Magento sends two kinds of email: transactional (order confirmations, invoices, password resets - operationally critical) and marketing (newsletters, campaigns). Both flow through the same configuration, and both break silently in ways merchants discover from customer complaints. Here is the configuration that keeps them flowing and correct.
Store Email Identities
Stores > Configuration > General > Store Email Addresses defines the sender identities: General Contact, Sales Representative, Customer Support. Each has a name and address used by different email types. Set these deliberately per store view - an order confirmation from “Sales Representative sales@example.com” on your French store is a localisation miss that customers notice.
The addresses must be real, monitored mailboxes on a domain you can authenticate - transactional mail from a domain without SPF/DKIM alignment lands in spam (see our deliverability post for the DNS side).
Transactional Templates
Marketing > Email Templates customises the ~50 core templates. The rules for safe customisation:
- Never edit core template files - create admin template overrides or theme them; core edits die on upgrade
- Keep the variables intact:
{{var order.increment_id}}and friends are the data binding; a redesigned template that loses the order number is a support generator - Test every template you touch by triggering the real event from a test order - preview mode misses layout breakage
- Localise per store view: templates are assignable per store, and shipping English confirmations to a German store view is a common multi-store bug
The order confirmation deserves special care: it is your most-opened email, a branding touchpoint, and the email customers check when a delivery goes wrong.
Newsletter Setup
- Double opt-in: enable “Need to Confirm” - confirmed subscribers protect deliverability and prove consent for GDPR
- Unsubscribe link: present in every campaign (Magento handles it via the subscriber record) - legally required, deliverability-critical
- Queue: newsletters send via cron queue; a campaign to 50k subscribers without the queue running sends nothing - verify cron before campaign day
The Integration Boundary
Core Magento email handles transactional well and basic newsletters adequately. Serious marketing automation (abandoned cart series, segmentation, behavioural triggers) belongs in a dedicated platform (Dotdigital, Klaviyo) synced from Magento - see our Dotdigital post. Draw the boundary deliberately: transactional always in Magento, marketing where the tooling earns its cost.
Email is the channel customers assume just works. Configure identities properly, template carefully, verify the queue - and the channel stays invisible, which is exactly the goal.