This article is about how to set up a Dotdigital Email Campaign.
Before starting, you should be familiar with:
REMINDER: Dotdigital offers a wide range of tools and features. Some of these features may not be relevant to our integration or may duplicate features already provided by our solution. You can read more about the Dotdigital and Spektrix in the Introduction to Dotdigital.
Creating a new Email Campaign
To start creating a new Email Campaign, you’ll first need to log into Dotdigital and navigate to the Campaigns menu.
You can click on the + button next to Email to create a new Email Campaign.
Templates
Next, you’ll be prompted to choose a template or copy a previously sent email campaign.
WARNING: We strongly recommend using a template, as copying a sent campaign can lead to HTML errors.
Custom Templates
In Custom Templates, you’ll find all of your available Templates. This includes any Templates you have uploaded or created previously.
TIP: If you choose to work with a designer to create branded Templates, you can upload them to your Custom Templates here by clicking UPLOAD CAMPAIGN.
Free Templates
Under Free Templates, you can choose to ‘Start from scratch’ with a blank Template.
Dotdigital also provides some free Templates which you can copy and edit.
You can find more information about Templates on the Dotdigital Help Center: Email Templates.
Name your Campaign
Once you have selected a Template, you’ll be asked to give your Campaign a name and choose a folder.
Give your Email Campaign a memorable and descriptive name which follows your organisation’s naming or reporting conventions.
TIP: Organise your Email Campaigns into folders so that you can find them more easily in future.
Campaign Details
Setting up your Campaign Details is an essential step. Your subject line and friendly from name are the most important factors which will influence whether your customer opens your email or not. How likely your customers are to open your email is related to your Deliverability.
To improve your Deliverability you should consider the following:
- Tailor your email campaign content to your audience.
- A/B test your email campaigns so you can learn what works best for your audience.
- Avoid practices which could appear to be similar to spam - for example, attention grabbing language or lots of emojis.
Complete the following information about your Campaign.
- Subject-line: This is the introductory text of an email that is displayed in your customer's inbox. You should include your key message at the start of your subject line so that it doesn’t get cut off in mobile inboxes.
There are a number of ways you can improve your subject lines. Consider using Personalisation, Dynamic Content, emojis or Winston AI.
REMINDER: Emojis can display differently across different email clients and devices. Therefore we strongly advise thoroughly testing them before use.
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Friendly from name: This is the name that your email appears to come from in your customer’s inboxes. The name should be as short as possible so that the full name can display in mobile inboxes. You can use company, department names or someone specific at your organisation.
Ideally, this should be Personalised and from someone whose name your customer might recognise. For example, you could send your emails from the person on your fundraising team who holds the relationship with your Members or Patrons.
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From address: This is the email address that your email appears to come from. This will be your default from address unless you add a custom from address to your account. If you have multiple addresses to choose from, expand the dropdown menu and select the from address you want to use.
You can add extra from addresses at a cost, Contact Support if you’d like to find out more.
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Forwarding address: Any replies to this campaign will be forwarded to the address you enter here. If no reply address is given replies will be saved in Dotdigital and can be accessed from the Campaign report.
- Campaign tags: Using a Campaign Tag can help you group multiple Campaigns for reporting purposes.
REMINDER: Dotdigital Campaign Tags are not the same as Tags in Spektrix.
- Link tracking: The links in your Campaign will be tracked by default. If you’d like to add custom link tracking you can do that here.
Once you have completed the campaign details, check that this appears as you intended in the preview section below.
Additional Campaign Settings
Additionally, at this stage you can also choose to apply:
- Split Test Settings
- Campaign Settings
Split test settings
A split test measures the performance of two variables in your email to see which works best for your audience.
You can read more about split testing email campaigns in our article Split Testing Email Campaigns.
Campaign Settings
- Format: it is best practice to always create an email campaign with both HTML and plain text versions.
- Type: choose whether you want to create a standard or triggered email campaign. Triggered campaigns are used in automation. For example, in Programs or on the completion of a form.
- Dynamic content: you can use Dynamic Content rules to determine which subject line and from name a contact should see. For example, you might want to show a different subject line based on the customer’s geographical location.
- Encoding: by default, the encoding type for campaigns is set to Unicode (UTF-8).
When you're happy with all of your campaign settings, select SAVE & CONTINUE to start working on your campaign content and design.
You can select BACK at any time to go to the previous step.
Designing your Campaign with the Dotdigital EasyEditor
Next, you’ll see the Dotdigital EasyEditor:
To learn more about how to design your campaign using the Dotdigital EasyEditor, take a look at our article Designing a Dotdigital Email Campaign.
Once you have completed the design of your email, return here to complete the remaining set up steps.
Create a plain text version of your Email Campaign
When you're happy with the design of your email campaign, select SAVE & CONTINUE.
You’ll then be prompted to create a plain text version of your Email Campaign.
To do this, click GENERATE PLAIN TEXT VERSION.
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Contacts might want to receive plain text because they're partially sighted, or their email client / device won't display HTML emails.
Also, some spam filters penalise emails for only being in HTML without a plain text alternative.
You can learn more about how to create plain text versions of your Email Campaign on the Dotdigital Help Center: Create the plain text version of your campaign.
Click SAVE & CONTINUE to move onto the next step.
Test your Email Campaign
Before you send your email, it’s important to test your Email Campaign by sending a test version to yourself or another colleague.
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- Select CHOOSE CONTACTS under Send to your test contacts.
- Select which campaign versions you want to test (HTML, plain text, or both).
- Select SELECT TEST ADDRESS to choose a contact who already exists in your Test list, or select NEW TEST ADDRESS to add a new test contact.
- Once you’ve chosen your contacts, select TEST SEND.
After sending, check the test email to make sure it displays as you expected. You should proofread your email and double check that all the links work.
TIP: Sending a test email to different email clients (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) is a good way of making sure your email will display as intended.
You can learn more about how to send test versions of your Email Campaign on the Dotdigital Help Center: Test your Campaign.
- When you are confident that you are ready to send your email, click SAVE.
- Then, return to Spektrix to send the Integrated Email Campaign.
Further Reading
Next, take a look at Designing a Dotdigital Email Campaign.
We'd also recommend the following articles:
For more information about Dotdigital, take a look at the Communicate with your Customers section of the Support Centre.