Today, I am going to explain about the process of enabling and implementing the CC (Carbon Copy) and BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) functionality for regular campaigns within Sitecore Send.
Sitecore Send is an AI-powered, microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native email marketing automation platform designed to help businesses create and manage email marketing campaigns. It enables business users and marketers to design and execute contextual and personalized email campaigns using customer behavior data, along with robust automation and tracking features.
So, let us firstly understand what CC and BCC are and how they are useful.
CC (Carbon Copy) is an effective way to keep additional people informed about a campaign without designating them as the main target or primary audience. When you add someone to the CC field, they receive the exact replica of the same email as the main recipient receives, and their address is also visible to others on the list. This is especially handy and useful when you want stakeholders such as marketing managers, compliance officers, or project leads to remain updated on the campaign content for reviewing or record-keeping purposes.
BCC (Blind Carbon Copy), on the other hand, sends a discreet copy of the email to selected recipients without revealing their information to the rest of the mailing recipients. This is especially important when you need to protect privacy, such as including internal teams, auditors, or regional managers, without exposing their email addresses to the rest of the audience. It also helps to prevent accidental “reply-all” situations, ensuring smooth communication flow.
In the marketing campaigns, CC and BCC are more than just convenience features. They help to maintain the transparency, recipient privacy protection, and ensure that the right people have access to important communications. They are also valuable tools and come in handy for internal coordination, compliance monitoring, and quality assurance before a campaign reaches the full audience.
CC and BCC in Sitecore Send Regular Campaigns
In January 2025, Sitecore Send released a powerful enhancement feature that empowers marketers with greater control over their email campaigns. The feature is the ability to manage CC and BCC recipients directly within Regular Campaigns. This significant update enables them to include additional recipients, whether visible or discreet, by leveraging custom fields in your email lists. Personalizing campaigns in this way enhances flexibility, oversight, and privacy.
In order to make this feature available, organizations must submit a request to the Sitecore Send Support Team, as the functionality is not enabled by default. Once activated for your account, you can access CC and BCC fields within any email list and add or modify them as needed according to your requirements.
Within the user interface, managing CC and BCC recipients is straightforward. Navigate to Audience → Email lists, select the desired list, and then click View all members. From there, pick an individual subscriber and insert the appropriate email addresses into the _cc and _bcc fields. Save your changes by clicking Update member, and your CC or BCC recipients are set.
For managing large lists, the bulk import option offers efficient scalability. Simply include Cc and Bcc columns in your CSV file, each capable of holding one or more comma-separated email addresses, and map them during the upload process. This allows you to assign CC and BCC recipients to multiple subscribers in one action.
One valuable capability within Sitecore Send is the reusability of custom fields. If you create and configure a CC or BCC field in one email list, you can easily copy that field to another list. From within the Audience → Email lists section, open the relevant list, go to Create custom fields, select the field, and choose to copy it to another list. This simplifies setup across other campaigns.
Why This Functionality Matters
Integrating CC and BCC into Regular Campaigns brings several advantages:
Visibility and Oversight: Using CC ensures internal stakeholders such as marketing managers or compliance officers also receive copies of the email, fostering transparency and accountability.
Privacy and Discretion: BCC allows internal parties to monitor campaign communications without exposing their email addresses to primary recipients, which is ideal for confidential or sensitive monitoring.
Operational Efficiency: The ability to use both manual edits and bulk imports ensures this feature scales elegantly across campaign sizes and organizational complexity.
Consistent Field Usage: Copying CC/BCC custom fields between lists saves time and ensures consistency across multiple campaigns.
The introduction of CC and BCC support for Regular Campaigns in Sitecore Send (rolled out January 13, 2025) marks a significant enhancement in mailing list management. It brings more refinement to campaign control by enabling tailored internal visibility and discreet monitoring. Whether through individual edits or comprehensive bulk imports, this feature offers marketers a smarter, more strategic way to manage campaign recipients and subsequently, their communications workflows.
References
Sitecore Changelog - https://developers.sitecore.com/changelog/send/13012025/new-cc-&-bcc-functionality-to-regular-campaigns
Working with Custom Fields - https://doc.sitecore.com/send/en/users/sitecore-send/work-with-custom-fields.html#edit-a-ccbcc-field