all your drafted, ongoing, and completed campaigns. As well as the complete reports of each campaigns.
The list are separate into 2 campaign types: Drip Campaigns and Bulk Message Campaign
Drip Campaigns
A Drip Campaign is an automated, multi-step messaging sequence designed to send a series of pre-scheduled messages to a specific list of customers over a defined period of time. Messages are delivered automatically based on set time intervals or customer actions
Bulk Message Campaign
A Bulk Message Campaign is a one-time batch messaging system designed to send communications to a selected list of customers. Messages can be delivered immediately, scheduled for a specific date, or set to send after a defined delay.
Reports
Link Activity
Link Activity represents the total number of unique recipients who clicked on links included within a campaign message. It measures how many individual recipients interacted with a specific link to visit the associated webpage or destination.
Unique clicks represent the number of recipients who interacted with the link, not the total number of clicks made on the link.
You can stop a campaign or running bulk message and start it again, but it will restart from the beginning.
Campaigns cannot be deleted or archived while they are active. Only draft, stopped or completed campaign or bulk message can be deleted or archived.
You can duplicate any campaign or bulk messages regardless of the current status. It will automatically create a copy with Draft status.
