You can still do it in one transaction, sort of. Replace "send email" with "queue email" and then either eliminate the step that writes the success to the database (pushing that off to the queue processor, who will open or already have open a database connection) or instead write to the DB that you queued the item.
The advantage you gain is that the queue is a nice buffer if something gets held up with email sending, and also, the queue processor can work in bulk, say sending 100 emails, and then opening a connection to the DB and writing them all in one statement.
The advantage you gain is that the queue is a nice buffer if something gets held up with email sending, and also, the queue processor can work in bulk, say sending 100 emails, and then opening a connection to the DB and writing them all in one statement.