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SendGrid

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SendGrid
Type of businessPrivate
Founded2009
Headquarters
Boulder
,
USA
Key peopleIsaac Saldana (Co-founder, President), Tim Jenkins (Co-founder, CTO), Jose Lopez (Co-founder, Web Architect)
IndustryInformation Technology
URLSendgrid.com

SendGrid is a cloud-based infrastructure for processing large quantities of email, both sending and receiving. SendGrid takes on the responsibility of security, scalability, deliverability, and analytics to keep the cost and complexity to a minimum for customers. SendGrid's infrastructure is accessible through an SMTP API, Web API, or Event API. The SMTP API uses the SMTP protocol, while the Web API and Event API use the HTTP protocol.

As of June 2012, SendGrid has sent over 45 Billion emails for 60,000 businesses. They deliver more than 4 billion emails each month to companies like Airbnb, Twilio, Foursquare, Pandora, and Pinterest[1].

History

SendGrid was founded in July of 2009 and based in Boulder, Colorado after they graduated from the TecStars program. The founders were Isaac Saldana, Tim Jenkins, and Jose Lopez. They are backed by the Foundry Group, Highway 12 Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and others. Since their inception, they have continued to grow in the amount of emails sent, employees, and finally customers[1].

Date Messages Sent # Employees # Customers
Q4 2009 268M 4 1000
Q4 2010 2.1B 19 12000
Q4 2011 6.9B 70 37000

Funding

SendGrid has gone through several iterations of funding, starting at their inception in 2009 when they received seed funding. They have completed searies A, A-1, and B funding, since their inception through January of 2012. They have raised a total of $22,762,000 since inception[1].

Date Amount USD Funding Type
08/2009 12k Seed Funding
12/08/2009 750k Series A Funding
04/20/2010 5M Series A-1 Funding
01/17/2012 17M Series B Funding

Technology

SendGrid is built using Ruby, PHP, Python, Gearman, ZeroMQ, Rails, Symfony, Twisted, Bootstrap, JQuery, GIT, as well a other technologies. It primarily runs on a Linux environment using service oriented architecture. SendGrid provides two ways to send emails, SMTP API or Web API, to allow flexibility to their customers.

SMTP API

The SMTP API is the recommended use by SendGrid, as it allows for more options and can process emails more efficiently. The SMTP API allows developers to customize the handling instructions for the email being sent. They use headers based on a JSON list of instructions and options[2]. Example: To assign a category of "newuser", a header would be included on the SMTP request[2]: 

"X-SMTPAPI: {"category" : "newuser"}

In addition to assigning categories to emails, you can customize the emails using additional customized JASON header items. Others include[3]:

  • TO: Array of address to send messages to 
    {"to": ["Ben Golden <ben@sendgrid.com>", "Joe Scharf <joe@sendgrid.com>"]}
  • Substition: An associative array of substitution tags, where each tag is associated with a list of replacement text for the tag in the body text. Each Substitution value corresponds to an email in the “To” section of the JSON string.
    {"sub":{"%name%": ["Ben", "Joe"], "%role%": ["%sellerSection%", "%buyerSection%"]}}
  • Section: Sections can be used to simplify substitution values that are common to many recipients. This is an associative array of sections that can be used in substitution values.
    {"section":{"%sellerSection%": "Seller information for: %name%", "%buyerSection%": "Buyer information for: %name%"}}
  • Unique Arguments: An associative array of arguments and their values to be applied to all emails sent in this SMTP API transaction.
    {"unique_args": {"orderNumber": "12345", "eventID": "6789"}}
  • Apps: An associative array of filters and their settings, used to override filter settings already setup for your account. Settings are an associative array of the setting names and their values.
    {"filters": {"footer": {"settings": {"enable":1,"text/plain": "Thank you for your business"}}}}

All of the above examples can then be combined into one larger JSON string placed in a header named X-SMTPAPI[2]. 

X-SMTPAPI: {
    "to": [
        "ben@sendgrid.com",
        "joe@sendgrid.com"
    ],
    "sub": {
        "%name%": [
            "Ben",
            "Joe"
        ],
        "%role%": [
            "%sellerSection%",
            "%buyerSection%"
        ]
    },
    "section": {
        "%sellerSection%": "Seller information for: %name%",
        "%buyerSection%": "Buyer information for: %name%"
    },
    "category": "Orders",
    "unique_args": {
        "orderNumber": "12345",
        "eventID": "6789"
    },
    "filters": {
        "footer": {
            "settings": {
                "enable": 1,
                "text/plain": "Thank you for your business"
            }
        }
    }
}

WEB API

SendGrids web API is extensive, which allows developers to send email, as well as get statistics, bounces, spam reports, unsubscribes, and other information. The web API is not RESTful, and only uses GET and POST HTTP verbs. The web API allows both XML and JSON requests and provides responses, both error and success, in the same format you post in[4].

XML Error[5] 

<result>
  <message>error</message>
  <errors>
    ...
    <error>... error messages ...</error>
    ...
  </errors>
</result>

JSON Error[5] 

{"message":"error","errors":[..."error messages"...]}

XML Success[5] 

<result>
success
</result>

JSON Success[5] 

{"message":"success"}

When calling the web API, you can send several parameters to customize the message being sent to the users, such as to, toname, subject, text and/or html, from, bcc, replyto, date, files, as well as others[6].

Send to Single Recipient

sendgrid.com/api/mail.send.json?api_user=youremail@domain.com&api_key=secureSecret&to=destination@example.com&toname=Destination&subject=Example%20Subject&text=testingtextbody&from=info@domain.com[6]

Send to multiple recipients

sendgrid.com/api/mail.send.json?api_user=youremail@domain.com&api_key=secureSecret&to[]=destination@example.com&toname[]=Destination&to[]=destination2@example.com&toname[]=Destination2&subject=Example%20Subject&text=testingtextbody&from=info@domain.com[6]

The web API also includes custom parameters to be sent through x-smtpapi parameter. The format is the same as the SMTP API custom parameters using JSON formatted key/value pair combinations[6].

Email Deliverability

SendGrid provides the infrastructure to send email in small, medium, or large quantities while providing you the tools needed to ensure your deliverability success rate is where you want it[4].

According to hubspot.com, there are 19 email deliverability terms that you should know:[7]

According to aweber.com, Ensuring requested opt-in email marketing is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click through response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.[8]

Email deliverability consists of several configurations:

  • Permission
  • Subscriber Address
  • List Management
  • Message Format
  • Content
  • CAN-SPAM Compliance
  • Reputation
  • Relationships & Whitelisting

Competitors

References

  1. ^ a b c SendGrid Raises 21 Million
  2. ^ a b c SendGrid SMTP API Overview
  3. ^ SendGrid SMTP API Unique Args
  4. ^ a b SendGrid Web API Overview Cite error: The named reference "SendGrid Deliverability Guide" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b c d SendGrid Web API Overview
  6. ^ a b c d SendGrid Email Web API
  7. ^ 19 Email Deliverability Terms Every Marketer Should Know
  8. ^ Email Deliverability Tips


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