How to Send a Bulk Email in Shape Software

Bulk Email in Shape Software gives your team a practical way to communicate with a large, targeted group of records while maintaining personalization, sender control, opt-out management, deliverability safeguards, and campaign reporting.

Rather than exporting a list into a separate marketing tool, you can build your audience using the data already in Shape, select an existing Email Template or create custom content, dynamically send on behalf of assigned users, and track campaign performance from the same platform your team uses to manage its records.

Bulk Email can be useful for:

• Marketing campaigns
• Customer or client updates
• Prospect re-engagement
• Event announcements
• Educational content
• Product or service updates
• Database nurture
• Referral partner communication
• Industry-specific outreach
• Other large-scale communication

This guide walks through how to build an audience, configure and send a Bulk Email, understand sender and signature behavior, monitor your campaign, and follow email deliverability best practices.

Before Sending a Bulk Email

A successful Bulk Email starts before you click Send.

For larger campaigns in particular, we recommend confirming three things first:

1. Your sending domain is properly authenticated.
2. Your recipient data is clean and current.
3. Your audience is appropriate for the message you’re sending.

These factors can have a significant impact on email deliverability and sender reputation.

Authenticate Your Sending Domain

Shape completes email domain authentication as part of the onboarding process for organizations using email.

Authentication helps receiving email providers verify that Shape is authorized to send email on behalf of your organization’s domain. Modern mailbox providers increasingly rely on authentication, sender reputation, recipient engagement, complaint rates, and other signals when determining how messages should be handled.

Authentication requires access to your organization’s DNS settings and a domain that can actually be authenticated. A standard consumer email address such as @gmail.com cannot be authenticated as your organization’s sending domain.

If your DNS configuration changes after onboarding, make sure your email authentication records remain intact.

For additional information, see Shape’s Domain Authentication & Email Best Practices Guide.

Validate Your Email List Before Major Sends

For larger Bulk Email campaigns, we strongly recommend running Email Validation before sending.

Email Validation helps identify invalid or unusable email addresses before your campaign begins. Invalid email addresses identified through Shape’s validation process can be opted out so they aren’t unnecessarily included in future email activity.

This is especially valuable when working with:

• Older databases
• Imported contacts
• Large prospect lists
• Records collected from multiple systems
• Lists that haven’t been emailed recently
• Databases where email quality is unknown

Sending to a larger audience isn’t always better.

A smaller, cleaner, more relevant audience can produce better engagement while reducing unnecessary bounces and helping protect your organization’s sending reputation.

Step 1: Build Your Bulk Email Audience

Bulk Email begins from an applicable record list in Shape.

You can send Bulk Emails from applicable record-type list pages as well as All Records.

Before selecting your records, use Shape’s list filters to define the audience you actually want to reach.

Depending on your Shape configuration and record type, this might include criteria such as:

• Status
• Record source
• Assignment
• Tags
• Campaign
• Creation date
• Last activity
• Location
• Record type
• Custom fields
• Industry-specific data
• Other CRM fields available within your system

For example, instead of emailing your entire database, you could create a segment of active prospects created within a particular timeframe who are assigned to your sales team.

In a mortgage configuration, that might mean filtering by loan status, loan purpose, assigned loan officer, source, or other applicable mortgage data.

The exact criteria will vary by organization, but the strategy is the same: use your CRM data to make your audience relevant to your message.

Use Filters Strategically

This is one of the biggest advantages of sending Bulk Email directly from Shape.

Your audience isn’t disconnected from your CRM.

You can use the data your team is already collecting to create targeted communication without having to export records, manipulate spreadsheets, and import audiences into a separate system.

That makes Bulk Email useful for much more than traditional newsletters. It can support re-engagement, customer education, announcements, follow-up strategies, event communication, and other targeted outreach.

Step 2: Select Your Records

Once you’ve built your audience, select the records you want to email.

Shape allows you to select:

• Individual records
• Multiple records
• All applicable records within a filtered result set

You aren’t limited to the records currently displayed on the first page.

For example, if your filters return thousands of applicable records, you can select the full applicable result set rather than manually working through each page.

Before continuing, review your filters one more time.

For larger campaigns especially, make sure the selected audience is actually the audience you intended to reach.

Step 3: Select Bulk Actions > Email

Once your records are selected, open Bulk Actions and choose the applicable email option.

The ability to perform Bulk Email actions is controlled through Feature Authorization within Role Permissions.

Administrators can use Role Permissions to determine which user roles should have access to Bulk Email and other bulk actions.

This can be especially useful for organizations that want individual users to continue sending one-to-one emails while limiting larger database communications to authorized users.

Step 4: Choose an Email Template or Create Custom Content

Once the Bulk Email pop-up opens, you can either:

• Select an existing Email Template, or
• Create Custom Content specifically for this send

Using an Email Template can be helpful when your organization has already created approved, branded, or commonly used messaging.

If you select a template, Shape loads the applicable template content and settings into the Bulk Email workflow.

You can then edit the email specifically for the current Bulk Email without modifying the original Email Template.

This gives your team a useful balance between consistency and flexibility. You can start from an established template and make campaign-specific changes without creating a brand-new template every time.

If you don’t use a template, the campaign can be identified as Custom Content within Bulk Email reporting.

Step 5: Personalize Your Bulk Email

Bulk doesn’t have to mean impersonal.

Shape Email Templates and Bulk Email support merge fields that can dynamically populate information from each recipient’s record.

Depending on your available data and configuration, this can include the recipient’s name and other record-specific information.

For example, instead of:

Hi there,

you could use the appropriate merge field to dynamically generate:

Hi Sarah,

for Sarah’s email and:

Hi Michael,

for Michael’s email, all from the same campaign.

What happens if a merge field is blank?

If the underlying field doesn’t contain a value on a particular record, the merge field will populate as blank.

For that reason, consider whether the surrounding sentence will still make sense when optional CRM data isn’t available.

Step 6: Configure the From Email and Email Signature

Shape gives you control over both who the Bulk Email comes from and which Email Signature appears in the message.

There are three important layers to understand:

1. Bulk Email defaults
2. Email Template settings
3. Bulk Email overrides

Default Bulk Email Settings

When you first open the Bulk Email pop-up, Shape defaults both the:

• From Email
• Email Signature

to the user initiating the Bulk Email.

If you’re creating custom content and simply want the campaign to come from you, you can use these defaults.

What Happens When You Select an Email Template?

If you select an existing Email Template, Shape will assume the From Email and Email Signature settings configured on that template.

For example, if the template is configured to send from the Assigned Sales User and use the Assigned Sales User’s Email Signature, those selections will populate into your Bulk Email.

You can then review them and, if needed, override the From Email or Email Signature directly within the Bulk Email pop-up.

Changing them for the Bulk Email does not require you to change the underlying template.

This gives you three levels of control:

Bulk Email defaults:
The From Email and Email Signature initially default to the user initiating the send.

Template settings:
Selecting an Email Template loads the sender and signature configuration associated with that template.

Bulk Email overrides:
You can change those selections for the campaign you’re currently creating.

This is particularly useful when you want to reuse standardized content while changing who a particular campaign should come from.

Using Dynamic Assigned Users

The From Email and Email Signature selections can use assigned department users configured within your organization.

Depending on your setup, this might include options such as:

• Assigned Sales User
• Assigned Manager
• Assigned Loan Officer
• Assigned Processor
• Other configured department users

These options are evaluated for each individual record.

Imagine you’re sending a Bulk Email to 1,000 records assigned across 20 different sales representatives.

If you choose Assigned Sales User as the From Email, Shape can determine the applicable Sales User for each individual record.

The campaign can therefore be centrally created and initiated while the individual messages come from the representative already associated with each recipient.

When the recipient replies, their response goes back to the email address used as the From Email.

For organizations with larger sales, service, account management, or branch structures, this makes it possible to centralize communication without necessarily making every email look like a generic corporate blast.

From Email and Email Signature Are Separate

The From Email determines who sends the email.

The Email Signature determines whose signature appears underneath the email content.

Although these will often be the same person, Shape keeps the settings separate so you have additional flexibility.

For example, a campaign might be sent from the initiating user while using an assigned department user’s signature when appropriate.

Because these settings are independent, review both before initiating a large campaign.

Understanding Sender and Signature Fallback Logic

Shape includes additional logic to help prevent incorrect sender or signature information from being distributed across a large campaign.

If you don’t select an Email Template

The From Email and Email Signature default to the user initiating the Bulk Email.

If you select an Email Template

Shape loads the From Email and Email Signature configuration associated with that template.

You can override either selection within the Bulk Email pop-up before sending.

If you select a specific assigned department user

Shape dynamically pulls that department user’s information for each applicable record.

If both From Email and Email Signature require a specific assigned department user, but no applicable user is assigned

The email will fail because Shape cannot identify the appropriate sender.

If the From Email is the initiating user but the Email Signature requires an assigned department user who isn’t assigned

Shape sends the email without a signature rather than inserting inaccurate user information.

These safeguards become particularly valuable when you’re sending across records with different assignments.

Step 7: Understand the Email Footer

Your organization’s configured Email Footer is separate from the Email Signature.

When applicable, the footer is appended underneath the signature.

The resulting email can therefore contain three distinct layers:

Email Content
The message you’re sending.

Email Signature
The applicable sender or assigned user’s signature.

Email Footer
Standardized organization-level information beneath the signature.

The footer can be useful for company information, disclosures, licensing information, standardized contact information, or other organization-wide content your team has configured.

Keeping this separate from the signature also makes it easier to maintain standardized information without manually adding it to every user’s signature or every individual campaign.

Step 8: Understand Open and Click Tracking

If the Email Template used for your campaign has Open Tracking and/or Click Tracking enabled, those settings carry into the Bulk Email.

Open Tracking and Click Tracking are configured at the Email Template level and aren’t changed from within the Bulk Email pop-up.

Depending on the template configuration, Shape can track engagement such as:

• Email opens
• Link clicks

This information can later be reviewed through Shape’s email reporting tools.

If a particular type of email shouldn’t contribute to engagement tracking, an administrator can configure the appropriate tracking settings on the source Email Template.

Step 9: Understand Automatic Email Unsubscribe Handling

Shape automatically includes unsubscribe functionality on applicable bulk and automated email communication.

When a recipient unsubscribes, Shape updates the record’s Email Unsubscribe preference and prevents future email communication according to Shape’s opt-out controls.

You also don’t need to manually remove every already-unsubscribed recipient before building a campaign.

If your selected Bulk Email audience contains records that already have Email Unsubscribe enabled, Shape blocks those records from being emailed.

This gives your organization an additional safeguard when working with larger filtered audiences.

For more information, see our Understanding SMS Opt-Out & Email Unsubscribe in Shape Software guide.

Step 10: Preview and Review Your Bulk Email

The Bulk Email editor gives you a preview while you’re creating your message.

Before initiating the campaign, review:

• Audience and filters
• Subject line
• Email content
• Merge fields
• From Email
• Email Signature
• Email Footer
• Links
• Formatting
• Spelling
• Calls to action
• Template tracking configuration

If you started with an Email Template, pay particular attention to the From Email and Email Signature inherited from the template.

Make sure those settings make sense for this particular audience. If not, override them within the Bulk Email pop-up before continuing.

If you’re using dynamic department assignments, it’s also worth confirming that your records have the applicable department users assigned.

Step 11: Send Immediately or Schedule for Later

Once your Bulk Email is ready, you can:

• Send Immediately, or
• Schedule the Bulk Email for a future date and time

Scheduled Bulk Emails use your organization’s configured Company Timezone.

Keep that in mind if your organization has users or recipients across multiple time zones.

Before the campaign is initiated, Shape provides a final confirmation acknowledging that you’re about to send a Bulk Email.

Because the message preview and configuration are already visible while you’re building the email, this final step is primarily a safeguard against accidentally initiating the send.

What Happens After You Click Send?

Large Bulk Email campaigns are intentionally processed through a sending queue rather than attempting to release every email simultaneously.

Shape paces Bulk Email delivery to support healthier sending behavior and help protect your organization’s sender reputation.

The exact throughput can vary, but large campaigns may process at a rate of a few thousand emails per hour rather than all at once.

This is intentional.

Major mailbox providers evaluate sending volume, bounce behavior, complaints, authentication, recipient engagement, and changes in sending patterns when determining how mail should be handled. Gmail specifically recommends increasing sending volume gradually and avoiding sudden bursts or spikes.

Pacing larger campaigns helps provide a more controlled sending pattern rather than suddenly releasing a very large volume of email from your domain.

So, if you initiate a large campaign and don’t see every message sent immediately, that doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong. The campaign may simply still be processing through the sending queue.

What If Multiple Users Send Bulk Emails?

If multiple Bulk Email campaigns are initiated, those campaigns are processed through the applicable sending queue.

A campaign may therefore wait behind Bulk Email activity initiated before it.

This helps Shape manage throughput more responsibly rather than allowing multiple users to simultaneously generate large, uncontrolled spikes in outbound email volume.

For larger organizations where multiple departments regularly use Bulk Email, it’s a good idea to coordinate major campaigns when practical.

Monitor Your Campaign with the Bulk Email Report

Once your Bulk Email has been initiated, the Bulk Email Report provides campaign-level visibility into your sends.

Depending on the campaign and its current status, the report can include information such as:

• Initiation Date
• Scheduled Date
• Completed Date
• Template or Custom Content
• Subject Line
• Initiated By
• Sent
• Delivered
• Failed
• Bounced
• Processed
• Opens
• Clicks
• Unsubscribed
• Complaints
• Progress
• Status
• Available actions

This gives administrators, sales leaders, marketing teams, and other authorized users a centralized view of campaign performance without requiring them to inspect every individual recipient.

Pause, Resume, or Cancel a Bulk Email

Bulk Email campaigns don’t necessarily become an all-or-nothing process the moment they’re initiated.

For applicable campaigns that are still processing, Shape provides controls that allow authorized users to manage the send.

Depending on the campaign’s current status, you can:

• Pause the campaign
• Resume the campaign
• Cancel the campaign

This can be especially useful if you identify an issue while a larger campaign is still being processed.

Keep in mind that messages already processed before the campaign was paused or canceled cannot be recalled.

Bulk Email Report vs. Email Performance Report

Shape provides two different levels of email reporting that work particularly well together.

Bulk Email Report

Think of the Bulk Email Report as your campaign-level view.

Use it when you want to answer questions such as:

• How many emails were sent?
• How far along is the campaign?
• How many were delivered?
• How many failed?
• How many bounced?
• How many recipients opened the email?
• How many recipients clicked?
• How many unsubscribed?
• Were there complaints?
• Is the campaign still processing?

Email Performance Report

The Email Performance Report gives you recipient-level visibility into individual emails sent through Shape.

This is where you can drill further into information such as:

• Template Name
• Record ID
• Email Recipient
• Recipient Email
• Sender
• Sent From
• Email Subject
• Send Method
• Status
• Date Sent
• Date Opened
• Date Clicked
• Rejected Date
• Failed Date
• Bounce Date
• Other available email activity

Together, these reports let you move from the overall performance of a campaign down to the individual recipient when you need more detail.

Understanding Failed Emails

Not every selected record will necessarily result in a successfully sent or delivered email.

For example, if an email can’t be sent because of an invalid sender or destination address, the email can fail and the failure will be reflected in reporting.

This is one reason list quality matters so much when communicating at scale.

Don’t look only at opens and clicks after a campaign. Review failures and bounces too.

They can provide valuable information about the quality of the underlying data you’re using for future communication.

Hard Bounces and Email Suppression

Shape’s underlying email delivery infrastructure provides another layer of protection against repeatedly attempting to send email to addresses that have already produced a permanent delivery failure.

A hard bounce generally indicates a permanent delivery problem, such as an email address that doesn’t exist or cannot accept the message.

When an address produces a qualifying hard bounce, it can be added to a suppression list. Future delivery attempts to that address are then prevented rather than repeatedly trying to send to a destination already identified as undeliverable.

This is an important sender-reputation safeguard because repeatedly sending to known bad addresses can negatively affect email reputation.

Temporary delivery problems can be handled differently because not every failed delivery means the destination is permanently invalid.

Why Email List Hygiene Matters

Email deliverability isn’t determined by a single setting.

Mailbox providers can evaluate a combination of:

• Domain authentication
• Sender reputation
• Bounce rates
• Spam complaints
• Recipient engagement
• Sending patterns
• Sending volume
• List quality
• Unsubscribe behavior
• Message content

That’s why your CRM data itself is an important part of your email strategy.

We recommend making the following practices part of your normal Bulk Email workflow:

Run Email Validation Before Major Sends

This helps identify invalid email addresses before the campaign begins and can prevent unnecessary delivery attempts.

Segment Your Audience

Use Shape’s filters to send relevant messages to appropriate groups rather than automatically selecting your entire database.

Respect Email Unsubscribe Preferences

Shape helps enforce Email Unsubscribe preferences automatically, but your audience and messaging strategy still matter.

Review Bounces and Failures

Use Shape’s email reporting after campaigns to identify records that may need cleanup.

Monitor Engagement

Opens and clicks can help you understand which audiences and messages are generating interest.

They can also provide useful CRM data for future segmentation and follow-up strategies.

Avoid Unnecessary Volume Spikes

Consistent, intentional sending behavior is generally healthier than suddenly sending very large amounts of email from a domain with little previous sending activity. Major mailbox providers specifically recommend gradually increasing sending volume and avoiding sudden spikes.

Shape provides safeguards around the sending process, but healthy email performance is still a combination of the technology, your data quality, and your organization’s sending practices.

Standard Bulk Email vs. Cross-Branch Email Campaigns

For organizations operating multiple branches or CRM environments, Shape also offers Cross-Branch Email Campaigns.

Standard Bulk Email

Standard Bulk Email is initiated from an applicable record list using:

Select Records > Bulk Actions > Email

The available audience is based on the records the user can access within the applicable CRM environment and their record visibility.

Cross-Branch Email Campaigns

Cross-Branch Email Campaigns are designed for authorized corporate users who need to coordinate email communication across multiple assigned branches.

The cross-branch campaign builder provides additional audience selection and campaign-management capabilities so corporate teams can manage larger organizational campaigns without having to recreate the same campaign separately inside every branch.

This can be particularly helpful for organizations with centralized marketing, compliance, operations, or corporate communications teams.

Bulk Email Best Practices

Start With the Audience, Not the Email

Before writing your message, determine exactly who should receive it and why.

A well-defined audience usually produces a more relevant campaign than writing a generic email first and then searching for people to send it to.

Use Dynamic Senders When Appropriate

If recipients already have an established relationship with an assigned salesperson, account manager, loan officer, agent, or other representative, consider using the applicable assigned department user as the From Email.

This allows centralized campaigns to retain a more personalized sender relationship.

Double-Check From Email and Email Signature

Remember the hierarchy:

No template selected: The initiating user is the default.

Template selected: The template’s sender and signature settings are loaded.

Need something different for this campaign: Override those selections in the Bulk Email pop-up.

Checking these settings is particularly important when using dynamic department assignments.

Validate Large or Older Lists

If you haven’t emailed a database recently, don’t assume every address is still valid.

Email Validation is especially useful before sending to older, imported, or unfamiliar datasets.

Keep Your Sending Domain Authenticated

Email authentication is an important foundation for deliverability and has become increasingly important as mailbox providers strengthen requirements for larger senders.

Make the Message Worth Opening

Deliverability can help your email reach the recipient, but the content still has to earn their attention.

Use:

• A clear subject line
• Relevant content
• An understandable call to action
• Accurate sender information
• Links that make sense in context
• Messaging recipients would reasonably expect to receive

Avoid misleading subject lines or unnecessarily aggressive messaging.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get More From Bulk Email in Shape

Bulk Email works best when it’s treated as part of your overall CRM and communication strategy rather than simply a way to send the same message to a large number of people.

Shape brings the pieces of that strategy together.

You can use CRM filters to identify the right audience, Email Templates to standardize messaging, merge fields to personalize content, assigned department users to dynamically determine the sender, Email Signatures and Footers to maintain consistent presentation, Email Validation and suppression safeguards to protect list quality, and reporting to understand what happened after the campaign was sent.

For organizations with multiple branches, Cross-Branch Email Campaigns extend those capabilities to corporate-level communication and oversight.

Before any major send, the fundamentals still matter:

Authenticate your domain. Validate your data. Target the right audience. Review your From Email and Email Signature. Send relevant content. Monitor your results.

When those practices are combined with Shape’s Bulk Email tools, your team can manage large-scale email communication without losing the CRM data, personalization, visibility, and controls that make the outreach useful in the first place.