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Overview

Email notifications provide detailed information about your site’s status, including error messages, response times, and historical context. Emails are sent automatically based on your notification preferences for each monitor.
Email alerts are included in all plans. Monthly quotas: Free (150), Solo (500), Team (2,000), Stack (5,000). Configure email notifications individually for each monitor or manage them in bulk.

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Setup

Email notifications are configured per monitor:

Select Your Monitor

Navigate to the monitor you want to configure

Open Notifications Section

Find the “Notifications” section in your monitor settings

Enable Email Channel

Check the “Email” checkbox for Site Down and/or Site Recovery alerts

Verify Email Address

Ensure your account email is verified (check Settings → Profile)

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What You’ll Receive

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Site Down Alert

When your site goes down, you’ll receive an email with: Subject: 🚨 [ALERT] YourSite.com is DOWN Email Content:
  • Alert Type: Site Down
  • Timestamp: When the issue was detected
  • Monitor URL: The URL being monitored
  • Error Details: What went wrong (timeout, 500 error, DNS failure, etc.)
  • Response Code: HTTP status code if available
  • Quick Actions: View Dashboard, View Monitor Details
  • Incident ID: For tracking and reference

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Site Recovery Alert

When your site comes back online: Subject: ✅ [RESOLVED] YourSite.com is back online Email Content:
  • Alert Type: Site Recovery
  • Timestamp: When recovery was detected
  • Total Downtime: Duration of the incident
  • Failed Checks: Number of consecutive failures
  • Current Status: Confirmation that site is responding correctly
  • Quick Actions: View Dashboard, View Incident Report

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SSL Expiry Warning

Automatic alerts before SSL certificate expires: Subject: 🔒 [WARNING] SSL Certificate expiring soon - YourSite.com Email Content:
  • Certificate expiration date
  • Days remaining
  • Domain name
  • Issuer information
  • Renewal reminder

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Domain Expiry Warning

Automatic alerts before domain registration expires: Subject: ⚠️ [URGENT] Domain expiring soon - YourSite.com Email Content:
  • Domain expiration date
  • Days remaining
  • Registrar information
  • Renewal instructions
  • Critical timeline (30, 14, 7, 3 days)

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Email Delivery

Instant Delivery

Emails are sent within seconds of detection

Monthly Quotas

150 to 5,000 emails per month depending on your plan

HTML & Plain Text

Emails support both HTML and plain text clients

Mobile Optimized

Responsive design for reading on any device

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Multiple Recipients

To send emails to multiple people, you can:
  1. Add team members to your Watchman Tower account
  2. Configure email forwarding in your email client
  3. Use email aliases that forward to multiple addresses
  4. Set up distribution lists in your email provider
Each team member can configure their own notification preferences for each monitor.

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Email Formatting

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Subject Lines

Email subjects are automatically formatted based on alert type:
Alert TypeSubject Format
Site Down🚨 [ALERT] Site Name is DOWN
Site Recovery✅ [RESOLVED] Site Name is back online
SSL Expiry🔒 [WARNING] SSL Certificate expiring soon
Domain Expiry⚠️ [URGENT] Domain expiring soon
Performance⚠️ [WARNING] Site Name is slow

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Email Body

All emails include:
  • Clear alert title and severity
  • Timestamp of the event
  • Monitor name and URL
  • Detailed error information (for failures)
  • Quick action buttons to dashboard
  • Incident tracking ID
  • Watchman Tower branding

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Spam Prevention

Common causes:
  • First time receiving emails from Watchman Tower
  • Strict spam filters in your organization
  • Email not whitelisted
Solutions:
  • Add [email protected] to your contacts
  • Whitelist @watchmantower.com domain
  • Check spam folder and mark as “Not Spam”
  • Contact your IT department to whitelist our domain
Check these:
  1. Verify email address is correct in Settings → Profile
  2. Check spam/junk folder
  3. Ensure email checkbox is enabled for the monitor
  4. Verify the monitor is active and checking
  5. Try sending a test alert
Options to reduce email volume:
  • Disable email for non-critical monitors
  • Use Push notifications for less important alerts
  • Enable only Site Down alerts (disable Site Recovery)
  • Use bulk notification management to update multiple monitors

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Email vs Other Channels

FeatureEmailPushSMSSlack
CostFreeFreePaidFree
Delivery Speed5-30 seconds1-2 seconds5-10 seconds2-5 seconds
Detail LevelHighMediumLowMedium
Historical Record✅ Searchable inbox❌❌✅ Channel history
Mobile Access✅ Any email app✅ Requires app✅ Any phone✅ Slack app
Rich Formatting✅ HTML✅❌ Text only✅ Markdown

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Best Practices

Always Enable Email

Email provides a permanent record and detailed information

Check Spam Folder

First-time emails may land in spam - mark as “Not Spam”

Verify Your Address

Ensure your email is verified in account settings

Use Email Rules

Create email filters to organize alerts by monitor or severity

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Troubleshooting

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Emails Delayed

Possible causes:
  • Your email provider’s spam filtering
  • Server-side email queuing
  • Network congestion
Usually emails arrive within 30 seconds. If delays persist, check with your email provider. Make sure you’re logged into Watchman Tower in the same browser before clicking dashboard links.

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Unsubscribe from Emails

To stop receiving email alerts:
  1. Go to your monitor’s notification settings
  2. Uncheck the “Email” checkbox
  3. Or use “Turn Off All Notifications” for all monitors
Unsubscribing from emails means you won’t be notified of outages. Consider using Push notifications instead if email volume is too high.

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Next Steps

Push Notifications

Get instant mobile alerts with rich content

Slack Integration

Send alerts to your Slack channels

SMS Alerts

Set up text message notifications

Alert Overview

Learn about all notification options