Setting Up Resend for WiFi Marketing Transactional Emails

Transactional vs Marketing Email: Why They Often Use Different Providers

Venues send two kinds of email, and they are easy to mix up.

Transactional email completes or updates something the guest already asked for: a booking confirmation, a receipt, a password reset, a change to a membership. The US regulator describes transactional or relationship content as content that facilitates an already agreed upon transaction or updates a customer about an ongoing one (FTC, CAN-SPAM compliance guide).

Marketing email promotes something: a newsletter, a seasonal menu, an event, an offer.

This is general information, not legal advice. Note the trap: being triggered automatically does not make an email transactional. A birthday offer or a "we miss you" note with a discount is promotional, even though a rule sends it. Under CAN-SPAM, the primary purpose of the message decides which kind it is, and if the subject line would lead the recipient to think it is an ad, it is treated as commercial (same FTC guide). In the UK, the regulator says you must not send marketing emails to individuals without specific consent, apart from a limited soft opt-in for your own previous customers (ICO). The EU rule it comes from is similar: email marketing needs prior consent, with an exception for a business's own customers and similar products (ePrivacy Directive, Article 13). Treat them as marketing, send them only to guests who opted in, and include an unsubscribe link.

Why use separate tools? Campaign platforms such as Mailchimp are built around audiences, segments, templates and scheduled sends. API based senders such as Resend are built for sending individual emails from your own software the moment something happens. Many teams use one for each job. It is a choice, not a rule: a small venue with no developer is usually better off with one platform.

Domain Verification in Resend

You need a domain you control and access to its DNS settings.

1. In Resend, go to Domains and add a domain.
2. Use a subdomain, for example mail.yourvenue.com, rather than yourvenue.com itself. Resend strongly recommends sending from a subdomain (Resend docs). It keeps the reputation of automated mail separate from the mailbox your staff use every day. Each subdomain is set up and verified separately.
3. Resend shows the DKIM and SPF records to add, as TXT and MX or CNAME records. Copy them exactly from the domain's Records tab; the set can differ between domains.
4. Add them at your DNS provider. Most providers want only the host part (for example "send" or "send.mail"), not the full domain. If your provider appends your domain to MX values, add a trailing period to the value so it is not changed (Resend docs).
5. On Cloudflare, set any CNAME record Resend gives you to DNS only (grey cloud), not proxied (orange cloud). Proxying stops verification from completing.
6. Wait. Resend says domains often verify within 15 minutes, and DNS changes can occasionally take up to 72 hours. If it still has not verified after 72 hours, fix any typos and use the Restart verification button.

Do not send guest email from a free webmail address or an unverified domain. Receiving servers check that the sending domain authorises the mail, and unverified mail is far more likely to be filtered.

Getting Your API Key

In Resend, go to API Keys and create a key. Resend offers two permission levels: full access, which can create, delete, get and update any resource, and sending access, which can only send emails (Resend API reference). Pick sending access for anything that only sends. You can also restrict a key to one domain.

Copy the key straight into wherever it will be used (your app's environment settings or a password manager). Resend does not let you view a key's value after it has been created (Resend docs). If you lose it, delete it and create a new one. Never paste a key into an email or a shared document.

Resend and VoqadoWiFi

You do not need your own Resend account to use VoqadoWiFi. This guide is for venues that send their own transactional email, for example from a booking system or their own website.

On our side, VoqadoWiFi's post visit messages (a thank you after the first visit, a review request, "we miss you" notes, birthday and anniversary messages) are available but guest email is currently held while our sending domain is set up. They switch on venue by venue as email goes live. Review requests are on by default once that happens; the others are off until you turn them on. Quiet hours (21:00 to 09:00 venue local time by default) and frequency caps apply.

For campaigns, the Growth plan syncs guests to Mailchimp with the tags "wifi-guest" and "location:" plus the venue name, so you can send from there. Email only guests who agreed to marketing: use separate, unticked marketing consent on your login page (VoqadoWiFi's explicit consent mode does this).

Resend vs Mailchimp: When to Use Each

Resend (or another email API) suits:

• Booking and reservation confirmations from your own system
• Receipts and account emails
• Anything your own software needs to send the moment something happens

Mailchimp suits:

• Newsletters and event announcements
• Seasonal and promotional campaigns
• Anything where you want audience segments, templates and campaign reports without a developer

Mailchimp also sells a transactional add-on. It is available on the Standard plan or higher and is sold in blocks of 25,000 emails (Mailchimp Help).

On cost, Resend's free plan covers 3,000 emails a month with a limit of 100 a day, and the Pro plan starts at $20 a month for 50,000 emails (Resend pricing, checked October 2026). Prices change, so check before you budget.

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Explained Simply

SPF (Sender Policy Framework). A DNS record listing which servers may send mail for your domain. Resend gives you the SPF records for the sending subdomain; you do not need to change the SPF record of your main domain for this.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). A signature added to each email that receiving servers check against a public key in your DNS. It shows the message came from you and was not changed in transit.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance). A policy telling receiving servers what to do with mail that fails the checks, and where to send reports. It is a TXT record at the host "_dmarc". Resend suggests starting with a policy of p=none, moving to p=quarantine once all your legitimate mail passes, and later to p=reject (Resend docs). A starting record looks like this:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourvenue.com;

Read the reports for a few weeks before tightening the policy. Other services that send as your domain (your booking system, your till's receipts, your staff mailbox) must pass too, or a strict policy will block them.