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SendGrid is designed for high-volume internal email sends with fast delivery through a dedicated integration. This article explains what your IT team will need to do to get set up.

Overview

To enable SendGrid, you will:

• Authenticate your sending domain
• Make a few allowlist and mail client configuration updates to ensure deliverability and a good recipient experience

Once complete, SendGrid can be enabled for all users in your organization.

Setup Steps

1. Domain Authentication — ContactMonkey’s Support Team will provide you with the DNS required to authenticate your domain. These must be added to your hosting or DNS provider.

   • The Support Team will also provide you with your dedicated IP address.

      

2. Spam/Spoof/Bulk Filters — An exception must be made to the corporate spam, spoof and/or bulk filters for messages originating from your dedicated IP address to ensure deliverability.
   • Microsoft Defender 
   • Proofpoint
   • Mimecast
   • Google Workspace

   • If you use a different tool, please refer to its documentation directly

      

3. Prevent IP Throttling (Microsoft 365 only) — Allowlisting your dedicated IP does not stop Microsoft from throttling messages while the IP warms up. Create an Exchange mail flow connector to prevent this.

    

4. External banners – If you are using a service to append Email Subject lines or Email Bodies with [EXTERNAL] banners, an exception should be made for the source IP address.

    

5. Automatic Image Downloads – Images in emails sent by your employees should display automatically for recipients. The right setup depends on the recipient’s email client and operating system.
   1. Windows — Classic Outlook: Add ContactMonkey URLs to Trusted Sites through Group Policy or Microsoft Intune. These Trusted Sites instructions apply to Classic Outlook on Windows only. They do not apply to New Outlook or Outlook on the web.
      • Configure ContactMonkey Trusted URLs with Group Policy
      • Configure ContactMonkey Trusted URLs with Intune
   2. Mac — Outlook for Mac: Enable automatic image downloads using your MDM tool. See Enable Automatic Image Downloads in Outlook for Mac Using Your MDM Tool.
   3. Additional option — Safe Senders: Add your organization’s ContactMonkey sending address(es) and relevant SendGrid From address(es) to Outlook Safe Senders. Use this alongside the client-specific configuration above, not in place of it, and test against the Outlook clients and policies your organization actually runs.

   4. Video thumbnail and play-icon assets: If your campaigns use YouTube or Vimeo video blocks, allow downloads from these endpoints so the preview assets display for recipients.

      Endpoint	Asset
      i.ytimg.com	YouTube thumbnails
      i.vimeocdn.com	Vimeo thumbnails

       

6. Safelist your tracking URL – Ensure Email Tracking Accuracy By Safelisting ContactMonkey.

    

7. Set up Send-As Permissions – control which users can send emails from specific email addresses (completed by a ContactMonkey user with Owner or Admin level permission) 

    

8. [OPTIONAL] Suppress Automatic Replies – The “Reply To” field in the “Send As Permissions” list will apply to manual replies only. Automatic replies will still go to the original sender email; however, they can be suppressed entirely by following one of the guides below:
   • Mimecast
   • Exchange

   • Proofpoint 

      

9. [OPTIONAL] Direct ContactMonkey emails to the Focused view for all your users -  Create Exchange mail flow rules that influence Focused inbox behavior based on your dedicated IP address.