Setting Up Ghost Newsletters (Email Distribution)
Ghost Newsletters — a built-in distribution system without third-party services like Mailchimp. Emails are sent via configured SMTP or Mailgun, HTML template is generated from the post automatically.
SMTP Configuration
Ghost uses Nodemailer under the hood. In config.production.json:
"mail": {
"transport": "SMTP",
"from": "\"My Blog\" <[email protected]>",
"options": {
"service": "Mailgun",
"host": "smtp.mailgun.org",
"port": 587,
"secureConnection": false,
"auth": {
"user": "[email protected]",
"pass": "your-mailgun-smtp-password"
}
}
}
For Mailgun we recommend EU region: smtp.eu.mailgun.org.
Creating a Newsletter
Ghost Admin → Newsletters → Add newsletter:
- Name: internal name
- Subject: email subject (supports variables:
{{post.title}}) - Sender name / email
- Reply-to email
Email Template
Ghost generates HTML automatically, but allows customization via Custom Themes Newsletter. In the theme create a template file:
my-theme/
└── email/
├── header.html
├── footer.html
└── styles.css # inlined in the email
Minimal email/styles.css:
/* Email typography */
.post-full-content { font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.6; }
.post-full-content h2 { font-size: 24px; margin: 32px 0 16px; }
.kg-bookmark-card { border: 1px solid #e5e5e5; border-radius: 4px; }
/* View Online button */
.view-online-link { color: #738a94 !important; }
Sending Post as Newsletter
When publishing a post in the editor: the Send email button appears in publication settings if the post is marked as a Newsletter post. Ghost will send an HTML version to all active subscribers of the selected Newsletter.
Segmentation by Access Levels
When creating a Newsletter → Recipients:
- All members
- Free members only
- Paid members only
- Specific tiers
Open and Click Tracking
Ghost automatically adds a tracking pixel and UTM parameters to links. Statistics are available in:
- Ghost Admin → Newsletters → [Newsletter name] → Analytics
- Posts → [Post] → Email stats: opens, clicks, unsubscribes
Setting up Newsletters with SMTP and basic template — 2–4 hours.