Navigating emails can be like driving a car – most of us know how to drive one, but not everyone understands what’s under the hood.

If you have ever opened a new email message and wondered what’s behind it, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article, I’m going to pop open the hood on POP3, one of the mail protocols responsible for retrieving the emails we receive every day. I’ll show you how it works and provide you with a step-by-step tutorial on how to test it out yourself by using some simple POP3 commands.

Don’t worry – it’s not rocket science. Let’s get straight into it!

So, what’s the catch with webhooks?

Not using them nowadays would be like commuting to work on a horse. Charming? Yes, definitely, but not very efficient I’m afraid.

In this article, I explain webhooks and provide you with all the technical tidbits you need to know in order to be webhook-fluent.

How many times do we buy things only because the people we like, recommend them? 

You might drive a Toyota because your parents drove one for twenty years. Switch your mobile carrier because your colleague has flawless coverage. Or pick your career because that’s what a guest speaker at your middle school graduation said they did.

So when you set out to find an influencer to be the face of your company, you’ve likely put in weeks upon weeks of research making sure they’re the perfect fit. 

Their content needs to hit the right notes… their followers are your dream target audience… and their profile looks like MKBHD sprinkled stardust all over it. 

Now that you’ve found them, surely the most difficult task is behind you? All you have to do is reach out to them, and they’ll jump at the chance to work with your brand, just as thrilled as you are. 

Except, if you do that, you’ll never hear back. And there are two likely scenarios.

You send them dozens of messages imploring them to consider your proposal. 

Give up on the process and go with the first account that shows up when you search for #paidpublicity. 

Both don’t exactly make your influencer marketing campaign look any good. But we’ll fix that!

In this article, I’ll show you how to send emails using an email API in various programming languages and frameworks. 

I’ll also break down the differences between SMTP and email APIs, but if you’re already aware of them and your needs, feel free to skip ahead by clicking on some of the following links:

PHP

Laravel

Python

Node.js

Note that as my API of choice, I’ll be using Email API, a part of the Mailtrap Email Delivery Platform. However, the core principles in this article can be applied to any email API provider.

In this step-by-step tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a Node.js contact form, give it a personal touch, retrieve and validate data from it, and then send emails through the form via SMTP or API.

Note: you’ll need Node.js 6+ or any version released since May 2018 installed on your machine for the provided code snippets to work.

In web development, email validation in JavaScript rules the game. Be it form validation, or a sign-up sequence email validation, you need to be sure users type the right thing. 

Here, I cover JavaScript email validation front-end and back-end (server-side). And this “full-stack” tutorial is geared towards beginners, but there are also nuggets of wisdom for more advanced users. 

As always, there are JavaScript code snippets you can easily copy-paste to your project. 

Let’s cut to the chase—SendGrid vs Mailgun. What are the differences between these email sending platforms and which one should you choose?

I aim to answer these questions and provide you with an in-depth comparison of SendGrid and Mailgun.

Disclaimer: The features, prices, and ratings are up-to-date as of writing this article. But, they could change in the future, so they might be different when you’re reading.