This article will introduce you to the Dotdigital interface and how to log in. You’ll also find information on common email marketing definitions.
Before starting, make sure you’re familiar with:
How to log in to Dotdigital
- Log into your Dotdigital account via the login page.
- Enter your email address and password.
TIP: If you need to reset your password, click the Forgotten password? Link. For security reasons, the Spektrix Support team cannot reset your password.
Navigation
Once you have logged into Dotdigital, you will see the home page:
From the home page you can see summaries of your Dotdigital activities and performance. You’ll also find links to quickly jump back into any drafts you have been working on.
Down the left hand side of your home page, you can see the navigation menu:
Next, we’ll provide a brief overview of what you can do in each relevant section of the Dotdigital interface and link out to other resources where you can learn more.
REMINDER: Not all elements of Dotdigital are integrated with Spektrix, therefore we’ll only cover information which is relevant to the Spektrix integration. You can read more about the Dotdigital integration in Introduction to Dotdigital.
Audience
In the Audience section of the Navigation menu you’ll find:
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Lists: This is where you’ll see your Spektrix Sync List if you have one. You’ll also see lists for unsent Campaigns from Spektrix which will automatically be deleted once the Campaign is sent.
TIP: To sync Tags and Attributes, and for any Email Automation you’ll also need to have a synced address book. To set this up you’ll need to contact Support.
- Contacts: This section contains all of the customers you have sent emails to that have not been suppressed.
- Suppressions: Suppressions are contacts that have been removed from your mailing list due to unsubscribing, bouncing or making an ISP complaint.
TIP: If a customer is suppressed but has requested to stay on your mailing list, follow the steps in How to resubscribe a customer in Dotdigital.
Campaigns
In the Campaigns section of the Navigation, you’ll find Email Campaigns.
To learn more about email campaigns, read How to send an Integrated Email.
Content
In the Content section of the Navigation menu, you’ll find:
- Templates: Using templates can help you save time when designing Email Campaigns. You can learn more about Templates in the Setting Up a Dotdigital Campaign article.
- Forms: Forms are a tool to help you capture data from your customers. Learn more about Forms in the Dotdigital Forms article.
- Images: This is where the images you upload to Dotdigital are stored. You can learn more about Images in the Designing a Dotdigital Campaign article.
Automation
In the Automation section of the Navigation menu, you’ll find:
- Programs: Programs are an automated set of triggered email campaigns. You can learn more about Dotdigital Programs in the Introduction to Dotdigital Programs.
- Triggered email: Triggered emails are email campaigns which are created specifically to be used in Dotdigital Programs.
Analytics
In the Analytics section of the Navigation menu, you’ll find:
- Dashboards: Create and view dashboards containing information across multiple reports.
- Reports: In Reports you can view metrics on sent email campaigns.
You can find more information about Reporting and Dotdigital in our Email Reporting article.
Account Settings
Navigate to the Account Settings menu by clicking the circle with your initials in the bottom left corner.
- Your Profile: On your profile you can update settings related to your account such as your phone number and password.
- Settings: On the settings page you can configure settings related to your Dotdigital account such as how to sync Contact Data Fields with Attributes and Tags from Spektrix. In this section you can also set up new Users and change your account owner.
- Notifications: Manage settings related to your account’s notifications.
- Log out: Choose this option to log out of your Dotdigital account.
Terminology
Next, we’ll cover some key email marketing terms which will be useful to know when navigating Dotdigital.
You might already be familiar with some of these terms in other contexts. In this article, we’ll define what they mean specifically in relation to Spektrix and Dotdigital.
Features
- Email Campaign
An email campaign is a singular email which can be sent to any number of your contacts, generally for marketing or communications purposes. An Integrated Email Campaign is an Email Campaign which is designed in Dotdigital but sent through Spektrix. Read How to Send an Integrated Email Campaign for more information.
- A/B split test
An A/B split test measures the performance of two variables in your email to see which works best for your audience. For example, you might test two different subject lines to see which gets the most clicks. Read Split Tests for more information.
- Programs
Dotdigital Programs can be used to automate the sending of email campaigns. Criteria is set to automatically enrol contacts who will then receive a single or series of triggered email campaigns.
- Dotdigital Tags
Dotdigital tags can be used to group email campaigns together for reporting purposes. For more information take a look at the Dotdigital Help Center: Grouping Campaigns together using Tags.
REMINDER: Dotdigital Tags are not the same as Tags in Spektrix.
- UTM Tracking
UTM tracking involves using specific tags in URLs to monitor traffic sources. For example, you could add a UTM parameter to links within an email campaign so that you can report on traffic from the email to those links.
- Friendly “from” name
Your friendly “from” name is the name that appears beside your subject line in the recipient’s inbox.
Preferences
- Opt-in or subscribe
An opt-in is when a customer gives you their email address and permission for your organisation to contact them by email. In Spektrix, this is managed with Contact Preferences.
- Opt-out or unsubscribe
An opt-out or unsubscribe is when a customer chooses not to receive your email communications anymore or requests to be removed from your mailing list. When a customer Unsubscribes in Dotdigital, you can find these in the Supression section in your Dotdigital account is synced back to their Contact Preferences in Spektrix.
Reporting metrics
- Bounce rate
Your bounce rate is the rate of undelivered emails. A good bounce rate is less than 5%.
- Unique open rate
Your unique open rate is the number of individuals who opened your email divided by the total number of recipients.
TIP: Apple's iOS15 and MacOS12 Monterey software updates mean that open metrics are unreliable success measure.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
The click-through rate is the total number of clicks divided by the number of emails sent.
- Unique Clicks
Unique clicks count the number of individual subscribers who have clicked on the links in your email.
- Unsubscribe rate
Unsubscribe rates are calculated by dividing the number of email subscribers who unsubscribed by the total number of email recipients. Also known as list churn.
- ROI
ROI stands for Return on Investment. It is a metric used in marketing to measure the cost effectiveness of activities. The ROI Report in Spektrix determines the initial cost of sending the email and measures that against the income made from ticket sales generated by the email.
Deliverability
- Hard bounce
A hard bounce is an email that bounces because the email recipient’s address no longer exists, is invalid or is a blocked email address.
- Soft Bounce
A soft bounce is an email delivery that has failed due to a temporary issue such as a full inbox.
- ISP complaint
An ISP complaint means the email was delivered to the recipient, but they marked the email as spam.
- Email client
An email client is the software customers use to read emails, such as Outlook or Apple mail.
- Email domain
Your email domain is the host address that your organisation’s emails are sent from. An email domain is the part of an email address that comes after the @ symbol - for example, gmail.com, outlook.com, or yahoo.com for personal emails. Read more about email domains.
- Spam
Spam, also known as an unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is an email sent to someone who’s not opted-in or given permission to the sender. Emails considered to be spam automatically land in a spam/junk folder.
TIP: For more email marketing terms, take a look at Dotdigital’s 100 email marketing terms you need to know.
Further Reading
Next, we’d recommend taking a look at:
- Contact Preferences
- How to send an Integrated Email Campaign
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Reporting in Dotdigital
To continue learning about Dotdigital and communicating with your customers, take a look at the Communicate with your Customers section of the Support Centre.