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Brevo's onboarding is friendly enough to lull you into skipping the decisions that actually matter — plan choice, sender-domain auth, transactional vs marketing separation, GDPR fields. Skip them and deliverability quietly tops out at 60-70%. This is the setup that doesn't rot.
Who this is forOwners creating a fresh Brevo account, or owners on the free plan who never finished sender authentication or compliance setup. Especially common: teams who migrated from Mailchimp/Sendinblue and never re-verified DKIM on the new account.
What you'll need
Step 1
brevo.com → Sign Up Free. Pick Free until you exceed 300 emails/day, Starter from there. Avoid Business plan until you actually need marketing automation.
brevo.com → Sign Up Free. Use a business email on your sending domain (e.g., founder@yourbrand.com), not a personal Gmail.
Verify your email, set your password, and complete the profile (business name, address — required for CAN-SPAM and EU directive compliance on every email footer).
Pick a plan by MONTHLY EMAIL VOLUME, not contact count: Free up to 300 emails/day (9K/month), Starter 20K/40K/60K, Business unlocks marketing automation + A/B test + send-time optimization, Enterprise at scale.
Don't upgrade to Business until you genuinely need automation workflows. Most stores under 10K subscribers stay healthy on Starter.
Brevo will prompt you to import contacts immediately. Skip — we need sender authentication done FIRST or those imports fire from an unauthenticated domain.
Step 2
Senders, Domains & Dedicated IPs → Senders → Add a sender. Use a real human email on your domain — hello@, news@, or yourname@ — never no-reply@.
Brevo dashboard → top-right account menu → Senders, Domains & Dedicated IPs → Senders tab.
Click "Add a sender." Enter the From name (e.g., "Sarah at Yourbrand") and From email (e.g., sarah@yourbrand.com).
Brevo emails a verification link to that address. Click it. Sender now shows 'Verified.'
Add a second sender for transactional (e.g., orders@yourbrand.com or receipts@yourbrand.com). Keeping marketing + transactional under separate sender addresses lets you isolate reputation if one stream goes wrong.
Do NOT use no-reply@ — Gmail and Outlook treat no-reply addresses as a spam signal. Open rates drop 5-10 points and customer replies vanish.
Step 3
Senders, Domains & Dedicated IPs → Domains → Authenticate this domain. Add the records Brevo gives you to DNS. Non-negotiable since Gmail/Yahoo's 2024 bulk-sender rules.
Senders, Domains & Dedicated IPs → Domains tab → Add a domain.
Enter your root sending domain (yourbrand.com, not send.yourbrand.com — Brevo handles the subdomain).
Brevo shows 3 DNS records: a DKIM (TXT record at brevo._domainkey.yourbrand.com), a Brevo Code (TXT for ownership proof), and a recommended SPF entry.
Add them in your DNS host (Cloudflare, Namecheap, GoDaddy). Cloudflare propagates in 5-15 min; GoDaddy/Namecheap in 2-12 hours.
Return to Brevo → Domains → click 'Verify' next to your domain. All three should show green checkmarks.
Add SPF separately if Brevo's recommendation didn't already cover it: add a TXT record at the root with `v=spf1 include:spf.brevo.com ?all`. If you already have an SPF record, append `include:spf.brevo.com` to it — never create two SPF records.
Add DMARC: TXT record at `_dmarc.yourbrand.com` with `v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourbrand.com`. Start with p=none for 30 days; escalate to p=quarantine after monitoring reports.
Step 4
Top-right account → My Plan → Settings. Set time zone, GDPR opt-in defaults, and the company address that appears in every email footer.
Account menu → Settings → Company info. Enter your real legal address (CAN-SPAM and EU directive require it on every commercial email). PO Box is fine.
Settings → Time zone. Set to your business operating time zone — this drives Send Time Optimization and schedule rendering.
Contacts → Settings → Opt-in confirmation. Choose 'Double opt-in' if any of your audience is in the EU, UK, Canada, or Australia. Choose 'Single opt-in' only if you're 100% US-based and accept higher complaint risk.
Contacts → Settings → GDPR fields. Toggle on if you have ANY EU/UK contacts. Brevo adds an explicit consent checkbox to all signup forms automatically.
Save. Verify by sending yourself a test campaign — your address and unsubscribe link should appear in the footer.
Step 5
Contacts → Lists → Add a new list. Brevo allows multiple lists for free (unlike Mailchimp), but the model is similar — most accounts need ONE master list with attributes.
Contacts → Lists → Add a new list.
Name it clearly: "Newsletter — Main" or "All Subscribers." Avoid generic names like "List 1" — you'll have several lists eventually and naming matters.
Choose a list folder (Brevo organizes lists into folders — useful at scale, optional now).
Don't create separate lists for segments yet. Brevo's segmentation engine works across one master list using attributes and behavior. Multiple lists are for genuinely separate audiences (e.g., two distinct brands).
Save the list. Note the List ID — you may need it for API integrations later.
Step 6
Contacts → Import contacts → Upload file. Map columns carefully. Mark consent honestly. Brevo will reject obvious spam-trap addresses automatically.
Prepare your CSV: EMAIL (required), FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME, plus any custom attributes (e.g., SIGNUP_SOURCE, LAST_PURCHASE_DATE). Headers in row 1.
Contacts → Import contacts → Copy/paste OR Upload from your computer.
Choose the target list (the master list you just created).
Map CSV columns to Brevo attributes. Create new attributes for any custom fields — pick the right type (TEXT, NUMBER, DATE, BOOLEAN) because changing it later is painful.
Consent step: tick "I have proof that all the contacts have given consent." If you DON'T have proof for some, separate the file — import opted-in only, then send a re-permission email to the rest.
Submit. Brevo runs automated spam-trap detection — 1-5% of contacts may be rejected as known bounces. That's healthy.
Verify: Contacts → list → confirm count matches your CSV row count minus expected rejections.
Step 7
Send a real campaign to yourself + 2-3 colleagues. Verify branding, links, unsubscribe footer, mobile rendering, and inbox placement.
Campaigns → Email → Create a campaign. Name it "TEST — Setup Validation."
To: your master list. Subject: write a real subject line. From: confirm From name and verified sender.
Design: drag-drop a basic layout — hero, 2 paragraphs, CTA button. Save.
Send a test email → enter your address + 2-3 colleague addresses. Brevo sends instantly.
Open the test on desktop AND mobile (375px). Verify: From name displays correctly, subject renders, images load, unsubscribe link works, footer address is correct, mobile single-column layout renders.
If everything looks right, schedule the first real send. Start with 100-500 recipients only — Brevo's reputation system needs to see clean engagement before scaling.
Common mistakes
Picking a plan by contact count instead of email volume
What goes wrong: Brevo bills by SENDS, not contacts. Owners coming from Mailchimp pick 'Starter 20K' assuming 20K contacts; if they send 4 campaigns/month to 20K, that's 80K sends and they hit throttle limits at Day 18. Bumped up to Business unnecessarily — $40-65/mo overpaid for the wrong reason.
How to avoid: Calculate monthly sends: (list size) × (campaigns/month) + (transactional sends) + (automation sends). Pick the plan that covers this with 20% headroom. Re-evaluate quarterly.
Skipping domain authentication
What goes wrong: Without DKIM + SPF, Gmail downranks sends to Promotions or Spam. Open rate drops from 25% to 12-15%. Yahoo/Gmail 2024 bulk-sender rules block unauthenticated domains entirely above 5K/day. Lost revenue: $400-2,000/month for a small store.
How to avoid: Senders, Domains & Dedicated IPs → Domains → Authenticate. Add all three records (DKIM, SPF, Brevo Code) to DNS. Wait for propagation. Verify green checkmarks before the first send.
Using a no-reply@ sender address
What goes wrong: Gmail and Outlook flag no-reply as low-trust. Open rate drops 5-10 points. Genuine customer replies bounce back, killing sales conversations and support inquiries.
How to avoid: Use a monitored inbox: hello@, news@, sarah@, or founder@. Set up an auto-responder if you can't reply live, but real human replies build deliverability AND customer relationships.
Importing the full Mailchimp/Sendinblue export including unsubscribed and bounced contacts
What goes wrong: Re-importing hard-bounced emails spikes bounce rate from Day 1. Importing unsubscribed contacts spikes complaint rate. Both trigger Brevo's compliance review and damage reputation permanently.
How to avoid: Before exporting from the previous tool, filter to SUBSCRIBED ONLY. Then import. Cleaned, Unsubscribed, and Pending should NEVER move to a new platform.
Mixing marketing and transactional through the same sender
What goes wrong: A marketing campaign with high complaint rate damages reputation for transactional sends too. Order confirmations and password resets land in spam. Customer support load spikes 30-50% with 'I didn't get the email' tickets. Hard to diagnose, expensive to fix.
How to avoid: Use TWO senders: news@yourbrand.com for marketing campaigns and orders@yourbrand.com (or notifications@) for transactional. Brevo treats them as separate streams with separate reputation tracking.
Leaving GDPR fields disabled with EU/UK contacts in the list
What goes wrong: GDPR violations carry fines up to 4% of global revenue. Even without fines, EU mailbox providers downrank lists without explicit consent records — open rate in EU regions drops 8-12 points.
How to avoid: Contacts → Settings → GDPR fields → ON. Brevo adds consent checkboxes to forms automatically. For existing EU contacts without documented consent, send a re-permission email and suppress non-responders.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to structure Brevo lists, segments, and attributes without rebuilding in 6 months
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Brevo setup is forgiving until you hit the decisions that lock in for years — sender architecture, auth, list structure, opt-in model. A specialist who's set up 50+ Brevo accounts will get these right in one pass and save the year-2 rebuild. Typical setup engagement is $300-600 of one-time work at $14-16/hr.
See specialist rates
Yes — Sendinblue rebranded to Brevo in May 2023. Same company, same platform, same features. URLs that point to sendinblue.com auto-redirect to brevo.com. If a tutorial says 'Sendinblue,' it applies to current Brevo.
Pick Brevo if you need email + SMS + transactional + chat in one tool, especially in Europe (Brevo's deliverability in EU is stronger). Pick Mailchimp if you're US-focused with simpler needs or want better e-commerce integrations with Shopify. Brevo's automation is more capable than Mailchimp's on equivalent plans, but the UI is denser.
Brevo charges by SENDS, Mailchimp charges by CONTACTS. A 10K-contact list sending 4 campaigns/month = 40K sends on Brevo (Starter plan, ~$25/mo) vs 10K contacts on Mailchimp (Standard plan, ~$80/mo). Brevo is cheaper for low-frequency senders; Mailchimp can be cheaper for daily senders on large lists.
Yes — 300 emails/day total, marketing + transactional combined. For separate tracking and higher limits, the Transactional Email add-on (TIPs) starts at $15/mo for 20K sends. Most stores running e-commerce need the add-on by week 2.
1-48 hours depending on your DNS host. Cloudflare: 5-15 minutes. GoDaddy / Namecheap: 2-12 hours. Some registrars cache aggressively — wait the full 24-48 hours before assuming something is broken.
Yes, but warm up properly. Export Mailchimp SUBSCRIBED contacts only (skip Cleaned/Unsubscribed). Import to Brevo. Run a 14-30 day warmup sending only to engaged-90d segments. Don't blast the full list on Day 1 or deliverability tanks for 60-90 days.
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