Blast guide

With this guide you will be able to send bulk emails to your database, see how they did, understand their statuses and look after your list so your emails keep arriving.

Module: Interacciones (Interactions) · Menu: Interacciones > Blast · Audience: communications, marketing and fundraising teams

About the labels in this guide: buttons, fields and menus are written exactly as they appear in the Spanish version of the console, with an English explanation where it helps.

What a Blast is

A Blast is an email you send in one go to a group of people in your database. For example, a newsletter, an event invitation or a call to donate.

You choose who receives it (a segment or a tag), write or pick the email design and decide whether it goes out now or on a date and time you schedule.

The same screen can also send WhatsApp Business messages. This guide covers email sends.

What it is for

• Keep your community informed. Send newsletters, news and project results.
• Ask for donations. Launch a campaign to everyone in a group with a single send.
• Check before sending. Send yourself a test email to see how it looks.
• Plan ahead. Leave the email ready to go out on the day and time you choose.
• Measure results. See how many people opened the email, how many clicked and how many emails bounced.

Before you start

• Have your recipient group ready. It can be a saved segment (in Data > Segmentos > Avanzado or Básico) or a tag.
• Verify your email domain (recommended). That way your emails go out with your organization's address, not from an AFRUS account. We explain how in "How to keep my emails out of spam".
• Check that your account is not blocked. If it is, you will see "Cuenta bloqueada, no puedes enviar interacciones…" (Account blocked, you can't send interactions) and you will need to contact support.

Step by step

How to send a Blast

Part 1 — Choose who you are writing to

1. Create the send. Go to Interacciones > Blast and click "Crear envío" (Create send).

2. Give it a name. The screen shows one row per item (Nombre, Canal, Destinatario, Campaña (Opcional) and Etiqueta (Opcional)), each with its own "Agregar" (Add) button. In Nombre, click "Agregar" and type the Nombre del envío (Send name). Only you see it; it helps you find it later.

3. Choose the recipients. In Destinatario (Recipient), click "Agregar". In Enviar a (Send to), open Seleccionar segmento (Select segment) and choose your group in one of the tabs: Segmentos (groups AFRUS already includes), Mis segmentos (the ones you saved) or Etiquetas (tags). Click "Aceptar" (Accept).

   You will see how many people can receive it, for example "N entregables de M Destinatarios" (N deliverable out of M recipients). AFRUS leaves out anyone who can't receive emails (for example, people who unsubscribed or whose address doesn't exist).

4. Choose the channel. Select Correo (Email).

5. Add a campaign and a tag (optional). If you choose an Etiqueta (tag), AFRUS adds it to every person who receives the email. That way you can later find who received this send.

6. Continue. Click "Continuar" (Continue).

Part 2 — Prepare the email

7. Say who is sending. In Remitente (Sender), fill in Nombre del remitente (sender name), choose the Correo electrónico (email address) it goes out from and the Email para respuestas (reply-to email). Click "Guardar" (Save).

8. Write the subject. It's the first thing people see in their inbox. With "Mapa de merge tags" you can add each person's details, such as their name. Click "Guardar".

9. Choose the design. In Contenido (Content), click "Agregar" (Add) and choose an option: Diseño en blanco (blank design), Galería de plantillas (your email templates), Correos enviados (to reuse a previous one) or Editor con código (code editor). Click "Usar Plantilla" (Use template) and edit the content.

10. Send yourself a test. Click "Enviar prueba" (Send test), type your email and confirm. Check how it looks before sending it to everyone.

Part 3 — Send or schedule

11. Choose when it goes out. Click "Programar" (Schedule) and choose Enviar ahora (Send now) or Programar fecha (Schedule date), with the day and time. Click "Enviar" (Send) or "Programar".

When you finish you will see "¡Envío realizado satisfactoriamente!" (Send completed successfully) or "¡Envío programado con éxito!" (Send scheduled successfully), and the send will appear in the list as Procesando (Processing) or Programado (Scheduled).

Keep in mind:

• The "Enviar prueba" and "Programar" buttons become active once you have set the sender, address, subject and content.
• The time uses your computer's time zone.
• A scheduled send may go out a few minutes after the chosen time. A large send takes longer to finish the more people it has.
• You can only change a send that is in Borrador (Draft) or Programado. To change the date of a scheduled one, use "Reprogramar" (Reschedule).

Can it be undone? No. An email that has gone out can't be recalled. Before sending, check the recipient group carefully and send yourself a test.

How to see a Blast's statistics

1. Find your send. In Interacciones > Blast, look at the Lista de envíos (list of sends). The list opens with the sends of the current month (MTD, month to date): to see older ones, change the dates at the top.

2. Open the details. In the send's row, click "Detalles" (Details).

3. Read the results. You will see:

   • Resumen de Audiencia (Audience summary): how many people were in the group, how many could receive it and how many emails were sent.
   • Interacción de Destinatarios (Recipient interaction): Tasa de Apertura (open rate), Tasa de Clics (click rate) and Tasa de Desuscripción (unsubscribe rate).
   • Métricas de Entrega (Delivery metrics): Tasa de Entrega (delivery rate), Tasa de Rebote (bounce rate: emails that didn't arrive) and Tasa de Quejas (complaint rate: people who marked it as spam).
   • Estados de emails (Email statuses): each person's email status, with "Ver Eventos" (View events) to see what happened to it.
   • Clicks per link: which links were opened most and who clicked each one.

The numbers are read when you open the details. To see new data, open them again.

Important: the Tasa de Entrega is calculated by subtracting bounces and errors. It doesn't confirm that the email reached the inbox.

Blast statuses

Why my Blast shows failed

Fallido (Failed) means none of the emails could be sent. It's different from Alerta (some went out and others failed) and from Bloqueado (the send was stopped to protect your account).

What to do:

1. Open the details. In the Lista de envíos, click "Detalles" for the send.
2. Check the error. Look at the Incidencias (Issues) section and the Estados de emails. With "Ver Eventos" you can see what happened to each person's email.
3. Resend. If the send is Fallido, the "Reenviar" (Resend) button appears ("¿Reenviar blast?"). AFRUS tries again with the people who had an error.

Most common cause: the account gets blocked for having too many bounces and needs credits assigned. To solve it, write to the support email.

What if it says Bloqueado? AFRUS stopped the rest of the send because there were too many bounces or complaints. You receive a warning email and a notification in the console. A blocked send can't be sent again from the screen, so the email isn't sent twice to people who already received it: contact support.

Where to see bounced emails

An email bounces when it doesn't reach the person. There are two types:

• Hard Bounce: the address doesn't exist. AFRUS stops sending emails to that person.
• Soft Bounce: a temporary problem, for example a full inbox. That person keeps receiving emails.

You can see them in three places:

1. In each send's details. In Interacciones > Blast, open "Detalles" and look at the Tasa de Rebote and the Estados de emails, with "Ver Eventos" for each person.

2. In the interactions monitor. In Trackers > Monitor de interacciones you see the total Hard bounces and Soft bounces of all your sends, and a table with each send's bounces. That way you find which send had the most bounces. Click the ID to open its details.

3. In each person's profile. In Personas, each person's email has an icon with its status. In the profile you will see "Tiene Hard Bounce" or "Tiene Soft Bounce" (Has hard / soft bounce), and in the Eventos (Events) tab, the details of each email.

See all the emails of a send in one list

To see all the bounces of a send together:

1. Open the send's details. In Interacciones > Blast, click "Detalles" (Details).
2. Click "Ver más" (See more). You'll find it in the Últimos eventos (Latest events) section.
3. Check the list. Eventos de emails (Email events) opens, a screen with everyone the email was sent to, their status and the date.
4. Filter by Estado (Status). Open Estado, check Click, Open, Complain, Hard Bounce, Opt Out, Rendering Failure, Soft Bounce or Sent and click "Aplicar" (Apply). For example, check Hard Bounce to see only hard bounces.
5. Export the data if you want to analyze it. Click Exportar datos (Export data) to download the list of people the email was sent to, with their different statuses. This makes it easier to analyze and decide what actions to take, which you can then bring back into AFRUS.

How to remove soft and hard bounces

First, good news: you don't need to delete anyone to stop sending to them. AFRUS already leaves out of your sends people with a Hard Bounce, people who unsubscribed (Opt Out) and people whose email is disabled. People with a Soft Bounce keep receiving, because their problem is usually temporary.

If you still want to remove them from your database:

1. Find them. Check the sends with the most bounces in Trackers > Monitor de interacciones and, in each send's details, whose email bounced. In each person's profile you will see "Tiene Hard Bounce" or "Tiene Soft Bounce".

2. Delete them. Open the person's profile and click "Borrar" (Delete). To delete several at once, in Personas check them, open Acciones (Actions) and choose Eliminar (Delete).

Can it be undone? No. Deleting a person is permanent: their donations, subscriptions and whole history are deleted too. If the person donates or has an active subscription, think twice: AFRUS already stops emailing them if they have a Hard Bounce.

How to clean my database so sending isn't blocked

AFRUS looks after your email account. While a send is going out, it checks how many emails bounce and how many people mark it as spam:

• If they go over the warning limit, the send goes into Alerta.
• If they go over the blocking limit, the rest of the send stops and it becomes Bloqueado. You get a warning by email and in the console.

If your account gets blocked, you won't be able to send more until you contact support. That's why it pays to keep your database clean.

1. Check your account status. Go to Trackers > Monitor de interacciones. Estado de la cuenta (Account status) tells you if it is Activa (Active), in Alerta, Bloqueada (Blocked) or with Envío limitado (Limited sending). Below, you see your bounce and complaint rates compared with the limit.

2. Find the sends with problems. In the Lista de blast table, the sends in yellow or red are the ones with the most bounces or complaints.

3. Remove invalid or old addresses. That's what the screen itself recommends when your account has Envío limitado: "elimina correos inválidos o antiguos de tus listas" (remove invalid or old emails from your lists). Follow the steps in "How to remove soft and hard bounces".

4. Send to groups that want to hear from you. Use segments of people who gave you their email recently or who donated, instead of sending to the whole database.

Important: Soft Bounces also count towards your bounce rate, even though those people keep receiving emails.

How to keep my emails out of spam

These are the actions AFRUS lets you take to improve how your emails arrive:

1. Verify your email domain. That way your emails go out with your organization's address (for example, from @yourorg.org) and not from an AFRUS account. The screen itself recommends it to "mejorar la entregabilidad" (improve deliverability).

   • At the top of Interacciones > Blast you will see if your domain is verified. If not, click "Configurar DNS" (Set up DNS). This screen opens in the previous version of AFRUS, which is why it looks different.
   • Follow the 4 steps: type your domain and add the records the screen shows you at your domain provider. If you don't know how, ask whoever manages your website.
   • Verification can take up to 48 hours. "Comprobar estado" (Check status) checks again.

2. Send from an address of your organization. Once the domain is verified, you can choose as sender the email addresses of your organization's users with that domain.

3. Keep your database clean. Fewer bounces and fewer complaints help your emails arrive. Follow "How to clean my database so sending isn't blocked".

4. Let people unsubscribe. Every AFRUS email includes an unsubscribe link; if your design doesn't have one, AFRUS adds it at the end. It's better for someone to unsubscribe than to mark your email as spam.

5. Always send yourself a test and check that the subject and content look right.

6. Don't send emails made only of images. Aim for at least 60% text and 40% images; more text is even better. To spam filters, an email that is a single image with little or no text is a classic spam signal. As a guide, write at least about 500 characters of text.

Best practices for bulk email

AFRUS does some of these for you; others are our recommendations.

What AFRUS already does for you:

• It only sends to people who agreed to receive emails and haven't unsubscribed.
• It leaves out people with an invalid email (Hard Bounce), people who marked it as spam and people who unsubscribed.
• It adds an unsubscribe link to every email.
• It stops a send if there are too many bounces or complaints, to protect your account.

What we recommend:

• Verify your domain before your important sends.
• Send to groups chosen for that message, rather than to the whole database.
• Always send yourself a test before sending.
• Check the Monitor de interacciones after each large send.
• Clean your database regularly: remove invalid or very old addresses.
• Schedule your sends ahead and check the date and time before confirming.
• Use a tag on each send so you know later who received it.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: 2026-10-28