Getting Started with Knak Send

Internal communications teams have an awkward choice:

• Send plain text emails that look like afterthoughts
• Export HTML from a builder into Outlook and lose all tracking
• Submit requests to marketing operations and wait in line behind revenue-generating campaigns

None of these options work well at scale. Plain text undermines the message, manual exports create overhead with every send, and routing through marketing ops turns that team into an unintentional bottleneck for employee communications.

Knak Send exists to resolve this tension. Internal comms teams get the same professional email building capabilities that marketing teams use, with a direct path to sending and tracking, and no marketing automation platform or tickets to marketing ops required.

What is Knak Send

Knak Send is internal email sending built into Knak Enterprise. You build emails using the same editor that marketing teams use for external campaigns, then send those emails directly to employees through Knak Send.

The key difference from core Knak: instead of syncing your finished email to a marketing automation platform like Marketo or Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you send it directly from Knak to your employee contact lists.

Think of it as completing the loop for internal communications. Build branded, mobile-responsive emails with the same quality controls and guardrails that keep external campaigns on-brand. Then send them to your people without routing through marketing infrastructure.

Knak Send is not a standalone product. It has a one-to-one relationship with your Knak Enterprise instance. The same templates, brand guidelines, and modules available for external emails are available for internal sends.

Who should use Knak Send

Knak Send works best for teams that need to send professional internal communications at scale, but lack access to marketing automation platforms or don't want to compete for marketing ops resources.

The common thread: these teams need quality branded emails, but their recipient data lives outside the marketing automation platform. Employee lists come from HR systems, not the CRM. Marketing ops teams can set up templates and brand controls, then step back. Internal comms teams take it from there.

Knak Send is not designed for external marketing sends. Customer-facing campaigns should still route through your marketing automation platform via core Knak. The platform distinction matters: external sends need the segmentation, automation, and compliance infrastructure that MAPs provide. Internal sends need simpler, faster execution.

How Knak Send works

The workflow has two phases: build and send. Building works exactly like creating any email in Knak. Sending is where the path diverges.

Building your email

Open Knak and create a new email or select an existing template, then use the drag-and-drop editor to add content, images, and calls to action. Everything you can do for an external email, you can do for an internal one: modules, brand colors, locked elements, mobile optimization, and dark mode support are all available.

If your organization has templates specifically for internal communications, you can build and save those just like external templates. Many teams create an "Internal Comms" folder with pre-approved layouts for newsletters, announcements, and updates.

Opening in Knak Send

When your email is ready, click Publish, then select "Open in Knak Send." This moves your finished email into the sending interface.

You can also access Knak Send directly through the app switcher at the top of the platform. Toggle between Knak Enterprise (building) and Knak Send (sending) as needed.

Configuring your send

In Knak Send, you configure the sending details:

You can save these configurations as defaults for recurring sends. Monthly newsletters, for example, can use the same from name and reply-to every time.

Adding recipients

Recipients come from contact lists you upload to Knak Send. The primary method is CSV import: export a list from your HR system, upload it to Knak Send, and map the columns to contact fields.

Once your contacts are in the system, you can create smart lists that filter contacts based on conditions you define: everyone in the engineering department, all employees in the northwest region, or people hired in the last 90 days. The conditions use the data fields from your CSV, so the flexibility depends on what data you include.

You can add recipients three ways:

• Individual contacts (for small targeted sends)
• Smart lists (for condition-based segments)
• Full contact lists (for company-wide communications)

Sending or scheduling

Choose whether to send immediately or schedule for a future date and time. Scheduled sends let you prepare emails in advance and time them for optimal engagement, whether that's Friday afternoon for the weekly newsletter or Monday morning for the company update.

You can also save an email as a draft if you're not ready to commit to a send time.

Setting up your Knak Send instance

Before you can send, you need to complete initial setup. This happens once, then you're ready for ongoing sends.

Custom sending domain

Emails sent through Knak Send come from your domain, not a generic Knak address. Setup requires adding CNAME records to your DNS configuration.

The process:

1. Navigate to Settings in Knak Send
2. Click "Set Up Custom Domain"
3. Enter your preferred sending domain
4. Receive the CNAME records to add to your DNS
5. Have your IT team add the records
6. Domain status updates to "Connected" once verified

Many organizations use a subdomain for internal sends. Something like internal.yourcompany.com or comms.yourcompany.com keeps it distinct from external marketing sends.

Knak Send includes a safety feature: only contacts with email addresses matching your allowed domains can be uploaded. This prevents accidental sends to external addresses. If your allowed domain is yourcompany.com, you cannot upload contacts with gmail.com addresses.

The system automatically sets your allowed domains based on the domains used by your Knak Enterprise users. If you need to add additional domains, contact Knak support.

Sending your first internal email

With setup complete, here's the sequence for your first send:

1. Build or select your email in Knak Enterprise
2. Click Publish, then Open in Knak Send
3. Configure sender details: from name, from email, reply-to, subject line
4. Upload your contact list if you haven't already (CSV with at least an email column)
5. Add recipients: select your contact list or smart list
6. Preview: check how the email will appear to recipients
7. Send or schedule: choose immediate delivery or set a future date

Tracking and performance

After sending, Knak Send tracks engagement. You can see:

• Delivery rate: How many emails reached inboxes
• Open rate: How many recipients opened the email
• Click rate: How many clicked on links

This data appears in the Knak Send interface. You can view aggregate performance for each send and drill into individual recipient engagement when needed.

For internal communications teams used to sending through Outlook with no visibility, this changes the game. You can actually see whether employees read the benefits enrollment reminder or the CEO's quarterly update. Data informs decisions about timing, frequency, and content.

When Knak Send makes sense

Knak Send fits organizations where:

• Internal comms volume is high enough to justify a system. Monthly newsletters, regular policy updates, frequent company announcements. If you're sending once a quarter, the setup overhead may not pay off.
• Brand consistency matters for internal communications. Some organizations treat internal emails as casual. Others want the same polish they put into customer-facing content. Knak Send serves the latter.
• Marketing ops is overloaded with internal requests. If your marketing automation team spends meaningful time supporting internal sends, that's capacity diverted from revenue-generating work. Knak Send lets them hand off the keys.
• You need tracking and accountability. Sending important communications and hoping people read them isn't a strategy. Knak Send gives you data on what's working.
• Compliance requires multiple sending domains. Organizations with separate legal entities, regional requirements, or strict domain controls can configure Knak Send to meet those needs.

The teams that get the most value tend to be the ones where internal communications is a function, not an afterthought: dedicated internal comms specialists, HR teams running structured employee engagement programs, and corporate communications teams managing executive messaging.

Getting started

If you're already a Knak customer, ask your customer success manager about enabling Knak Send. The feature is in beta, and they can walk you through the setup process and answer questions specific to your use case.

If you're evaluating Knak and interested in the internal communications use case, see Knak Send in action. The same builder that powers emails for Google, Amazon, and Meta works just as well for reaching your own teams.

Common questions about Knak Send

• Can we send from our own domain?

  Yes. Knak Send requires custom domain setup so emails come from your organization, not a generic address.

• Does it track link clicks?

  Yes. Click-through rates are tracked for all links in your emails.

• Can we personalize content for different groups?

  Smart lists let you segment recipients based on any data field in your contact list. Dynamic content (showing different content blocks to different segments within a single email) is on the product roadmap but not available yet.

• Is Knak Send a separate product?

  No. Knak Send is included with Knak Enterprise. It's not available as a standalone purchase, but it's not an additional cost either.

• Who handles support?

  If you have questions or need help, our support team is ready to assist!