Email, Blasts, and Your Domain (1:23 video). Open on its own page
The Email section
The Email section (sidebar → Messages → Email) is one of the three tabs of Messages, alongside Phone and Portal messages. It's a dashboard with stats and cards into Email blasts, Service reports, and Email domain setup — with the tracked email inbox one click away.
The technician mobile app has the same Email section: Comms → Email → Inbox lists every sent email, and tapping one shows its delivery timeline and the message as plain text (the formatted version is on the web). Email → Overview opens Blasts, Service reports and Email domain for roles with those permissions. Blasts on the phone are plain text to active or all customers; templates, the rich editor and audience filters are web-only.
The tracked email inbox
- Every tracked customer email is listed with delivery, open, and click tracking.
- Emails tied to an invoice show a link to the related invoice.
- The actual sent email is rendered inline under "Message", so you can see exactly what the customer received. Older emails sent before content capture began show delivery status only.
- Sent service report emails appear here too, with the same delivery and open tracking.
Send from your own domain
Email Domain (reached from the Email section) lets you send customer emails from your company's own domain instead of a shared one — so invoices, service reports, and other customer emails carry your name. Combined with your logo and colors from <a href='/help/branding'>Branding</a>, customer-facing email is fully yours. Once verified, invoices, payment receipts, reminders and card-on-file requests come from your sender address too, and customer replies go to it unless you set a Reply-to email in Invoice Settings. The page moves through four states: not set up, Pending, Verified, and Failed.
- 1Enter your Domain (e.g. acmepools.com) and a Sender Address — the "From" address customers see. It auto-fills as noreply@ your domain, and you can change it. Click Set Up Domain.
- 2The page then shows a table of CNAME records (Name and Value columns, each with a copy button) to add at your domain registrar — GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, wherever your domain's DNS lives.
- 3Click Check Verification once the records are in. DNS changes can take up to 72 hours to propagate, so "not yet detected" right after adding them is normal.
- 4When verification succeeds, the page flips to Domain Verified and all customer email sends from your address.
Pending domains auto-expire after 7 days if the DNS records are never added — if that happens, just set the domain up again.
- A Failed state means a verification attempt found the records missing or wrong — double-check them against the table shown and click Check Verification again.
- The sender address stays editable in every state (pencil icon). Changing it never requires DNS updates — only the part before the @ can change once verified.
- Remove Domain asks "Are you sure?" and requires a second click on Yes, Remove. Removing reverts your email to the default Pool Founder sender.
Email blasts: build the audience
Email Blasts (reached from the Email section) sends one-off bulk emails to your customers — for announcements like seasonal schedule changes or price updates. The New Blast tab starts with a Target Audience filter panel; leave everything blank to email every active customer, or narrow by any combination of:
- Scheduling: Technician and Day of Week — e.g. everyone on Thursday routes.
- Service & Equipment: Job Type (Any / Recurring / Work Orders / Both types), Body of Water, Equipment Type, and Equipment Brand — e.g. every customer with a Pentair heater.
- Location & Status: City, Zip Code, Customer Status (Active / Archived / All), and Customer Tags.
- Two checkboxes: "Has active jobs only" and "Include additional emails" (also sends to each customer's extra email addresses).
A live recipient count updates as you filter, flagging customers with no email on file (they're skipped automatically). Below the composer, the matched-customer list shows every name and address — uncheck anyone you want to leave out of this one blast.
These same filters drive text broadcasts — Messages → Phone → Broadcasts — so an audience you already know how to build for an email works unchanged for a text. The differences: a text broadcast has no subject line, no rich text, no saved templates, and no open/click tracking; it takes one optional image as an MMS; and it is limited to service updates only — promotional offers aren't allowed on a texting line, while they are perfectly fine in an email blast. Sending one needs the separate "Send text broadcasts" permission.
Email blasts: compose, send, and track
- The composer has a Subject Line and a rich-text body — bold, italic, headings, lists, and links. "Save as template" stores the current subject and body under a name; "Load template" brings any saved one back (templates can be deleted from the same menu).
- Toggle between Edit and Preview — the preview renders the actual branded email: your logo, company name, and brand color, with the unsubscribe footer every blast carries. Above it, the preview shows the Subject as it will arrive and who it is "Previewing as" (the first customer in your recipient list), with merge tags filled in for that customer.
- "Send to N recipients" opens a confirmation showing the subject and count; confirming starts the send and shows a live progress bar with running Sent / Failed / Skipped tallies.
- The History tab lists every past blast, newest first — date, subject, sent/total, and status (Draft, Sending, Completed, Failed). Click the Date, Subject, Recipients, or Status header to sort by it (click again to flip it); older blasts load as you scroll or with Load more. Click one for the full blast detail.
- Blast detail shows eight stat tiles — Total, Sent, Delivered, Opened, Failed, Bounced, Complained, Skipped — a collapsible preview of the exact email content, and a per-recipient table with each person's status and delivery timeline (sent, delivered, opened, bounced, complained, with timestamps).
Personalize a blast with first names
Type a merge tag in the subject or body and each customer gets their own version. In the body toolbar, Personalize inserts one at the cursor; in the subject, type it. The hint under the body lists them.
| Tag | Becomes |
|---|---|
| {first_name} | The customer's first name. Customers with no first name on file get "there", so "Hi {first_name}," reads "Hi there,". |
| {first_name|neighbor} | The first name, with your own word instead of "there" when there is none. |
| {company_name} | Your company name, the same one shown at the top of the email. |
- Tags are not case-sensitive. Anything else in braces, like a coupon code {SPRING25}, is sent exactly as typed. There is no last name, address or balance tag.
- With Include additional emails on, the extra addresses on a customer get the fallback word, not the customer's first name, since they usually belong to someone else in the household.
- Check the preview before sending: it fills the tags in for the first customer on the list. Blast detail in History shows the email as written, with the tags still in braces.
Per-customer email notifications
Customer email notifications can be toggled per customer — turning them off or on controls what that customer receives. Company-wide invoice email settings (send on create, receipts, failed-payment notices, reply-to address) live in Invoice Configuration — see Create and manage invoices. Its Reply-to email is where customer replies to any of your emails go (invoices, service reports, quotes, documents and blasts), for example a shared support@ mailbox your office staff can open. Replies go to that mailbox, not into Pool Founder.
When an email bounces, and what the reason means
A Bounced status means the email did not reach the customer. Wherever that status appears on the web app (the Emails card on a quote or invoice, the per-completion service report status, and the Email inbox), a plain-English line underneath says why, so you can tell a typo apart from a problem on the other end. Hovering the line still shows the raw code their mail server returned.
- "That address does not exist on their mail server. Check it for a typo." — the address is wrong or the mailbox was deleted. Fix the address on the customer and send again.
- "No mail server could be found for ‘domain.com'." — the part after the @ does not resolve, which almost always means a typo in the domain (for example "gemail.com").
- "The recipient's mail server rejected this address." — their server refused it without saying the mailbox is missing. Usually a typo or a closed mailbox.
- "The recipient's inbox is full." — nothing is wrong on your end; the customer has to clear space before their mailbox will take new mail.
- "The recipient's mail server never accepted the email." — their server was down or refusing connections, and the send was retried for hours before giving up. Worth trying again later.
- "The recipient's mail server rejected the email as spam." — their spam filter blocked it. Sending from your own domain makes this much less likely.
- "This address hard bounced on an earlier send, so it was blocked before sending. Contact support to clear it and try again." — see below.
Once an address hard bounces, Pool Founder will not attempt it again, even after you fix whatever was wrong on the customer's side. That protects the sending reputation everyone on Pool Founder shares. Correcting a typo means sending to a different address, which works immediately; re-sending to the same address needs support to clear the block first.
A bounce code nobody has seen before shows the Bounced status with no explanation line. The raw code is still on hover. The technician mobile app shows the status only, never the reason.
See one customer's communications in one place
Open the customer's page and use the "Communications" section's "View all" — it expands in place with their recent texts, portal messages, calls, and emails, and each item links into the owning section's inbox.
Frequently asked questions
Can I see whether a customer opened an email?
Yes — the Email inbox tracks delivery, opens, and clicks on every tracked email, and shows the sent email rendered inline so you can see exactly what went out.
Why does an older email show no message content?
Emails sent before Pool Founder began capturing sent content show delivery status only. Everything since is rendered inline under "Message".
Can I read customer emails from the mobile app?
Yes. In the mobile app open Comms → Email → Inbox (needs the "View customer inbox" permission) and tap an email for who it went to, what was sent, its Sent / Delivered / Opened / Bounced timeline and the message as plain text. The formatted email is on the web. Replying to email is not possible anywhere in Pool Founder.
Why did my email bounce?
The Bounced status says why right underneath it: the address does not exist, the domain has no mail server (a typo after the @), their inbox is full, their server kept refusing the connection, their spam filter blocked it, or Pool Founder blocked the send because that address hard bounced before. Hover the line for the raw code their mail server returned.
I fixed the address but it still bounces instantly. Why?
If the original address hard bounced, Pool Founder blocks any further sends to that exact address to protect sending reputation, and the block shows as an immediate "Bounced (permanent)". A corrected address is a different address, so it sends normally. To un-block the original one, contact support.
Why is my custom domain still pending?
DNS changes can take up to 72 hours to propagate, so keep clicking Check Verification. But don't wait too long to add the records — a pending domain auto-expires after 7 days without them, and you'd need to set it up again.
Can I send a blast by text instead of email?
Yes, but it is a different tool with a different rule. Messages → Phone → Broadcasts texts one service update to a group, using the same audience filters as an email blast. It is limited to service updates — a rain delay, a route change, a closure — because your texting number is registered with the carriers as a non-marketing line; promotional offers stay in email blasts. Text broadcasts also have no subject line, no saved templates, and no open tracking, and they need the "Send text broadcasts" permission. See text broadcasts.
Can I put each customer's first name in an email blast?
Yes. Type {first_name} in the subject or body (or use Personalize in the body toolbar), for example "Hi {first_name},". Each customer gets their own first name; customers without one get "there", or your own word with {first_name|neighbor}. {company_name} inserts your company name. The Preview shows the email filled in for the first customer on your list.
Can I add images or attachments to an email blast?
No. A blast is rich text (bold, headings, lists, links) with your logo at the top. There is no image upload, no inline pictures and no file attachments; link to a photo on the web instead.
Can I schedule a blast to go out later, like a holiday email?
No. A blast goes out when you confirm it; there is no send-later date. Write the holiday blast ahead of time, click Save as template, and on the day use Load template and send.
Can I exclude one customer from a blast?
Yes — the recipient list under the composer shows everyone the filters matched, and unchecking a name removes them from that blast without changing anything on their account.
Is there a limit on how many emails a blast can send?
Yes, a daily one. Each day (midnight to midnight in your company time zone) your blasts can send as many emails as there are addresses on your active customer list, counting additional emails, with a minimum of 200 and a maximum of 1,000. Unsubscribed addresses do not count. If a blast would go over, it is not sent and the message says how many people to uncheck; uncheck them, send, and send the rest the next day.