Building a Serverless Email Marketing Application with AWS

In this guide, we'll create a serverless email marketing application using various AWS services. The application will allow you to send bulk emails, track email events, and store email templates and tracking data.

Services Used:

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Amazon EventBridge
Amazon S3
AWS Lambda
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Step-by-step Instructions:

1. Set up Amazon SES

Navigate to the Amazon SES console.
Verify your domain and email addresses:
- Click on "Verified identities" in the left sidebar.
- Click "Create identity" and follow the prompts to verify your domain or email address.
If you're in the SES sandbox, request production access to send emails to any recipient. But for this project we will use our sandbox environment for sending out our email

2. Create an S3 Bucket for Email Templates

Go to the Amazon S3 console.
Click "Create bucket" and give it a unique name (e.g., "my-email-templates-bucket").
Configure the bucket settings as needed, ensuring it's private.
Upload your email templates as HTML files to this bucket.

3. Create a Lambda Function for Sending Emails

Go to the AWS Lambda console.
Click "Create function" and choose "Author from scratch".
Name your function (e.g., "sendSESemailtoContact").
Choose a runtime (Python 3.9).
Create a new role with basic Lambda permissions.
Click "Create function".
Replace the function code with the following (adjust as needed):

import boto3
import csv

# Initialize the boto3 client
s3_client = boto3.client('s3')
ses_client = boto3.client('ses')

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    # Specify the S3 bucket name
    bucket_name = 'my-email-templates-bucket' # Replace with your bucket name

    try:
        # Retrieve the CSV file from S3
        csv_file = s3_client.get_object(Bucket=bucket_name, Key='contacts.csv')
        lines = csv_file['Body'].read().decode('utf-8').splitlines()

        # Retrieve the HTML email template from S3
        email_template = s3_client.get_object(Bucket=bucket_name, Key='email_template.html')
        email_html = email_template['Body'].read().decode('utf-8')

        # Parse the CSV file
        contacts = csv.DictReader(lines)

        for contact in contacts:
            # Replace placeholders in the email template with contact information
            personalized_email = email_html.replace('{{FirstName}}', contact['FirstName'])

            # Send the email using SES
            response = ses_client.send_email(
                Source='yourname@yourdomain.com',  # Replace with your verified "From" address
                Destination={'ToAddresses': [contact['Email']]},
                Message={
                    'Subject': {'Data': 'Your Weekly Cloud Quest!', 'Charset': 'UTF-8'},
                    'Body': {'Html': {'Data': personalized_email, 'Charset': 'UTF-8'}}
                }
            )
            print(f"Email sent to {contact['Email']}: Response {response}")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"An error occurred: {e}")

Test your Lambda function:

{
  "comment": "Generic test event for scheduled Lambda execution. The function does not use this event data.",
  "test": true
}

The test will give you an Access Denied error. That shows we need to update the IAM role for the this function.

Update the IAM role to allow access to S3 and SES:
- Go to the IAM console.
- Find the role created for your Lambda function.
- Add the AmazonSESFullAccess and AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policies.

After setting the IAM policies , run the Lambda test again.

And there you go..

4. Set up EventBridge for Email Event Tracking

Go to the Amazon EventBridge console.
Create a new rule:
- Click "EventBridge Schedule".
- Name your rule (e.g., "SendWeeklyEmail").
- Specify Schedule details (Weekly , time etc)
Add a target:
- Choose "Lambda function" as the target.
- Select the Lambda function you created earlier or create a new one for handling events.
Review schedule and create it.

6. Test the Application

Invoke the email sending Lambda function with a test event
Check the SES console to verify that emails are being sent.
Monitor the CloudWatch logs for both Lambda functions to ensure they're working correctly.

7. Set up API Gateway (Optional)

If you want to trigger email sends via HTTP requests:

Go to the API Gateway console.
Create a new REST API.
Create a new resource and POST method.
Set the integration type to "Lambda Function" and select your email sending function.
Deploy the API.

Conclusion

You now have a serverless email marketing application that can send bulk emails, track email events[ you can also enhance this by storing the data in DynamoDB.] This setup is scalable and cost-effective, as you only pay for the resources you use.

To enhance this application further, consider adding features like:

A frontend interface for managing email campaigns
More sophisticated email templating with personalization
Analytics dashboard for email performance
Subscription management and unsubscribe handling

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