Send Personalized Emails with SMTP and Mail Merge in Google Sheets

How to send personalized emails using Mail Merge in Google Sheets with SMTP. You can send emails via SendGrid, Postmark, AWS SES, Zoho Mail, or any other SMTP server

The Mail merge add-on lets you send personalized emails to multiple recipients in one go. The emails are always sent via your Gmail account or your Google Workspace email address. Google also imposes a limit on the number of emails you can send per day.

Mail Merge with SMTP

Mail merge is convenient because you can put your contacts in a Google Sheet and the add-on will individually send the emails for you. However, if you aren’t using Gmail or have a large mailing list, an SMTP service like SendGrid or AWS may be more a suitable option for sending out personalized emails.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could enjoy the ease of the Mail Merge add-on while still utilizing an SMTP service to send personalized emails? That’s where the Document Studio add-on can help.

Generate SMTP Credentials

Google for SMTP settings for [your email provider] and you’ll find the SMTP server address, port number, and the authentication details like the username and password (or API key) for your email service.

For instance, if you plan to use Zoho Mail for mail merge, the SMTP settings would be as follows:

  • SMTP Server: smtp.zoho.com
  • Port: 465
  • Username: Your Zoho account email address
  • Password: Your zoho.com password

Send Email with SMTP

Prepare Mail Merge Data

Open the Google Sheet with your mail merge data and launch the Document Studio add-on. Create a new workflow and choose the Send Email task.

From the list of Email Service providers, choose SMTP Server and enter the SMTP server address, port number, and the authentication details that you found in the previous step.

SMTP for Mail Merge

Next, move to the Email Message section and configure your email template. You can use placeholders like {{First Name}} and {{Title}} in the message body and subject line to personalize the emails.

If you would like to attach files to the email, you can do that as well. You may attach the same file to all emails or use placeholders to attach different files to each email.

Click the Preview button and you should see a sample email sent to your own email address through the SMTP server. You can now click the Save and Run button to send personalized emails to all recipients in your Google Sheet.

Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory

Awards & Titles

Digital Inspiration has won several awards since it's launch in 2004.

Google Developer Expert

Google Developer Expert

Google awarded us the Google Developer Expert award recogizing our work in Google Workspace.

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

Our Gmail tool won the Lifehack of the Year award at ProductHunt Golden Kitty Awards in 2017.

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft awarded us the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title for 5 years in a row.

Google Cloud Champion

Google Cloud Champion

Google awarded us the Champion Innovator title recognizing our technical skill and expertise.

Email Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter to stay up to date.

We will never send any spam emails. Promise.