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We hope August was both an enjoyable and relaxing month for you! And while the kids may be groaning about getting back to the school routine, there's also something comforting about a more regular schedule. So for all the parents out there, here's to you 🙌

And when you find yourself with a couple of quiet moments, take a deep breath, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and check out some fresh reads from the Postmark team.

Have you ever wondered if a message you want to send to your customers is transactional in nature? We see this question quite often—and not all use cases are crystal clear. So it’s understandable when people are confused about the distinction.

Our own Justine Jordan clears this up on our blog and it starts with a concise definition:

Transactional emails are messages that are sent in response to an action a user takes on a website or application. They contain data or content that is specific to that user, and are typically sent to individuals one at a time.

Plus, she lists out some examples of good transactional messages. It’s a great refresher on how to distinguish between marketing and transactional email.

If you run an online business, you know that transactional messages are just one piece of your messaging pie. Since we’ve joined ActiveCampaign, we’ve started to hear from a lot of folks that need to think about both marketing and transactional messages and how to use the two services side-by-side.

We recently shared some great examples of companies using both Postmark and ActiveCampaign to grow their businesses. Laura Roeder from Paperbell succinctly describes how the two fit nicely together:

Postmark enables us to make a better product for our clients—and ActiveCampaign allows us to put marketing programs in place to promote and sell our product.

On that note, we’ve made a few improvements to the Postmark CX app that make it easier to use the two services together. The latest version supports OAuth authentication and tagging your messages in ActiveCampaign. Check it out!

Do you have all your sending sources set up correctly and are still not seeing 100% alignment when your DMARC records come through? Forwarding might be the culprit!

Shelley from our  Customer Success team shared how forwarding emails can cause problems with your authentication and what you (as the sender) can do about it.

Some email providers allow you to sign up with public emails (such as Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc). We don’t, and we know this can be a point of confusion, or even frustration—but it’s actually one of our secrets to protecting Postmark’s outstanding deliverability. Anna, our Head of Deliverability, shares the details.

Here at Postmark we don't just have stellar email deliverability—we also have excellent musical taste (IMHO). So when our very own Fio came across this idea, she immediately organized the creation of a few playlists of our team's favorite tunes for getting into deep work mode. If you’re looking for a soundtrack to work to, you’re in the right place.

Last, we’re so thankful for all the love and feedback we get from our customers. 💛

That’s it for this issue. Have a wonderful September, folks!

– cb