If you want to create your own customized HTML template for marketing emails in Campaign Studio, this article describes the guideline you need to follow before uploading their own html for email campaigns. Please be sure to review the guide, or have your web designer do so, before creating and uploading your own templates.
Note: If you are using the legacy Campaigns builder, see Creating Customized HTML for Campaigns.
The Upload Your Own HTML Template option allows business users to upload their own html for their marketing emails, completely replacing the template provided by us. The customized html file can be built in any format by the business users in accordance with the following instructions.
Important: Required Elements
The following elements are required in your html email:
1. Unsubscribe link – The CAN-SPAM Act requires that your email includes a link for consumers to unsubscribe via a single click. We have prepared a tag for this purpose: {{{IdentityUnsubscribeLink}}} This tag returns a URL to the unsubscribe page, where consumers can unsubscribe to future mailings from us with one click. Example of how to use this tag:
<a href="{{{IdentityUnsubscribeLink}}}" target="_blank">Unsubscribe</a>
2. Business Physical Address – The CAN-SPAM Act requires that your email includes your physical business address. We have prepared tags for this purpose. See the Business Information section below for more details and options.
3. Read Tracking – In order for us to track if your email was read, you must include the following code:
<img src="{{serverRoot}}/cp/read.jsp?id={{SmsmtId}}&bid={{BusinessId}}" style="visibility:hidden;"/>
To ensure that your custom html renders properly, please follow the following design specifications that prescribe the html file size limit and the custom tags’ usage.
· Size of the HTML File: Uploaded HTML files cannot exceed 500 KB.
· Dimensions of the Content HTML Template: The width of your entire HTML email should not exceed 580px for display on desktop/laptop computers, or 323px for display on mobile devices. Wider emails will not render properly when delivered.
Within the content of your templates, you have the option to display business information pulled from your business portal under Settings > Business Information or action buttons such as “Request Appointment”. This is similar to the concept of a "mail merge" in other major email marketing services. You may do so by inserting what we call “Custom Tags” into your HTML. Custom Tags will be rendered dynamically by Patient Engage when your campaigns are generated.
All Custom Tags are comprised by words and curly braces in this format: {{Content}}. These Custom Tags will simplify your work while writing your own content html. Our system will replace the Custom Tags accordingly. Below is a list of available tags for your use and the information our system will use to replace them before sending.
· {{CustomerFirstName}} – First name of your client.
· {{CustomerLastName}} – Last name of your client.
{{BusinessName}} – Your business name.
· {{BusinessEmail}} – Your business email. Note: this tag only displays the email address, not a clickable link.
· {{BusinessAddress}} – Your business address.
· {{BusinessStreet1}} – Your business street 1.
· {{BusinessStreet2}} – Your business street 2.
· {{BusinessCity}} – Your business city.
· {{BusinessState}} – Your business state.
· {{BusinessPostalCode}} – Your business postal code.
· {{BusinessPhone}} – Your business phone.
· {{BusinessWebsite}} – Your business website. Note: this tag provides the URL only, not a clickable link.
· {{BusinessProfile}} – URL of your Demandforce Local Profile. Note: this tag provides the URL only, not a clickable link.
· {{IdentityUnsubscribeLink}} – Link for consumers to unsubscribe from your mailings. Note: this tag provides the URL only, not a clickable link.
These tags provide the URLs only, and are not clickable links. The tags are replaced with the URLs you entered in your portal under Settings > Business Information > Local Business Settings
· {{BusinessFacebookURL}} – URL for your business Facebook Page as entered in your portal.
· {{BusinessTwitterURL}} – URL for your Twitter Page as entered in your portal.
· {{BusinessGooglePlusURL}} – URL for your Google Places Page as entered in your portal.
· {{BusinessYahooURL}} – URL for your Yahoo! Local Page as entered in your portal.
· {{BusinessYelpURL}} – URL for your Yelp Page as entered in your portal.
· {{RequestAppointmentURL}} – URL to Appointments tab on your Business Profile where clients can request appointments.
· {{ReferFriend}} – URL to your Business Profile where clients can refer friends and family to your Business.
Now that you understand what these Custom Tags mean, let's look at how to embed these tags in your html file. You can choose any Custom Tags you want to use and put them directly in your html source code. Make sure these tags are located in the correct place you want to display in your email. The chosen tags can be adjusted to any places of your html.
The following sample codes assume that you are going to put your client’s First Name, a “Request Appointment” Button, and your business information in the content area of your campaign email:
Dear {{CustomerFirstName}},
To show our appreciation to you for being a valued customer, we are offering you a limited time special discount.
{{RequestAppointmentURL}}
Thank you for being a valued customer. Please give us a call if you have any questions or if we can be of any assistance whatsoever.
See you soon,
{{BusinessName}}
When the html is generated for the campaign email by our system, the Custom Tags will be replaced with the relevant content:
Studies have shown that email navigation bar play a big role in generating click throughs. Email navigation bar can appear either at the top or at the bottom of an email.
If you are considering adding a navigation bar to your email, we have prepared the following four actions for you. They come in the form of tags, which will get dynamically rendered as URLs when the system processes the html. To use these, simply add them in the tag for your navigation item.
Refer a Friend
· Tag to use: {{LinkReferral}}
· Sample Usage: <a href="{{LinkReferral}}"><img src="url of your hosted image"></a>
· This link takes consumers to a page on the Demandforce Local profile where they can refer your business to friends and family.
Write a Review
· Tag to use: {{LinkReview}}
· Sample Usage: <a href="{{LinkReview}}"><img src="url of your hosted image"></a>
· This link takes consumers to a page on the Demandforce Local profile where they can write a review for your business.
Update Preferences
· Tag to use: {{LinkPreferences}}
· Sample Usage: <a href="{{LinkPreferences}}"><img src="url of your hosted image"></a>
· This link takes consumers to a page on the Demandforce Local profile where they can set their communication preferences with your business.
Request Appointment
· Tag to use: {{RequestAppointmentURL}}
· Sample Usage: <a href="{{RequestAppointmentURL}}"><img src="url of your hosted image"></a>
· This link takes consumers to a page on the Demandforce Local profile where they can request an appointment.
As an email marketer, one of your biggest concerns is probably whether or not your emails are successfully delivered to your target recipients. Having delivered emails for many years now, we have insight and knowledge that we’d like to share with you to help you maximize the deliverability of your HTML emails.
Any particular email has to jump through many hoops before it actually reaches an inbox, including spam filters at the ISP level, spam filters at the email application level, spam filters at the security software level. If an email address belongs to a corporation, there are even more layers to get through.
Spam filters take into account many factors when evaluating an email, including, but not limited to:
· Subject line
· Content
· Quality of your HTML code
· IP address of the sender
· The actual sender itself
While there is no magic formula to ensure that 100% of your emails will arrive safe and sound into a consumer’s inbox, the good news is, there are concrete measures that you can take to maximize deliverability.
· First and foremost, every email marketer should be familiar with the requirements under the CAN-SPAM Act. If you haven’t already, we highly encourage that you become familiar with it here: http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
· You must include an unsubscribe link in your email.
· You must include your business’s physical address in your email.
· Keep your image to text ratio reasonable. Spam filters do not like messages that are image-heavy with no substance in the content.
· Keep in mind that some email applications, including Gmail, turns off images by default. This means that you should probably not send emails that consist of just a single image.
· Keep your messages outside of your images.
· Make sure your HTML is clean. For example, it’s never good practice to have two tags with no content inside.
· Do not use Microsoft Word or even Microsoft Front Page to generate your HTML – you will not get clean HTML.
· There should be no broken links in your HTML.
· Avoid “spammy” language and punctuation in your email subject and content, such as “ FREE”, “$$$”, “Click Now!!!!”.
· Do not use all capital letters in your email subject.
· Avoid bright red fonts.
· Avoid mixing cases and numbers in a single word. For example, “G00d M0rn1ng!”
Above are some general guidelines that you should consider when creating your HTML email. The bottom line is, if your message is relevant, informational, conveys the right message, and your HTML is clean, chances are you have nothing to worry about.
Once your Custom HTML Template is ready per these guidelines, follow the steps below to upload it to Campaign Studio Builder and email it to your clients.
To upload your custom HTML temples
2. In the main navigation pane on the left, click Marketing.
3. Under Marketing, click Campaigns.
4. Under Campaigns, click Builder.
5. Under Select a template, choose Custom.
6. Under My Uploads, click Upload Your Own HTML Template.
7. Find and select the HTML template file on your computer, and then click Open.
8. Move your mouse over the thumbnail of your uploaded template, then click Use Template.
9. Select recipients and schedule delivery of your campaign.
Note: You can also add a Custom HTML Module to any existing campaign builder template.