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Dotdigital Account Settings

Dave Carr
Dave Carr
  • Updated

In this article, we’ll guide you through the settings available in your Dotdigital account.

This article only contains the relevant settings for the integration between Spektrix and Dotdigital. Settings that are not listed in this article are not used as part of the Dotdigital and Spektrix integration.

You can proceed through the article or jump to the relevant setting by choosing from the links below:

 

General account settings

In general account settings you can view the following settings:

 

Usage

In Usage, you can view:

  • Sending statistics
  • Additional charges
  • SMS segments sent

  • Sending statistics

    The number of standard and triggered sends from your account. If you use SMS, you’ll also see the current number of SMS segments sent.


    TIP: SMS messages are made up of segments of 160 characters. If you use more than 160 characters, you’ll use more segments.

  • Additional charges

    Any additional charges will appear here. For example, SMS shared shortcodes:


  • SMS segments sent

    An SMS segment contains 160 characters. SMS messages can contain multiple segments to enable you to send longer messages:


 

Account settings

In Account settings you can manage the following settings:

  • Localisation
  • Customer Service address
  • Features

  • Localisation

    Under Localisation you’ll see the following settings:

    • Language: This is your default language. For example, English (United Kingdom) for the UK.
    • Timezone: The timezone based on your location.
    • Default Encoding: A way of representing different characters from different languages on screen. The default is Unicode (UTF-8):

    localisation.png

    TIP: These options are set by default when your Dotdigital account is created.

  • Customer service address

    If you enter a customer service address it will automatically populate your address information when you use the $SENDERADDRESS$ Data Field in your emails in your emails.

    You’ll need to add the $SENDERADDRESS$ Data Field into your email from the Easy Editor Toolbar.

    TIP: Users in the US and Canada will need to include the $SENDERADDRESS$ field in both HTML and Plain Text versions of emails to comply with CAN-SPAM legislation.

  • Features

    Under features, you can manage the following settings:

    • Include attachments in forwarded replies


      To protect you from any malicious attachments, campaign replies with attachments are removed by default. You can enable attachments by checking this box.

    • Enable send throttling


      Check this box if you’re sending an email campaign to a large number of customers. The email campaign will send over a longer period of time.

    • Enable contact scoring


      You can score contacts based on their engagement and the data you hold on them. Once enabled, you’ll find Contact Scoring in Settings > Contacts.

    • Display account time in header


      Check this box to display a clock for your time zone in the top left hand corner of Dotdigital. This is useful for users in your team who work in a different time zone to you. The same clock displays for all users who’ll be able to see the time as set in your account.

    • Enable link shortening for all SMS campaigns


      Check this box to shorten links and reduce the number of characters used in a SMS campaign.

      TIP: When using link shortening, you’ll see links in the editor aren’t shortened. The shortened link is generated once the SMS campaign is sent.

    • Suppress SMS contacts that have hard bounced


      Any mobile/cell number which hard bounces will be added to your Dotdigital Suppression List.

    • Filter non-human engagements and interactions from email reports


      Email security software can lead to inflated open rates or clicks. Checking this box can help to exclude these interactions from your email reporting.

    • Enable AMP support for your email campaigns


      Check this box to use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in your email campaigns.

    • Use clicks as the primary metric


      Check this box to use click data instead of open data as the primary metric.

      TIP: Apple's iOS15 and MacOS12 Monterey software updates mean that open metrics are an unreliable success measure.

      If your emails contain links you might want to consider using click metrics, as these show an even greater level of engagement.

    • Enable WinstonAI (Content)


      WinstonAI is an AI assistant which you can use to optimise your content.

 

Sender Reputation

Sender Reputation (also known as a sender score) is a rating assigned to your sending domain by email providers. Having a good sender reputation means your emails are more likely to be delivered to inboxes rather than spam or sales folders.

In Sender Reputation, you’ll be able to view:

  • Sender Reputation

  • Reputation indicators

For more information on Sender Reputation, read Dotdigital Email Deliverability.

 

Recycle bin

In the recycle bin, you can view, remove and restore deleted items. When you access the recycle bin, you’ll see the following screen:

  • Item: The name of the item in the recycle bin.
  • Type: The type of item. For example, Campaign or Program.
  • Date deleted: The date the item was deleted.
  • Days left in bin: The number of days left in the recycle bin before the item is permanently deleted.

WARNING: Items are permanently deleted from the recycle bin after 30 days. You can recover or permanently delete items in the recycle bin. However, it isn’t possible to recover an item that has been permanently deleted.

 

Exports

In Exports, you can view and download data exports made in the last 30 days:

This includes the following types of exports:

 

Managed users

In Managed users, you see a list of the users who have access to your Dotdigital account:

From this menu, you can also:

 

Contacts

In Contacts, you can manage the following:

  • Custom Data Fields
  • Email seed list

  • Custom Data Fields

    In Contact Data fields, click on the Custom data fields tab:

    Here, you can set up and manage your Data Fields:

    For more information, read Data Fields in Dotdigital.

     

  • Email seed list

    The email seed list lets you monitor sending activity from your Dotdigital account. You can add email addresses to receive a copy of every campaign sent to more than 2000 customers:

 

Email

In Email, you can manage the following settings:

  • From addresses
  • Suppression settings
  • Default auto-responder

  • From addresses

    Sending emails from a custom from address (CFA) may help to improve your Sender Reputation, engagement and brand recognition.

    TIP: To purchase a custom from address (CFA), contact Spektrix Support.

    Within From address, you’ll be able to see:

    • Date Created
    • Email address used as the custom from address
    • Status
    • Set a custom from address as default
    • Edit a custom from address

    For more information, visit the Dotdigital Help Center: Create a custom from address.

  • Suppression settings

    In Suppression settings, you can run the Global Suppression List and manage your Bounce Settings:

    image

    • Run the Global suppression list: The Global suppression list (GSL) collects bad email addresses and domains, spam traps and repeated ISP complainants. Running the GSL will identify potentially bad email addresses and domains. You can review the results and choose to suppress any problematic email addresses.

    • Change Bounce Settings: When an email can’t be delivered due to a temporary issue, this is known as a Soft Bounce. You can specify how many consecutive soft bounces before an email address is added to the suppression list.

      A lower number helps protect your sending reputation. A higher number can help to avoid suppressing contacts who are legitimate but might have temporary issues with their email address. If you have a high soft bounce rate, decreasing the number of bounces can improve your sender reputation.

      If a soft bounced contact engages with a previously sent email they will be removed from your suppression list.

      Email addresses that are suppressed because they reached your soft bounce threshold are removed from your account’s suppression list after a year.

      TIP: While customer’s email address is on the suppression list, they won’t receive emails from you.

      For more information about suppressions, read Managing Unsubscribes and Suppressions.

  • Default auto-responder

    In Default auto-responder you can select a default auto-response email to send to customers who reply to your campaigns:

     

 

SMS

In the SMS menu, you can manage the following SMS settings:

  • From names
  • Auto-responders
  • SMS Settings

TIP: There is an additional charge to set up SMS. Contact Spektrix Support for details for your region.

  • From names

    An SMS From name is the name your customers will see when they receive an SMS message from you. This might be your organisation or department name.

    Within this menu, you can set up, edit and delete SMS From names:


  • Auto-responders

    An auto-responder enables an automatic reply to be sent in response to all incoming SMS messages:

    Within this menu, you can create and delete auto-responders. You can also see the status and trigger words of existing auto-responders.

    For more information, visit the Dotdigital Help Center: Create a default SMS auto-responder.

  • SMS settings

    In SMS settings you can manage your numbers, country rules, branding and rate card:


    • Manage numbers: When sending a marketing SMS, you must use a number that’s local to the country where you’re sending your SMS. To purchase a number, contact Spektrix Support.

    • Country rules: Some countries have specific guidelines when sending SMS. For example, sending an automatic confirmation to a customer who has opted out of SMS messaging. Within Country Rules, you can personalise automatic responses.

    • Branding: Set up your own branded short URL in SMS. You’ll be able to see who has interacted with your SMS, split test SMS campaigns and combine this data with Google Analytics.

    • Rate card: See the cost per message for each country you send SMS messages to.

 

Tags

In tags, you can view, create, delete and edit email campaign and account tags:

You can use tags in Dotdigital to:

  • Identify different types of campaigns

    For example, let's say you have a campaign with a Fundraising tag. You can use tags as a filter in reports to identify how your fundraising campaigns are performing.
  • Identify different characteristics of your Dotdigital account

    For example, if your organisation consists of multiple venues, you might want to create a tag for each venue. You can then use tags to gain insight into how each venue’s emails are performing.

TIP: Dotdigital Tags are different to Normal Tags and Auto Tags in Spektrix.

For more information read the following articles on the Dotdigital Help Center:

 

Digital marketing channels

If you advertise on Facebook, Facebook Messenger or use Google Ads (Google, Gmail and YouTube) then you can use the data on your Spektrix system to target your ads:

In Digital marketing channels, you can create profiles for Facebook Audience, Messenger and Google Ads.

For more information, read Using Ads Automation in Dotdigital Programs.

 

Tracking

In Tracking, you can set up Broadcast email link tracking:

You can use broadcast email link tracking to track the engagement of your email campaigns. You’ll be able to report on how your links are being used and how effective they are. For example, you want to track an increase in website traffic following a recent email campaign.

For more information, read our article on How to use Google Analytics to track email campaigns.

 

Access

In Access, you’ll see a list of API Users:

An API user is a person or organisation using the Dotdigital API to integrate one or more systems. The API user is created when a new Dotdigital account is created. You do not need to create an API user.

WARNING: DO NOT delete any user accounts from the API Users screen.

If you can’t see an API user, contact our Support Team. Without an API user, the Spektrix and Dotdigital integration will not be able to share data back and forth.

 

Further Reading

This article should give you the information you need to understand and navigate around Dotdigital settings. To learn more about Dotdigital, visit the Communicate with your customers section of the Support Centre.