Transactional email is a type of automated email between a sender and a recipient. It differs from marketing email in that transactional email is triggered by events, interactions, or preferences within a service or application rather than by a company’s marketing campaign. For this reason, transactional email is sometimes called “triggered” email.

Transactional emails are messages that businesses need to send in order to facilitate a transaction or provide a product or service, as requested by the customer. For this reason, companies don’t need to obtain consent from the customer to send transactional emails.

Businesses use transactional emails to communicate important information to customers at critical moments in the customer journey.