Zest handles all transactional emails on your behalf. Your gifters and gift recipients automatically receive branded, timely emails throughout the gifting experience. This article explains how those emails work, who receives them, and what you can configure yourself.
Before you start:
Have your brand's preferred sender email address ready (e.g., [email protected]).
Work with your domain registrar to add DNS records during initial setup.
All email settings described here are configured in your Zest Partners dashboard.
Overview: How Transactional Emails Work
Zest sends transactional emails automatically when key gifting events occur — order placed, gifts shipped, gifts delivered, and more. These emails:
Are sent on your behalf using your brand's logo and colors.
Appear to come from your chosen sender email address (e.g., [email protected]) once DNS setup is complete.
Require no ongoing management from your team.
You do not need Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or any other email platform for transactional emails to work. Zest manages everything out of the box.
Important: Until your DNS records are verified and Zest engineering completes the final activation step, emails may send from [email protected].
Email Types and Recipients (Who Gets What)
Storefront orders
Recipient | When It's Sent | |
Order confirmation | Gifter (purchaser) | When the order is placed |
E-gift 1-day summary | Gifter | 1 day after order, if any gifts haven't been accepted |
E-gift final summary | Gifter | 7 days after order, if any gifts still haven't been accepted |
All gifts accepted | Gifter | When all e-gift recipients have accepted |
Gifts started shipping | Gifter | When the first gift begins to ship |
Gifts delivered | Gifter | When gifts are being delivered |
Order rescheduled | Gifter | When a brand reschedules a gift |
Order refunded | Gifter | When a refund is issued |
E-gift notification (initial) | Gift recipient | When an e-gift is scheduled and sent |
E-gift reminder | Gift recipient | 1 day after initial e-gift notification if not yet accepted |
E-gift final reminder | Gift recipient | 7 days after initial e-gift notification if not yet accepted |
Gift shipped (e-gift only) | Gift recipient | When the physical gift ships after acceptance |
Gift delivered (e-gift only) | Gift recipient | When the gift is delivered |
Note: For direct-ship orders, gift recipients do not receive any emails — only the gifter receives shipping and delivery notifications.
For e-gift orders, gift recipients also receive an SMS reminder (if SMS is enabled) alongside the email notifications.
Account emails (all users)
Sign-in link: Sent when a user requests access via magic link.
Sign-in code: Sent when a user requests a numeric verification code.
Setting Up Your Sender Email Address (DNS Configuration)
To send transactional emails from your own domain (e.g., [email protected]), Zest needs to authenticate that domain with our email delivery provider. This is a one-time setup done during your implementation.
Choosing a sender address
Use a generic address on your brand's domain, such as [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].
Use the same domain as your storefront (e.g., if your storefront is gifts.yourbrand.com, use an @yourbrand.com sender).
Make sure it's an active inbox — customers may reply to these emails.
Avoid using a personal email address.
Zest supports one sender address across all transactional emails.
DNS setup process
Share your chosen sender email address with the Zest team.
Zest will provide you with DNS records (CNAME records) to add at your domain registrar (e.g., GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap).
Add all records provided to your domain's DNS settings. No SMTP configuration is required.
Once the records are live, notify the Zest team.
Zest engineering completes a final activation step on their end.
Heads up! DNS verification and Zest's activation step are two separate things. Even after your DNS records are live and verified, emails will continue sending from [email protected] until the Zest team completes activation on their end. If you see this happening after DNS setup is confirmed, contact Zest to complete the process.
Changing your sender address later
You can change your sender email address after initial setup, but you must give the Zest team advance notice so they can reconfigure DNS records if needed. If the domain remains the same (e.g., changing from [email protected] to [email protected]), DNS changes may not be required. The change is made on Zest's side.
Configuring Support and Notification Email Addresses
There are three distinct types of email addresses to configure in Zest. They serve very different purposes — it's worth taking a minute to understand each one.
Email Setting | Purpose | Where to Configure |
Transactional sender address | The "From" address on all automated emails to gifters and recipients | DNS setup with Zest team |
Buyer support email | Displayed to gifters/purchasers so they know where to get help | Partner Settings > Contact Info |
Recipient support email | Displayed to gift recipients so they know where to get help | Partner Settings > Contact Info |
Order notification email | Internal alert sent to your team when an order is placed | Partner Settings > Contact Info (also configurable per storefront) |
To configure support and notification emails:
Go to your Zest partner dashboard.
Navigate to Settings > Contact Info.
Update your Buyer Support Email, Recipient Support Email, and Orders Notification Emails as needed.
Click Save.
Note: The buyer support email and recipient support email settings are shared across all your orders — both Storefronts and Concierge. There is no built-in way to use different support emails per order type.
Adding multiple order notification recipients:
You can ensure the right team members are alerted for new orders by adding multiple email addresses to your notification settings. This is configurable both at the organization level and per storefront.
In your storefront settings, find the Additional emails for notifications field.
Add as many email addresses as needed.
All listed addresses will receive new order notifications.
Tip: Concierge orders include -C# in their order numbers. You can set up email inbox rules to filter and route Concierge vs. Storefront notifications based on this pattern — useful if different teams manage each order type.
How Multi-Recipient Orders Are Handled (Digest Emails)
When a gifter places a large order with many recipients, Zest consolidates notifications so they aren't overwhelmed with individual emails.
How it works:
One order confirmation is sent when the order is placed — not one per recipient.
Digest-style shipping updates are sent (e.g., "Your gifts have started to ship") rather than individual shipping notifications for each recipient.
E-gift acceptance summaries are sent at 1 day and 7 days to let the gifter know how many recipients have accepted their gifts. If all gifts are accepted, the gifter receives a positive "all accepted" summary instead.
Per-recipient tracking is always available in the gifter's Gifter Dashboard.
This approach prevents a single large order from flooding a gifter's inbox with hundreds of individual emails.
Note: Zest uses a proxy email address for orders pushed to Shopify. This prevents Shopify from sending its own duplicate transactional emails to the gifter or recipients. You do not need to manually disable Shopify transactional emails for corporate gifting orders — Zest handles this automatically.
Customizing Transactional Emails (Default vs. Klaviyo)
Default Zest emails
Out of the box, Zest sends all transactional emails using standardized templates.
These templates:
Include your brand's logo and colors.
Cannot be individually edited (subject lines, body copy, layout are standardized).
Work automatically with zero configuration from your team.
This is the recommended starting point for all brands.
Klaviyo-managed transactional emails
If you would prefer full control over email copy, subject lines, and design, you can migrate to self-managed transactional emails through your own Klaviyo account.
With Klaviyo-managed transactional emails:
You control all email content, design, and subject lines.
You are responsible for setting up and monitoring all transactional flows.
Zest triggers events to Klaviyo, and Klaviyo sends the emails.
Recommendation: Launch with Zest's default emails first. Consider transitioning to Klaviyo-managed transactional emails after you're fully live and have validated your gifting program — ideally well after your initial launch period. Avoid making this transition during your peak gifting season.
Klaviyo for Marketing Emails (Separate from Transactional Emails)
Even without Klaviyo-managed transactional emails, if you have a Klaviyo account, Zest can push marketing events you can use for follow-up campaigns:
Place Gift Order — when a gift order is placed.
Accepted Gift — when a recipient accepts a gift.
Active Lead — for prospective gifters.
These marketing events are separate from transactional emails and don't need to be set up for your storefronts to function.
Troubleshooting Email Delivery Issues
Gifters or recipients aren't receiving emails
This is almost always caused by the recipient's email security settings, not a Zest issue. Here's what to check:
Ask the recipient to check their spam/junk folder and search for the sender address (e.g., [email protected] or [email protected] if DNS isn't yet activated).
If the issue persists, contact Zest support with the recipient's email address so we can check delivery logs.
For recipients at organizations with strict email security (banks, law firms, government agencies), suggest using a personal email address or accessing links from a non-corporate network.
Edge case — Corporate firewalls and e-gift links: Bank and financial institution security systems may flag e-gift redemption pages as potential phishing and block access entirely — not just the email, but the link itself. For corporate clients at financial firms, we recommend sending e-gifts to personal email addresses.
Emails are still sending from [email protected] after DNS setup
DNS verification and Zest's activation step are two separate things. After your DNS records are live and verified, the Zest engineering team must complete a final activation step. Contact Zest to complete this — it is not automatic.
Recipients aren't receiving sign-in codes or verification emails
The most common cause is strict corporate email filters. Ask the user to:
Check their spam or junk folder.
Search their inbox for the sender address.
If at a corporate email address with strict security policies (common at banks, law firms), try using a personal email address instead.
Logo looks too small or incorrect in certain email clients
Logo sizing issues sometimes appear in specific email clients, particularly Outlook. This can be a rendering issue specific to that email client. To troubleshoot:
Send a test order to Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail to compare rendering.
If the logo looks wrong consistently, contact Zest — the uploaded logo file may need to be resized.
Brand colors fail accessibility requirements
Zest's transactional email templates must meet ADA color contrast standards. If your brand colors don't pass, Zest will reach out to request alternative colors before activating branded emails.
How to resend a confirmation email
Navigate to the order in your Zest dashboard.
Scroll to the top of the order detail page.
Click Actions.
Select Resend Confirmation Email.
Custom fields not appearing in confirmation emails
Custom fields configured on your storefront (e.g., pickup dates, special instructions) do not automatically appear in Zest's transactional confirmation emails. If this is critical for your gifting program, submit a feature request to the Zest team.