The vast majority of marketers today rely on Email as their primary channel for communication with prospects and customers. While Campaign Studio supports incorporating other channels into campaigns, the Email channel has the most complexity. Before you build your messages, ensure that you set up your sender domains so that Campaign Studio can actually send them.
Email types
Template email
Template emails are versatile with Campaign Studio offering several ways for you to use them. Typically thought of as more transactional emails, there are five different uses for template emails. Users can choose a template email as a marketing email in a campaign.
Campaign
To send a template email in a campaign:
Add a campaign action and click Send email.
The system also displays the Send email to user option.
- Name the action, schedule the send time, and choose the email that you want to send.
Form submission
After a contact submits a form, you can send a couple of different types of emails from the Actions tab. You can also send an email directly to the contact. You can use template emails to send messages to team members who may benefit from form submission notifications. Select any one or more of Send email to contact, Send email to user, or Send form results. Standalone forms have all of these options available. Send email to contact is not displayed on campaign forms. In a campaign form, you add an action to send the email to the contact in the campaign. Similar to the campaign, give the action a title and select the email you want.
Point trigger
Once a contact reaches a certain number of points, you can send it some sort of email. For example, a special offer for your most engaged contacts, or a congratulations message for accumulating that point total. Acquia also offers an option to Send email to user in point triggers. With this, you can inform an internal team member when a contact reaches a point value.
Send email to user
For each Send email to user option, the system displays additional options. With these options, you can send notices to appropriate team members and know when a contact receives a certain message. Any tokens in those emails are the tokens from the contact’s record, not the user’s. You can use this effectively as a BCC, or create a different email to send to your team members.
Direct to contact
You can also send a template email directly from a contact record.
- On a contact’s page, locate the Send email option in the top right corner, above the profile image.
- Select the template email that you want to send at the bottom.
Make any necessary changes in the editor.
Changes to the From name, Address, or Subject line override the information on the email template.
Note
If you send emails directly from a contact record, Campaign Studio does not track the stats on those messages for reporting. You can see if a contact opens one of these emails.
Segment email
Segment emails are marketing emails. Examples may include newsletters or general announcements. Sending a segment email is straightforward.
- Create the content.
- Select the segment(s) you want to receive the message.
To schedule the send, click the Send button.
The Schedule to start sending at field populates with the current date and time.
- Do one of the following:
- To send immediately, click Schedule.
- To schedule, set a date and time when you want to schedule the email, and then click Schedule.
Campaign Studio supports throttling segment emails, so you can control the speed at which your emails are sent. You must set a date and time to start the send, but you can also decide how long the total send should take. To reduce the speed of the process, you can limit the number of emails to be actually sent per hour, day, or week in the blast. If you do not set a limit, Campaign Studio’s segment emails will normally send at a rate of approximately 100,000 per minute.
Once you send a segment email, Campaign Studio does not send it to additional new contacts added to that segment. Instead, they are added as Pending, and re-sending the email sends it to only those new contacts.
A contact can only receive a segment email once. You can send it as many times as you need, without the same contact getting a duplicate.
General options
By using the Templates tab, you can leverage templates created through the email builder.
- The Templates tab displays templates created by the email builder and available for selection in Campaign Studio. By selecting a template, you define the look and feel of the email that you want to build.
- The Advanced tab allows you to define certain additional parameters such as to and from email addresses and attachments.
Note
Once you build an email by leveraging a template, changing the template wipes out the content. Acquia recommends that you create a new email with the template that you want to switch to and reproduce the content.
Templates
Campaign Studio offers users a smooth experience for creating emails by providing out-of-the-box, prebuilt templates.
Acquia recommends that you create your custom templates that match your business brand and needs. You can update the pre-built templates or create a new template from scratch. Once you customize an email, you can save it as a new template. For more information, see Email builder.
Configuration options
Subject: The email subject line is the text that appears in a recipient's email inbox.
Email subject lines have a 190 character maximum limit and support:
- Emojis
- Text type global tokens
Tokens such as {contactfield=firstname}.
Note
The email Subject field applies meta tags to your HTML to improve email deliverability performance and syncs with the Subject field on the Settings tab in the email builder.
- Internal Name: The name displayed in your email list and selection menus for any Send email action. Acquia recommends that you create a naming convention for different types of emails you may send. A naming convention helps to keep your list organized and also helps the team members to find emails.
- Preheader Text: The preheader text provides a short, user-friendly summary of the email as a preview in the inbox of the email recipients. This text is not included in the email body and has a maximum limit of 130 characters. Preheader text supports Text type global tokens. The Preheader field applies meta tags to your HTML and improves email deliverability performance. The value entered in this field syncs with the Preheader field on the Settings tab in the email builder.
- Contact segment: Select the audience segment whom you will send the email to. It only applies to segment emails.
- Exclude contact segment: Select the audience segment whom you will not send the email to. It only applies to segment emails.
- Category: You can organize your emails based on their goals, campaigns, and other categories. For more information, see Global Categories.
Language and Is a translation of: If you are sending emails to contacts in multiple regions from a single Campaign Studio instance, Campaign Studio can identify those regions and send emails in appropriate languages. You must create the content for each of those languages. Select the language you are building the email in and the main email you are translating. For example, if you typically use English, you can create a French version to send to contacts in France. Create the English version and label it as English, and then create the French version. Add the French label and select the English version in the Is a translation of box.
For more information, see Localization and Language Translation.
- Published: Set the Yes/No toggle bar to publish or unpublish an email. If it is unpublished, it is not sent.
Publish at: Set the date and time when you want to publish the email. This helps to control relevance, and does not require you to manually publish emails at the right time. This option can be critical for template emails.
To schedule an email to publish at a specified date and time:
- Click the Publish at (date/time) box and select your preferred date and time from the Date and Time picker.
Set Published to Yes.
Campaign Studio marks the email as Pending and publishes it at the scheduled date and time.
Unpublish at: Set the date and time you want an email to unpublish. This helps to control relevance, and does not require you to manually unpublish emails at the right time. This option can be critical for template emails.
To schedule a published email to unpublish at a specified date and time:
Click the Unpublish at (date/time) box and select your preferred date and time from the Date and Time picker.
Campaign Studio unpublishes the email at the scheduled date and time.
Important
The Date and Time picker shows the date and time according to the default timezone set for your user’s profile in System Settings. Therefore, before scheduling an email to publish or unpublish, you must check the default timezone.
- Unsubscribe feedback form: If contacts are about to unsubscribe, you can present them with a feedback form. Analyzing and acting on the responses may help you create more relevant content and reduce your number of unsubscribes.
- Preference Center page: Unsubscribes can hurt a marketer’s ego (and they mean fewer people to communicate with). The Unsubscribe button does not immediately shrink your list. A preference center lets your contacts tell you how they want you to communicate with them. For more information, see Preference center landing page. Once you create one or more Preference Center pages, choose the one you want to attach to any particular email.
- Google Analytics UTM tags: Campaign Studio supports UTM tagging in emails, focus items, and landing pages.
Advanced
The expected order of priority for determining the sender from name and address in Campaign Studio is:
- Mailer is owner on the email’s Advanced tab.
- From name and From address on the email’s Advanced tab.
- Mailer is owner in Configuration > Email Settings.
- Name to send mail as and E-mail address to send mail from in Configuration > Email Settings.
From name: Specify the name from which the message should appear to be coming from. This option controls how the email appears in your contacts’ inboxes. If you are writing a message best suited to be coming from someone else, enter their information here.
Note
If you enter a value for From name on the Advanced tab, you also must enter a value in From address. From address must match the sender domain used in Email settings.
- From address: Specify the address from which the message should appear to be coming from. This option controls how the email appears in your contacts’ inboxes. If you are writing a message best suited to be coming from someone else, enter their information here.
- Reply to address: If replies should go to a different mailbox than the From address, enter the mailbox here.
BCC address: To copy yourself or a specific address when an email gets sent, use the BCC address field.
Note
Our default delivery partner, Sparkpost, does not handle tokens in CC or BCC emails. As a result, Campaign Studio converts the BCC to an additional To address. To use things like BCC to CRM or view exact copies, use the Send email to user options.
Attachments: You may attach an asset you have uploaded to Campaign Studio to the email. Once it is downloaded, you have the event tracked for reporting, scoring, and more.
Note
To track downloads, link assets in the email content. Assets cannot be tracked if they are added as attachments.
Note
The limit for attachment size is 20 MB for customers using Sparkpost as their delivery provider (Acquia’s standard provider). Other providers may have different size limits.
- Plain text version: The plain text version strips out HTML when a recipient’s email service provider does not accept HTML messages. You can create one manually, or click Auto Generate after creating the content in the email builder. Creating a plain text version of each email is a best practice. If no plain text version exists when the email is sent, Campaign Studio automatically generates one.
- Custom headers: Define customer headers that you want to use for outgoing emails such as segment emails or emails sent through Campaign Events. Global Tokens are not supported in Custom Headers.
- Use owner as mailer: This option changes the sender name and email address to the contact’s owner in Campaign Studio, if one is assigned. If the contact does not have an assigned owner, the From Name and From Address in the Advanced tab are displayed as the sender. If those fields are empty, the instance uses its default (in Settings > Configuration > Email Settings.)
- Send to unsubscribed contacts: Toggle this to Yes to make this email a transactional type email that can be sent to contacts on your Do No Contact list. Toggle this to No to make this email a marketing type email that can not be sent to contacts on your Do No Contact list. For more information, see Transactional and marketing emails.
Sending emails using custom field tokens
Like the Mailer is Owner feature, users can use contact or company fields as tokens in the sender From name and From address fields. This personalizes the sender data for a contact, based on a value saved to the contact’s profile or the profile of the company a contact is attached to. If a contact is attached to multiple companies, the primary company’s data will be used.
Any email address values used within the From address tokens must have domains that are configured and attached to the instance in Campaign Factory. For more information, see Sender domains. Do not use this option if the companies attached to contacts are the contact’s place of employment or it will appear that they are receiving internal emails from their own place of business because you cannot validate sender domains for each of your contacts’ employers.
Using contact and company custom field tokens for email metadata can be done on the individual email level or as a global setting for all emails sent from the instance.
Option 1: Using tokens in the Advanced tab on the individual email level
Tokens added in Advanced settings apply to segment and template emails, form actions, and point triggers.
If a contact does not have a primary company attached, the system uses the default settings configured in Mail Send Settings.
- Create the company and contact to send email from by creating two custom fields on either the contact or company object.
- Create a custom field for Sender Name with a data type of Text.
- Create a custom field for Sender Email Address with a data type of Email.
On the New Email page or Edit Email page, click the Advanced tab next to the Templates tab at the top.
Note
In the following examples, sender-name and sender-email-address are placeholders. It is possible to use any token using the alias of the custom field, such as {contactfield=lastname}. The field alias text and the equal sign must not have a space between them.
It is also possible to use a fallback if a contact or company does not have a value populated in the sender from name or address field. Add a pipe symbol between the field alias name and the fallback text, ensuring no space before or after the pipe symbol. For example: {contactfield=sendername|Acquia}. If you do not use a fallback and no value exists, the sender from name, address, or both are populated by the values set in the instance’s global mail settings.
- In the From name field, add the token {contactfield=sender-name} to have the field populated with the primary company name that is attached to the contact’s profile. Replace sender-name with the alias of the field you created for Sender Name in Step 1 if the alias is different.
In the From address field, add the token {contactfield=sender-email-address} to have the field populated with the value entered in the contact or contact’s primary company record as the Sender Address.
Note
This must be a contact or company email field. Each value populated on the contact records in this custom field must still use a sender domain that is properly configured and attached to the instance.
- Schedule emails to send as segment emails or campaigns emails.
- Click Save or Save & Close.
Option 2: Global Mail Send Settings
Contact and company custom field tokens can be used as a global setting for the instance, and all emails sent from the instance populate with these global send settings. This configuration overrides the sender domain settings initially configured in Campaign Factory. A configured sender domain must be used in the E-mail address to send mail from field.
- Log in to Campaign Studio.
- Click the Settings icon on the top right corner.
- Click Configuration > Email Settings.
- Locate the Mail Send Settings section.
In the Name to send mail as field, add the token: {contactfield=sendername|Default Name} to have the field populated with the primary company name that is attached to the contact’s profile.
Note
In this example, sendername is a placeholder. It is possible to use any token using the alias of the custom field, such as {contactfield=lastname}.
A fallback is required when using a token in the global instance configuration for Name to Send Mail. For example: {contactfield=companyname|Google}. When creating tokens, only use one pipe symbol and also ensure to not have any spaces within the token except between the words in the default text.
In the E-mail address to send mail from field, add the token: {contactfield=companyemail|[email protected]} to have the field populated with the email address of the primary company name that is attached to the contact’s profile. A configured sender domain must still be used in this field.
Note
This token must be either a contact or company email field.
A fallback is required when using a token in the global instance configuration for E-mail Address to Send Mail From. Create a fallback by adding a pipe symbol after the field alias used in the token, with no spaces. For example: {contactfield=sender-email-address|[email protected]}. When creating tokens, only use one pipe symbol and also ensure to not have any spaces within the token.
- Click Save & Close
Emails page
The Emails page lists all the emails that you have created, and provides the following information about each email:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| NAME | The title of the email. |
| CATEGORY | The category assigned to the email. |
| STATUS | The statistics for the email. For more information, see Email statuses. |
| DATE CREATED | The date when the email was created. |
| MODIFIED DATE | The last date when the email was modified. |
| CREATED BY | The user who created the email. |
| ID | The ID of the email indicating the position at which the email is created in Campaign Studio. For example, an ID of 4 indicates that it is the fourth email that is created in Campaign Studio. |
Email statuses
Statuses for Segment and Campaign emails
Sent: The number of contacts whom you sent this email to. This indicates the number of attempts to send the email from Campaign Studio to your Email Service Provider (ESP). When you click this number, Campaign Studio directs you to the Contacts page and automatically generates a search for the contacts whom you sent the email to.
Note
Campaign Studio counts some emails as sent even if they are failed or bounced, and not actually delivered.
Read: The number of contacts for whom the tracking pixel is downloaded to. When you click this number, Campaign Studio directs you to the Contacts page and automatically generates a search for the contacts who have read the email.
Note
With Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection program launched in September 2021, tracking pixels may be downloaded and opens may be recorded without the human recipient actually opening the email. Additionally, if a recipient blocks images from displaying in their email client, the open is not recorded.
- % Read: Of the number of people whom the email was sent to, this is the percentage of people who opened the email.
Statuses for Segment emails only
- Queued: The number of contacts who have the message scheduled to send, once frequency limits allow. When you click this number, Campaign Studio directs you to the Contacts page and automatically generates a search for the queued contacts.
Pending: The number of contacts who have not received a segment email, but are currently in the target segment(s) configured for the email. When you click this number, Campaign Studio directs you to the Contacts page and automatically generates a search for the pending contacts.
Note
When you schedule the email to be sent, Campaign Studio schedules the email only for the pending contacts, and does not resend the email to contacts whom the email is already sent.
The number of contacts in a pending segment email can be less than the number of contacts in the segment to which the pending email is assigned because some contacts are marked as Do Not Contact.
Do Not Contact contacts are not counted towards the Pending status for emails with Send to unsubscribed contacts = No. For more information, see Transactional and Marketing emails.
Scheduled: Place the cursor on this flag to see the time when the segment email is scheduled to be sent.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is available for Segment emails. Template emails may be sent at any time from a campaign, form submission, or point action trigger, so Campaign Studio does not know what the total audience is. That number could constantly change, so Campaign Studio does not know when it has sent the test to the sample size you select.
Create the parent
To create an A/B test, you must create the parent (A) email as you create any normal email. Then, find the A/B testing section in the general options to the right.
- A/B test winner criteria: The metric you want to use to determine the winner of your A/B test.
- Total Traffic Weight: The percentage of the total audience you want to receive your email. For example, if the segment you are sending the email to (or sum of all the segments) has 100,000 contacts and you enter 20 in this box, Campaign Studio initially sends 20,000 contacts an email. You will determine the percentage to receive each variant when you create the variants.
- Winner Variant Delay: The time period, in hours, for Campaign Studio to wait before sending the winner to the remaining target segment(s). For example, if you send the A/B test to 20% of the total audience initially and you enter “2” in this box, Campaign Studio sends the email that is winning to the remaining 80% of the target contacts two hours after the initial send.
The following is an example for creating the parent (A) email:
Email A (parent):
The segment contains 100 contacts.
A/B test winner criteria: Email Stats Read rate
Total Traffic Weight: 30%
Winner Variant Delay: 3 hours
Email B (child):
Total Traffic Weight: 10%
Email C (child):
Total Traffic Weight: 5%
Email sending starts at 1 AM:
Email A is sent to 15 contacts.
Email B is sent to 10 contacts.
Email C is sent to 5 contacts.
At 4 AM (1 AM + 3 hours coming from Winner Variant Delay), Campaign Studio checks if the emails were sent to all the 30 contacts.
Campaign Studio schedules another check in 2 hours if all emails are not sent for any reason.
At 6 AM (4 AM + 2 hours scheduled check), Campaign Studio checks if emails are sent to all the 30 contacts.
The result of the check is positive now, that is, all emails are sent to all the 30 contacts.
If the result is negative, Campaign Studio schedules another check in 2 hours.
At 6 AM, Campaign Studio sends an email winner variant to the remaining 70 contacts.
How the winner criteria is calculated:
Clickthrough rate: The unique number of clicks in emails sent.
Read rate: The unique number of opens in emails sent.
Download rate: The unique number of asset downloads in emails sent.
Create variants
Once you create a parent email and set a winner criteria, you can create variants, or B tests. Navigate to the main page for the email you want to test (before clicking Edit). Next to the options for Edit, Send Example, and Close in the top right, click the menu and select Add A/B test. You may also create C, D, E, tests - as many variants as you want. Go back to the parent each time and repeat the process to get to Add A/B test.
Make any edits you’d like to the email - whatever changes you’d like to test for performance.
You must add a Traffic Weight to the variant. While you can create as many variants as you want, the sum of the traffic weights across all variants must be equal to or less than the Total Traffic Weight you entered on the parent. To split the variants evenly, you will also want to leave a percentage for sending the parent. Campaign Studio will send the parent to any percentage of the Total Traffic Weight remaining after the percentage for all variants has been added.
For example, if you are using a B variant with a 20% total traffic weight, enter 10 here. With that, Campaign Studio sends the B test to 10% of the target segment and the parent to 10% of the target segment. If you create a B and a C test with 5% traffic weight each, that accounts for 10% of your total traffic weight. Since there is 10% remaining to reach the total traffic weight of 20% set on the parent, Campaign Studio will send the parent to that remaining 10%.
Publishing, viewing, and editing variants
Variant emails do not appear in your emails list. You see the parent email with an icon indicating that the email has variants.
The icon that looks like an organizational chart/hierarchy is the one that indicates variants.
After clicking into the parent, scroll all the way to the bottom and select the Variants tab next to Click Counts and Contacts.
Ensure that you publish the variants by toggling the red switch to green. If you leave them unpublished (the default), expected traffic receives the parent email. To the right, you will see the percentage of traffic weight included in the A/B test. You will also see the winner criteria listed. Once an A/B test has begun, you will see a trophy icon next to the variant that is in the lead. To end the A/B test early and declare a winner to send to the remaining audience, click the trophy. Once a winner is set, that winner becomes the parent and other variants unpublish.
The Current flag shows the email you are currently viewing, not the variant that is currently winning.
Actions
Previewing and downloading an email
Users can preview emails from the Email details page. If the email template contains the tokens related to the contact or companies field, you can specify the name and company to see the preview with tokens rendered. Users can also download an email preview in the PDF or HTML format, with or without preview tokens populated.
- Log in to Campaign Studio.
- In the left navigation pane, click Channels > Emails.
Create a new email or select an existing email.
The system navigates to the Email details page.
(Optional) In the right pane, in the Preview URL section, do the following:
- In the Show preview for contact field, add the contact’s name that you want to display in the preview.
- In the Show preview for company field, add the company’s name that you want to display in the preview.
These steps can also be done on the Email preview page.
Note
UTM tags defined in the Google Analytics UTM tags section of the New Email page are not displayed on the Email preview page.
- Set the toggle bar to green or red to allow or restrict the Preview URL access for unauthenticated users who are not logged in to Campaign Studio.
Click the Redirect icon next to the URL field.
The system displays a new Email preview page.
- Click Download PDF or Download HTML to download the email in the appropriate format.
- Save the file to your local machine.
Sending an example email
As a marketer, you might want to test your emails to ensure that tokens are correctly replaced and variants are sent to the right contacts. Campaign Studio lets you achieve the same without requiring you to live send. You can share your example email with your contacts and other recipients.
To send an example email:
Click Send Example.
Specify a recipient and select a contact.
- Click Send.
Note
The unsubscribe link is not functional in example emails to avoid contacts unsubscribing from email communications during the testing process.
For example emails, Campaign Studio does not display customized preference center pages but only displays the default preference center page.
Saving an email draft
Important
By default, the Save as Draft button is disabled. To get it enabled, create a Support ticket.
With Campaign Studio, users can create one draft version of an email so that you can get it reviewed and approved before publishing. While reviewing the draft, reviewers can preview and compare the draft with the original version. After reviewing, reviewers can apply or discard the draft. Once a reviewer applies a draft, the draft overwrites the original version.
To save an email draft:
- Log in to Campaign Studio.
- In the left navigation pane, click Channels > Emails.
- Select an existing email and click Edit.
- Click Builder.
- Update the content of the email and click Close Builder.
- Click Save as Draft.
- Click Preview URL and Draft Preview URL to compare the versions.
- Click Edit.
- Do one of the following based on review:
- If the changes look fine and can be published to the production environment, click Apply Draft.
- If the changes do not look fine, click Discard Draft.