Bento

Bento is an email marketing and automation platform designed to help you send more emails to your customers efficiently. With Bento, you can send marketing emails to one or many recipients, handle transactional emails like password resets, and manage 1-to-1 conversations using Bento Chat seamlessly.

To ensure our platform maintains high deliverability across our network we enforce that all accounts are manually reviewed by our compliance team within 12-24 hours of signing up. Please read our Acceptable Use Policy for more details on what constitutes acceptable use.

Bento is not a cold email or outreach platform. We only support sending emails to customers and users who expect and want to receieve your emails. Failure to comply with our guidelines will lead to account termination.

The typical onboarding process takes just a few hours and involves:

  • Sending data into Bento via one of our integrations (or our API/forms).
  • Uploading a list of users to Bento via a CSV file.
  • Adding DNS records for your domain.
  • Designing your automations and emails.

Below is a step-by-step guide to help you onboard quickly and efficiently.

Speedrun Onboarding Guide

During onboarding, all accounts have full access to our dedicated support team to assist you. Please find links to book a walkthrough call within your account.

1
Connect Your Data

"I'm a developer"

Use our API documentation to send data programmatically into Bento. SDKs for Laravel, Ruby on Rails, and Node.js are available to quickstart your integration.

  • Add Bento's SDK to your project
  • Begin sending in key events only (i.e $signed_up when a user signs up)
  • Connect Stripe to track payments

Initially, send a minimal amount of data to avoid noise (you can always send in more data later).

"I'm a no-code marketer"

Use our Make.com or Zapier integrations to send data programmatically into Bento. Additionally, embed forms on your website using Bento's Form builder.

  • Connect Bento to Zapier
  • Begin sending in key events only (i.e $signed_up when a user signs up)
  • Connect Stripe to track payments

Initially, send a minimal amount of data to avoid noise (you can always send in more data later).

"I'm using Shopify (ecommerce)"

If you use Shopify, sign up for Bento and connect Shopify directly. Bento will start receiving data from Shopify, including customer data and orders. Find links to our integrations in the main navigation under Apps.

  • Connect Shopify to Bento
  • Start receiving customer data and orders

"I'm using WordPress"

If you use Wordpress, sign up for Bento and connect directly. Download our WordPress plugin to get started. Bento will start receiving data from WordPress plugins including LearnDash, WooCommerce, EasyDigitalDownloads, and a handful more. Find links to our plugin in the main navigation under Apps.

  • Download and install the Bento WordPress plugin
  • Start receiving customer data and orders
For any plugin that isn't supported by us or the community consider buying a licence for WPFusion as it can connect hundreds of different plugins to Bento. We are happy to credit accounts that require this to get started.

"I just have a list of users ..."

Go to the next step and upload them.

2
Upload a List of Users

Now that you have data flowing into Bento, go browse a few profiles to see how it looks. For some integrations, like Stripe or Shopify, certain custom fields will be added for you such as first_name or phone_number. You'll want to make note of this when you are uploading data from another system.

Do not just export a CSV from another system and then import it into Bento. Take time to make your CSV file as clean and complete as possible using our sample CSV as a guide. This will ensure that your data is accurate and will help you avoid any issues down the line.

Ensure the file includes columns for email, tags, and any other custom fields you wish to include. Use lowercase and underscores for all column names in your CSV file.

We strongly recommend that you upload your unsubscribed users and use the "Unsubscribe users" command during the import. This will ensure that you don't accidentally send emails to users who don't want to receive them.

Uploading Checklist
  • Navigate to `People > All Users` in the main navigation.
  • Click on `Import Users`, then `Import Users (CSV)`.
  • Download the sample spreadsheet.
  • Add your data to the spreadsheet.
  • Upload your CSV file containing user data.
  • Refresh the page to see your imported users.
3
Add DNS Records for Your Domain

To ensure your emails are delivered successfully, add the necessary DNS records to your domain. This will ensure that when Bento sends an email to your users, we are permitted to send on your behalf. This ensures they land in the inbox and don't bounce.

DNS Records Checklist
  • Go to `Emails > Authors` and add all the email addresses you want to send from.
  • Then, go to `Deliverability > DNS Records`.
  • Follow the instructions to add the provided DNS records to your domain's DNS settings.
  • Click `Validate DNS Records` to ensure everything is set up correctly.
  • If you need help, please schedule a call.
4
Send Your First Email

Now, it's time to send your first email.

  1. Click Search and type in your email address, then hit enter.
  2. You should now be viewing your profile. Click on Send Email.
  3. Fill out the fields and hit Send.
  4. Wait 5 seconds. If the email lands in your inbox, you've successfully sent your first email!
5
Explore!

At this point in the guide, you should now have a fully functioning Bento account. All your users are now in your account, new users will be added automatically, and you can start sending emails to your subscribers.

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