Passing Unique Arguments to SendGrid Using Swiftmailer

Question

Hi I'm using the php mailer Swiftmailer to send through SendGrid using the SMTP API. We can pass unique arguments to SendGrid to help track the email. I've been successful in passing unique headers with Swiftmailer:

   $headers = $message->getHeaders();

   $headers->addTextHeader('AccountId', $accountId);

While these values are successfully injected into the header of sent email, they are not being passed back by SendGrid to my event webhook or in the control panel.

I also tried this, which didn't work either:

$headers = $message->getHeaders();

        $args = '  {
    "customerAccountNumber": "55555",
    "activationAttempt": "1",
    "New Argument 1": "New Value 1",
    "New Argument 2": "New Value 2",
    "New Argument 3": "New Value 3",
    "New Argument 4": "New Value 4"

}';
        $headers->addTextHeader('unique_args', $args);

This is probably a question for SendGrid support but since it relates to Swiftmailer I thought I'd try here first. Thanks!

Kyleekylen

Answer 1

SendGrid expects a JSON key/value structure in the X-SMTPAPI header entry.

I have an old project using SwiftMailer 5.0.3. This is how I send category values to SendGrid:

$message->getHeaders()->addTextHeader('X-SMTPAPI', json_encode(array(
    'category' => $category,
)));

Applying that pattern to your example:

$headers = $message->getHeaders();

$args = array(
    'unique_args' => array(
        'AccountId' => $accountId,
        "customerAccountNumber" => "55555",
        "activationAttempt" => "1",
        "New Argument 1" => "New Value 1",
        "New Argument 2" => "New Value 2",
        "New Argument 3" => "New Value 3",
        "New Argument 4" => "New Value 4",
    ),
);

$headers->addTextHeader('X-SMTPAPI', json_encode($args));

Fellah

Thanks! This was a struggle to figure out because SendGrid suppresses the custom arguments in the actual email header. – Kyleekylen

@Kyleekylen - I've updated my answer after taking a look at the documentation. The first sentence also links to the documentation. – Fellah

That helped a lot! app.sendgrid.com/settings/mail_settings + endpoint + sendgrid.com/docs/for-developers/tracking-events/… = ton of potential. – Pledget

Answer 2

The method addTextHeader is for one value

$headers->addTextHeader('unique_args', $args);

You should use addParameterizedHeader method instead like this

$headers->addParameterizedHeader(
   ["customerAccountNumber" => "55555"],
   ["activationAttempt" => "1"]
);

Roundup