Notifications and Email
Make Siren Cloud notifications that email your collaborators, your Admins, your Property admins, or another address when an event happens, write each email with merge tags, send tests, and manage who gets what.
Siren Cloud
Last updated: October 28, 2026
A notification is an email Siren Cloud sends when something happens in your program, to someone you choose. When a payout goes out, for example, Siren can email the collaborator who got it, your Admins, or an address you enter.
A new organization starts with eight notifications switched on, so these emails go out without you doing anything:
- Your Admins hear about a new application to approve, a reward held for review, and an automatic payout that failed.
- A collaborator hears when their application is approved or declined, when a payout is sent to them, when an automatic payout waits for them to set up Stripe or PayPal, and when they can earn through Stripe or PayPal but haven’t set it up.
Each one goes out in Siren’s wording. You’d change them to write in your own voice, to switch off one you don’t want, or to add emails that start off, such as telling a collaborator each time they earn a reward or copying a teammate’s address on a payout.
Make your first notification
- As an Admin, open Settings > Notifications from the account menu and click “New notification”.
- Under “When this happens”, choose the event, such as Reward earned.
- Under “Email”, choose who gets it, such as the collaborator.
- Under “The email”, Siren fills in a suggested subject and body. Rewrite them in your own words. Merge tags such as
{collaborator.nickname}fill in names and amounts. - Click “Send a test”. “Me” is ticked to start, so click “Send test” and read the email in your inbox.
- Click “Save”. “Send this email” starts on, so the notification goes out the next time its event happens.
The sections below cover each part in detail.
What the screen covers
Settings > Notifications lists the notifications Siren Cloud sends for your program. Each one is a rule that reads as a sentence, such as “When a reward is approved, email the collaborator”. Admins open it from the account menu, during a trial or on any plan. Security emails, such as address confirmations and password resets, always go out as Siren writes them and aren’t listed here, and neither is the email asking Admins to approve a collaborator’s request to join more. The WordPress plugin has no Notifications screen, as Sign-Up and Approval Emails explains.
The list
The screen groups your notifications under the event that sends them. Each row shows the sentence, the subject, and “On” or “Off”. A notification to an address you enter shows “No address yet” until you add one. Click a sentence to open the notification, or click “Add” beside an event to make another one for it.
To switch several at once, tick them, tick an event to take all of its notifications, or tick “Select all”, then click “Turn on” or “Turn off”. A notification to an address you enter can’t go on without its address, so Siren leaves it as it was and says why. The “Activity” button at the top shows the activity of every notification, and each notification has its own.
Events and who they can email
Every event can email your Admins or an address you enter. Every event but Reward held for review and Payout failed can email the collaborator, and the reward events can also email your Property admins: Platform Managers limited to the Property the reward came from. A Property admin gets a reward email only when every reward in it came from their Property, so a distribution or a sale from several stores reaches none of them.
| Event | When it goes | Starts on for |
|---|---|---|
| Applied | A new applicant confirms their email address, once per application. The email to Admins is the approval request | Admins |
| Approved | An applicant becomes an active collaborator, whether an Admin approved them or their form did | The collaborator |
| Declined | An application is declined | The collaborator |
| Joined | An active collaborator joins more programs, distributors, or collaborator groups. When a Joined notification to the collaborator is on and reaches them, it replaces the email saying their request was approved | Nobody |
| Reward earned | A sale or distribution earns a collaborator rewards, once per collaborator per sale, skipping rewards worth nothing and held rewards | Nobody |
| Reward approved | A collaborator’s rewards are approved, once per collaborator per approval, so approving many of one collaborator’s conversions at once sends them one email | Nobody |
| Payout sent | A payout is marked paid or paid automatically, once per payout | The collaborator |
| Reward held for review | A sale’s reward is held because the sale is in a currency the program doesn’t pay in, once per collaborator per sale | Admins |
| Payout failed | An automatic payout fails and isn’t sent. It waits until an Admin fixes the cause and retries it | Admins |
| Payout waiting on setup | An automatic payout can’t go out because the collaborator hasn’t set up Stripe or PayPal, so it waits for them. If it still waits a week later, the email goes once more | The collaborator |
| Payout setup needed | A collaborator can earn in a currency you pay out through Stripe or PayPal and hasn’t set that method up, once per collaborator and method | The collaborator |
Your organization starts with one notification for each entry in the last column, switched on, with Siren’s wording. Every other event and audience has no notification until you make one. A notification you delete stays deleted. Review Applications covers the application emails, Sales in another currency covers held rewards, and Set Up Automatic Payouts covers failed and waiting payouts.
Make a notification
Click “New notification” at the top of the screen, or “Add” beside an event.
- Under “When this happens”, choose the event. Each one says when it fires.
- Under “Email”, choose who gets it: the collaborator, Admins, Property admins, or “An address you enter”.
- Under “The email”, Siren fills in its suggested wording for that event and audience. Change it as the next section describes, then click “Save”.
A chart beside the form shows the event, who it emails, and the subject as you go. An event can have several notifications, such as one to the collaborator and one to your Admins, or two to different addresses, since each takes one address. The approval request and the Approved and Declined emails to the collaborator are the exception. Your organization keeps one of each, so the screen greys that choice out and links to the one you have. An organization keeps up to 100 notifications. Once you have 100, delete one before you add another.
A notification’s event and audience stay as you made them. To change either, make a new notification and delete the old one.
Edit an email
Click a notification’s sentence to open it:
- Send this email switches it on or off.
- Send to, for an address you enter, is the address it goes to. Enter it before you switch the email on.
- Subject is required, up to 255 characters. The “Add merge tag” menu beside it inserts a tag.
- Body takes bold, italic, links, bulleted and numbered lists, and line breaks. Type
{, or click “Merge tag” in the toolbar, to add a merge tag. The list shows only the tags this email can use.
“Preview” shows the email filled in for a made-up collaborator, Sam Lee. “Use the default wording” puts Siren’s subject and body back, and nothing changes until you click “Save”.
You write the middle of the email. Siren opens it with the event’s facts, such as the reward and its program, and ends it with your organization’s name, your reply-to address, and a link to the reader’s email preferences, which needs them to sign in. The approval request keeps the applicant’s details and the “Approve Collaborator” button under your words. The Payout failed email ends with a “Review failed payouts” button that opens Fulfillments on “Needs attention”, and the Payout waiting on setup and Payout setup needed emails to the collaborator end with a “Set Up Payouts” button that opens the payout cards on their Profile page.
If your wording reads like marketing, such as ”% off”, “limited time”, or three or more links, Siren saves it and warns you. Some countries treat promotional wording in a service email as marketing, so keep each email to the update itself.
Send a test
“Send a test” sends the email as it stands on screen, saved or not, filled with sample values and with “[Test]” before the subject. Choose who gets it: yourself, any of your other Admins, and up to five addresses you type in “Other addresses”, separated by commas. Nobody else gets it, and the test changes nothing.
Delete a notification
Open the notification, click “Delete”, and confirm. It stops sending and its wording is gone. Its activity stays in the activity of every notification. Without the approval request, nobody is emailed about new applicants, and without the Approved or Declined email, applicants get no email about your decision. To bring one back, make it again with “New notification”.
Merge tags
A merge tag fills in a value when the email goes out. Each email offers only the tags that fit its event. In the body, a tag with no value is left out. In the subject, braces around something that isn’t one of the email’s tags stay as you typed them.
| Group | Tags |
|---|---|
| Collaborator | {collaborator.name}, {collaborator.nickname}, {collaborator.email}, {collaborator.payout_status} |
| Codes and links | {collaborator.tracking_code}, {collaborator.tracking_codes}, {collaborator.referral_link}, {collaborator.coupon}, {collaborator.coupons}, {links.portal}, {links.sign_in}, {links.earnings}, {links.coupons}, {links.profile}, {links.payout_setup}, {links.application_form}, and, for emails that don’t go to the collaborator, {links.dashboard} and, in Payout failed, {links.failed_payouts} |
| Program | {collaborator.programs}, {collaborator.distributors}, {collaborator.groups} on plans with collaborator groups, {program.name}, {program.description}, {program.commission}, {distributor.name}, {distributor.terms} |
| Reward | {reward.total}, {reward.programs}, {reward.distributors}, {reward.products}, in the three reward emails |
| Payout | {payout.amount} in Payout sent, Payout failed, and Payout waiting on setup, {payout.date} in Payout sent, {payout.failure_reason} in Payout failed, and {payout.method} in Payout waiting on setup and Payout setup needed |
| Balance | {balance.pending}, {balance.unpaid}, {balance.paid}, {balance.earned}, {balance.store_credit} |
| Organization | {org.name}, {org.contact}, {site.name}, {site.url} |
| Application | {application.form} and a tag for each question on your application forms |
Codes and links tags, other than the application form, dashboard, and failed payouts links, and Balance tags appear in every email but Applied and Declined, since those are about someone who isn’t an active collaborator. The balance tags follow the portal: {balance.pending} is rewards awaiting approval, {balance.unpaid} is approved rewards not yet in a payout, {balance.paid} is rewards in a payout, and {balance.earned} is all three. {collaborator.payout_status} reads “Payout details are set up” or “Payout details are not set up yet”.
In Payout waiting on setup, {payout.amount} adds up everything of the collaborator’s that still waits, per currency. {payout.method} names what they have to set up, such as “Stripe” or “Stripe and PayPal”. {links.payout_setup} opens the payout cards on the collaborator’s Profile page. {payout.failure_reason} is what Stripe or PayPal said, with any credentials masked.
Reply-to address
The “Reply-to address” card at the top of the screen sets where replies go. Every email also shows it at the bottom as your contact address. Enter an address in “Replies go to” and click “Save”, or leave it empty to use your first active Admin, whose address the card shows. The approval request is the exception: a reply to it reaches the applicant.
When emails go out
Siren queues an email when its event happens, one for each person and notification, so nobody gets the same email twice from one notification. Two notifications that reach the same person each send. Whether a notification is on, and whether the reader has switched it off, is decided then. The wording is read when it’s sent, so an edit you make right after still applies. A send that fails is tried again for several hours. Each notification’s activity shows its sends, retries, and failures.
If emails are paused
When at least 3% of your notification emails bounce, or 0.06% are marked as spam, over seven days, with at least 100 sends and at least 3 bounces or 2 spam reports, Siren pauses your notification emails.
The screen shows “Notifications are paused” with when, why, and the earliest end, and each Admin gets an email about it.
While paused, no notification email goes out, and neither do the Applied, Approved, and Declined application emails or “Send Signup Email”. Applicants’ confirmation emails and requests to join more keep going. “Send a test” is refused. Emails held back then aren’t sent later, except the reminder about a waiting payout, which goes out once the pause ends. Sign-in, password, and billing emails keep going.
Each notification’s activity shows the bounces and spam reports, so you can find and fix the addresses behind them. Siren starts your emails again on its own after at least 24 hours, once the rates drop under 2% bounces and 0.04% spam reports, and you can’t lift the pause early.
Email preferences
Each person can switch off emails they get. One switch covers an event’s emails to them, however many notifications you keep for it.
- Collaborators use “Email preferences” in their portal. It lists the events whose collaborator notifications your organization has on, and they can’t switch on one you have off. An applicant can reach it only once they’ve set up their account, so a declined applicant can’t, and only switching the Declined email off stops it.
- Admins use “Your email preferences” at the top of the Notifications screen. Switching one off stops it for you only. The emails to Property admins listed there reach only Platform Managers limited to that Property.
- Platform Managers who get Property admin emails reach “Your email preferences” from the link at the bottom of those emails.
A switch someone turns off stays off even if you turn the notification off and on again or make another one for the same event. Security emails always arrive, and “Send Signup Email” sends the approved email even to a collaborator who switched it off. An address you enter has no preferences link, so only an Admin can stop its emails.
Notifications in recipes
A recipe can carry notifications in its notifications section, and an Admin’s recipe export from Siren Cloud can include yours. Only an Admin can apply a recipe that holds notifications. Applying the same recipe again updates the notifications it made rather than adding more, and an entry for the approval request or the Approved or Declined email to the collaborator updates the one you have. Working with Recipes covers importing and exporting.