Is Zoho ZeptoMail a Reliable and Secured Transactional Email Service? GoodFirms Review

Zoho Corporation has grown from strength to strength under the competent leadership of Sridhar Vembu, the chief executive officer of the company. With more than 80 million users globally, Zoho has constantly been focusing on building innovative, viable, and more customer-centric software products. Sridhar Vembu co-founded AdvenNet Inc. in 1996 with Tony Thomas, which later became Zoho Corporation in 2009. Today, the company has emerged as one of the leading and premier software providers worldwide, with a diverse and extensive product portfolio of more than 50+ applications. Zoho crossed an important milestone of $1 billion in annual revenue in November 2022.

The CEO of Zoho is a strong believer in practicing more humility.

GoodFirms has already presented an unbiased and transparent review of Zoho’s most popular products and Zoho Meetings in the past. Now, it’s time to review another essential product from Zoho - Zoho ZeptoMail. ZeptoMail, previously known as TransMail, is a Transactional Email Service provided by Zoho Mail. GoodFirms’ in-depth assessment of ZeptoMail derives the following:

• A comprehensive overview of the ZeptoMail.
• Explicit new features, core advantages, and disadvantages.
• Pricing of ZeptoMail.
• An impartial comparison of ZeptoMail with its frontline competitors.

And this exclusive review also answers a few critical questions that most potential users probably want to know -

• Is ZeptoMail a powerful, reliable, and secured transactional email service, as claimed by Zoho?
• Can ZeptoMail help in attracting and retaining customers?

Zoho claims that more than 250 million + transactional emails are sent from ZeptoMail every month. The company also claims that it holds a record of sending more than 25000+ domains email.  Here is GoodFirms' genuine review of ZeptoMail, a product of Zoho.

Zoho ZeptoMail is a relatively new product, launched in November 2020. Here, in 2022, the service is all set to celebrate its 2 years of success.

Zoho unveiled its transactional email-sending service to help all those businesses facing issues with sending transactional emails to their customers from the website or mobile application. Initially, Zoho rolled out the product's beta version with WordPress integration to simplify sending emails for notifications and verifications.

“ZeptoMail has allowed us to minimize the frequency of transactional reports and helped us improve our business deals with better email deliverability,” says a user.

The intention to launch Zoho ZeptoMail was to help businesses communicate important transactional-related information efficiently with customers. Back then, in 2020 itself, the company had the vision to launch a series of features in the years to come. Some of them include; Auto top-up, incoming parser, dedicated IP provisioning with an automatic warmup, and better deliverability monitoring. (We shall check them in the newly launched features in the sections below to verify if the goal was achieved or not). As promised, ZeptoMail has been allowing businesses to connect seamlessly with their customers, playing a crucial role in enhancing customer satisfaction and boosting brand visibility.

GoodFirms Review of ZeptoMail: Zoho’s Transactional Email Service  

Zoho ZeptoMaill has gained impetus as the best-in-class transactional email service provider, allowing businesses to send real-time automated emails that help to trigger a user action. These emails usually contain confidential or personalized information and get completed once the customer acknowledges an agreed-upon transaction.

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

You must note that ZeptoMail is entirely a secure and dedicated transactional email service platform that does not contain any feature of marketing or promotional email sending. With ZeptoMail, you can easily create any transactional email, such as account-related emails, user-requested emails, receipts, invoice emails, order confirmations, subscription renewals, and more. Users have to just sign-up and integrate their application, and they are set to send emails hassle-free to their customers.

As a thoroughly tested email service, Zoho’s ZeptoMail also provides different types of Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as dedicated IP addresses and shared IP addresses. You can select the IP network based on your specific business requirements.

Why do businesses need ZeptoMail?

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

The significance of speedy and reliable email deliverability gains more impetus when sending different types of transactional emails. Zoho ZeptoMail ensures businesses that all transactional emails are rightly delivered to the recipient’s inbox instantly. ZeptoMail takes all the critical measures to provide great email deliverability. These steps include-

1. Building an Email Reputation  

The email recipient server evaluates and verifies the reputation of the transactional email service provider. ZeptoMail helps to create and boost email reputation by ensuring a few steps.

• First, it has separated transactional emails from marketing emails, so recipient servers do not treat transactional emails as spam. When marketing emails are marked as spam, valid transactional emails from the same sender also get marked as spam. So by eliminating marketing email sending from their service, ZeptoMail ensures good deliverability.
• Second, it enables businesses to constantly track and monitor feedback loops and complaints raised by customers related to emails received. ZeptoMail automatically creates an email suppression list wherein users can add all non-existent emails or incorrect email addresses. It helps to minimize bounce rates and improve email deliverability.
• Businesses can check if emails are appropriately delivered or not and take action in case of poor deliverability.
• Apart from these, email reputation also depends on the reputation of the server or IP address, domain, sender, and email management metrics.

2. Establishing Email Protocols & Systems   

An email infrastructure provides all essential hardware and software components required for necessary email communication. ZeptoMail adopts the best systems and protocols for optimum email deliverability.

Email authentication helps to increase email reliability and helps your emails to avoid landing in spam. It provides a robust and trusted protocol informing recipients which emails are authentic and which are spoofed. To legitimize emails, you can use Sender Policy Framework, DomainKeys Identified Mails and Domain-based Messages.

How can you connect to ZeptoMail?

SMTP Relay

SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is a methodology for sending emails by connecting an application with an SMTP server. If you connect the application with ZeptoMail SMTP servers to send emails, then you must configure your app settings in accordance with ZeptoMail’s SMTP requirements. ZeptoMail claims that its SMTP servers can easily and quickly integrate your application in a few steps.

For ZeptoMail configuration settings, you need a server name, a port number, a username, and password authentication.

You must also note that ZeptoMail supports TLS v1.2 for SMTP to provide a robust, secured connection while transferring data between applications and servers.

ZeptoMail’s metadata monitors for the opens and clicks on emails sent through SMTP. Users can also perceive this data in the ZeptoMail account.

Email APIs   

Another way of sending emails through ZeptoMail is Email APIs. Application Programming Interfaces help to establish connections between ZeptoMail and user applications. The apps get access to ZeptoMail's email sending capabilities through the APIs. In addition to these, ZeptoMail also provides client libraries that support multiple programming languages like C#, Python, Node.JS, and more.

The key benefit of using email APIs is that they provide in-depth integration between your application and ZeptoMail. ZeptoMail’s Email APIs offer a variety of sample template options that you can easily customize.

If you want to make an HTTP request to send an email via ZeptoMail, you have to use its REST API. The authentication of API requests to ZeptoMail is a crucial step that allows you to generate Send Mail Token in the ZeptoMail account.

Separate Email Streams with Mail Agents 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

Now, you can easily and quickly group your emails based on different categories, such as domain, purpose, application, etc. These groups are known as Mail Agents, which provide you with accurate reports and more controlled access to sent emails. You can send emails from each of the Mail Agents using the SMTP credentials, and API tokens unique to them.

With user-level permissions, you can restrict access to each email and select particular recipients who can view, read, or have access to email groups. Zoho’s transactional email service allows you to add and manage multiple domains effortlessly. You can simply associate a domain with a preferred Mail Agent to ensure that the email group is sent from the relevant domain.

Email Analytics   

Does your task get over once you send a transactional email to any customer or recipient?

The answer is certainly not. Since transactional emails play a pivotal role in customer engagement, keeping track of how they interact with your emails is indispensable. Here, it would help if you considered vital metrics and insights, such as email deliverability, bounce rate, open rate, etc.

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

1. Zoho ZeptoMail provides email analytics with a focus on Recipient Activity Tracking, Email Logs, and Real-Time Notifications.
2. Recipient Activity Tracking provides an updated picture of your email's performance, while ZeptoMail API monitors other parameters like bounce rates, click, and open rates.
3. Email Logs is ZeptoMail’s tried-and-tested method to troubleshoot all emails your customers cannot find. The software helps to improve your email performance and view the recipient’s status and the bounce and click rate details by processing email logs.
4. Real-Time Notifications provide you with instant information about click and bounce rates through the configuration of webhooks. You can directly post these notifications on any public URLs in real-time using webhooks.

Generating Reports

ZeptoMail generates two types of reports. These include; 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

1. Activity Reports- This report provides a comprehensive view of all recipient activities, such as emails sent, bounced, opened, and clicked. You can check everything in the Report section. The activity report also provides information about which device, browser, or Operating System the recipient used to open the email.
2. Custom Reports-  With ZeptoMail, you can easily generate customized reports to track recipient’s activities on different Mail Agents and make a viable comparison. You need to select the preferred Mail Agent and the activities that you wish to compare and save the report for further analysis.

Other Features of Zoho ZeptoMail

• ZeptoMail Activity Logs   

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

This core feature allows you to view all the actions taken or performed by the different users using the ZeptoMail account. It displays details like the action performed, the date/time of the action, the user who performed the action, and the entity the action was performed.

• IP Restrictions 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

Using the IP restriction option, you can easily restrict the IP address from which you wish to send emails using ZeptoMail. While the account is accessible from any IP, email sending will be restricted to the provided IP addresses/ranges.

• Export Email Logs

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

Exporting your email logs has become much easier through a zip file thanks to this exceptional ZeptoMail feature that allows you to export email logs for the last 60 days, apart from viewing them.

• Email Templates 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

Writing the same email repeatedly, several times, becomes a mundane and frustrating task. Zoho has devised a viable solution by releasing ZeptoMail email templates to nullify this cumbersome task. Using this feature, you can select a template from the available options and create your own customized template from scratch.

• File Cache

Uploading transactional email attachments like images and managing them from one place is easily possible through the File Cache facility available within Mail Agent.  File Cache has a maximum storage limitation of 1 GB.

1. Upload the image to the File Cache
2. Get the File Cache Key
3. Use the File Cache Key to add the image to your email.

 Zoho enables the File Cache feature for email senders using API and SMTP. If you add the parameter X-TM-FILE-KEY to the email header, the cache files get attached to the email.

• Email Notification About Credit Expiry (March 2021) 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail Features)

You won’t miss any deadlines regarding the expiry of credits as the default email notifications inform you about the same in advance. You can schedule the notifications based on your preference.

• SMTP Apps Use From Address as a Username   

SMTP apps and email clients that automatically retrieve the From address as a username get support from ZeptoMail, allowing seamless connection with any SMTP app.

• Multi-Lingual Support   

It is worth noting that ZeptoMail supports as many as 59 different languages, which are widely spoken and popular worldwide. Users can visit the Settings Page to get familiar with how to change the display language.

New Features of Zoho ZeptoMail as of 2022  

One of ZeptoMail’s unique selling points is that Zoho regularly updates its transactional email service by adding new functionalities or improving the existing ones. These features have enhanced the user experience and improved the email delivery service. They are as follows-

• Save your Email Content (September 2022) 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail New Features)

Zoho introduced a new feature of ZeptoMail known as Save your Email Content, which allows businesses to save and view the emails sent, allowing them to revisit their old emails. It allows you to view the saved content under the Processed emails category present under a specific Mail Agent, which is enabled. You can view the available content for a time period of 60 days.

• Suppression List (May 2022) 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail New Features)

The suppression list helps to protect and restrict email sending or email tracking to specific recipients. ZeptoMail also allows all senders to add specific email addresses to their list to block them from sending or tracking emails.

You can carry out two types of suppressions with ZeptoMail;

1. Email Suppression - Emails sent to these recipients will be blocked
2. Tracking Suppression - Emails sent to the recipients will not be tracked.

• Auto Top-up (May 2022)

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail New Features)

Auto top-up is another explicit feature that focuses on boosting the customer experience. It allows the users to recharge their credit even before they expire. Users have to just select the number of credits they wish to purchase and the number of days before the minimum threshold, they want them to be credited.

Enhancements & Improvements in ZeptoMail   

In addition to all these critical features, Zoho has made various enhancements and improvements in its transactional email service. These have been highlighted below.

• Delete Unwanted Email Logs   

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail New Features)

Deleting unnecessary email logs in the Processed email section has become much easier now with ZeptoMail. You can delete multiple records simultaneously using the multi-select option.

• NPM Package for ZeptoMail  

Users can import Zoho’s NPM package to send emails and templates. JavaScript allows seamlessly integrating ZeptoMail with user applications.

• Increase in Maximum Count   

To provide a frictionless service and experience, Zoho recently increased the maximum number of Mail Agents to 50 and the maximum number of domains to 100 for all ZeptoMail users.

• DNS Records Verified Offline   

Zoho has enabled the offline verification facility to speed up the DNS verification process. It means that Zoho’s system automatically checks the DNS provider to send email notifications after the propagation of DNS values

• Enabling DNS Provider-Specific Information 

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail New Features)

You can select domain-specific DNS providers with a click of a button to access the domain-specific verification records. You don’t have to face issues with domain verification or waste time consulting DNS help guides.

• Simplified Coding   

With the addition of sample API code scripts and SMTP in the Mail Agent’s information tab, coding has become much simpler. You can quickly connect your application to ZeptoMail using the sample code as a ready reference.

• Managing Domains Get Simplified 

Earlier, domains were added and managed within the Mail Agents. Now with the new domain tab, adding a domain, editing, verifying, and associating the domain with a Mail Agent is much easier right from the domain tab.

Significant Integrations That Empower ZeptoMail  

Do you know what fuels or powers Zoho ZeptoMail to provide fast and reliable transnational email delivery? The answer is simple; robust integrations. So, let’s check out what other tools and software ZeptoMail can seamlessly integrate with.

• Integration with Zoho CRM  

(Image Source: Zoho ZeptoMail)

Zoho CRM, as you are all aware, is Zoho’s first and flagship CRM product that helps to build strong customer relationships and boost engagement. Zoho recently provided this integration facility in August 2022, allowing users to see all transactional emails sent to CRM contacts or leads. They can search, filter, or find detailed information about the emails sent.

• Integration with Zapier   

It is worth noting that Zoho ZeptoMail integrates not only with Zoho products but third-party platforms and apps using Zapier. Zapier is a leading and popular integration software solution provider that enables you to build seamless workflows powered by ZeptoMail’s Triggers and actions.

• Integration with Zoho Flow   

You can create workflows hassle-free with ZeptoMails trigger and action in Zoho Flow. 

• Integration with WordPress   

You can easily align and connect the WordPress website with ZeptoMail and send all transactional email information related to the website, such as notifications, registration, verification, password resets, etc.,

• Integration with Bubble.io

You can use ZeptoMail to send transactional emails from the application you have created using Bubble.io.

Zoho ZeptoMail: Security & Privacy  

We all know that transactional emails contain confidential and critical information related to financial transactions, order confirmation or cancellation, new passwords, etc. Hence, security and privacy become paramount for such email services. ZeptoMail has implemented the best security practices and protocols to ensure high-end data protection.

Zoho ZeptoMail provides comprehensive and full-proof security through five different layers. These include-

1. Physical Security
2. Email Data Protection
3. Data Encryption
4. Secure Access
5. Certificates and Compliance

Physical Security   

ZeptoMail has robust and fully equipped covert local data centers to prevent and tackle any security breach. They are located at critical locations and under 24x7 strong vigilance with biometric security. Only authorized persons can access this data.

ZeptoMail uses cutting-edge technologies to develop advanced hardware systems that seamlessly store, manage, and fetch data.

Zoho’s transactional email service mitigates DDOS and DOS attacks by tracking and controlling unusual traffic.

Email Data Protection   

• ZeptoMail verifies the authenticity of the domain through SPDF verification, and when you add an SDF record in DNS, it gets the authority to send emails from provided domains.
• DomainKeys Identified Mails (DKIM) record is an integral part of the ZeptoMail verification process that ensures that transactional emails sent from the ZeptoMail account are not tampered with and authorizes the email service provider to send emails.
• Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance, or DMARC, is another email verification process that combines DKIM and SDF protection methods to authenticate emails.
• ZeptoMail closely and meticulously monitors spam rates and email deliverability by verifying each new account created on its platform.

Data Encryption  

• ZeptoMail stores email logs in an encrypted version for 60 days. Zoho ZeptoMail stores email content once it gets delivered to the recipient. The data is split into fragments to get further encrypted before their storage. The keys used for encryption are managed with robust security and high reliability.
• ZeptoMail allows data encryption during transit. The transactional email service supports the TLS v1.2 version that protects data interception and access.

Secure Access 

• ZeptoMail offers industry-standard and highly trusted two-factor authentication to protect unauthorized access into a user account. ZeptoMail provides the Zoho OneAuth application and sends codes, or Touch ID, that serve as an additional layer of protection. Two-factor authentication secures the account even if the password gets compromised.
• ZeptoMail offers a single sign-on facility, allowing users centralized access to their accounts that minimizes the risk of password compromise.
• User-level permissions from ZeptoMail provide specific users more control over email groups and allocate roles to every user to view, edit, or delete emails.
• ZeptoMail provides the option to restrict certain IPs from sending emails.
• Like all other Zoho applications, ZeptoMail undergoes strict external and third-party audits to ascertain quality assurance. All Zoho software products are ISO or IEC certified and compatible with SOC2 Type II.
• ZeptoMail is GDPR compliant and accurately follows the European Data Protection Regulation, governed by the European Union Commission.
• You can get a complete overview of what’s happening in the ZeptoMail account and the actions taken by each of the users.

Zoho ZeptoMail Pricing   

Zoho has devised a simple pricing model for its transactional email service provider ZeptoMail. The price is based on email credits, where the user has to only pay for what he consumes.

***** Each credit is valid for 6 months only from the date of purchase. Taxes extra.

Zoho ZeptoMail: Pros & Cons   

Let’s discuss the major pros and cons of Zoho ZeptoMail below.

The Best Alternatives to Zoho ZeptoMail   

The GoodFirms review team has suggested a few best alternatives to Zoho ZeptoMail that users can consider if they are searching for other options. These alternatives include SendGrid, PostMark, Mailchimp, and Mailer Lite.  Please check the table below, which presents a detailed comparison of popular transactional email service providers.

Can ZeptoMail Improve Email Sender Reputation?  

Zoho ZeptoMail has streamlined and optimized the transactional email service by accelerating the email deliverability process, bolstering the data security, consistently updating, and new features. What is unique about ZeptoMail is that it only focuses on sending transactional emails and keeps promotional or marketing emails separate, which helps build an email reputation and augments customer experiences.

Zoho ZeptoMail is a Promising Transactional Email Service Provider with a Long Way to Go: GoodFirms Final Take   

Zoho is a top-notch and leading software development company renowned for unveiling new products and solutions since its inception in 1996. The company explored the prospects and unleashed new opportunities under the expert guidance of visionary leader Sridhar Vembu. Zoho delves deep into finding the core challenges contemporary businesses face to come up with innovative solutions, such as ZeptoMail - the transactional email service.

ZeptoMail is relatively newer in the market. It came into existence a couple of years ago, in November 2020; it has already started making its presence felt by providing the best-in-class transactional email delivery service. With the right strive, Zoho is making all possible efforts to make ZeptoMail much more advanced, technologically friendlier, and customer-centric by introducing new features, enhancements, and improved integrations.

Overall, ZeptoMail is a promising transactional email service provider and email management software provides transactional email service that focuses on boosting customer experience and engagement. Its cost-effective credit-based payment system has also gained customers’ attention. Unlike most competitors, it does not offer promotional or marketing email services. However, it still has a long way to go, and we will see many more enhancements.

Whether you are an existing Zoho ZeptoMail customer or you have used this transactional email service before, do share your reviews and experiences on the product.