Hi
This resource has been created to assist you with running your own email campaigns once the DiG team has set up the Acymailing tool on your website.
Please do take the time to read through this tutorial as your access to this mass-emailer mechanism gives you great power but can also expose you to great harm!
You will be provided with a login username and password. You should use that to first login to your website then use the Email App menu to open the (Acymailer) mass mail mechanism.
PLEASE NOTE:
There are parts of the system setup that will be accessible by you once you log in that you should never attempt to use or change, as they will adversely affect how the system functions and could break the solution or even worse break your website!
In this next image we highlight the menu items that you should not attempt to use in RED.
STEP 1 (Create a Campaign)
Once you have logged in and clicked the "Email App" menu you will have the Mass mailer dashboard in front of you.
Please remember not to fiddle with any of the settings as warned above.
You will want to start with create a campaign which can be done in one of two ways:
- Select "✉︎ Campaigns" from the left side menu
- Or select "Create Campaign" from the centre of the page
STEP 2 (Campaigns)
At this point you can either select a past campaign to modify and send or create a new campaign. For the purpose of this tutorial we will create a new campaign.
so select the BLUE "Create a campaign" button on the top right.
STEP 3 (New Campaign)
You will now see some pre-created templates for campaigns to choose from and an option to start with an empty template. We would suggest using one of the templates that have already been created by the DiG team for you as it will save you some time. In this tutorial we are going to select a basic template that was created for a specific staff member as it would already have their email letterhead in place.
STEP 4 (Editing content in the template)
Editing this email is as simple as editing the Latin text and possibly adding a picture or two if needed using the component buttons on the right. Please remember if you are adding an image to first optimise the image to about 1240px wide in an editor like Photoshop to ensure that the file size is not too large. as this will adversely affect upload, opening time and SPAM score.
STEP 5 (Saving layout or Template)
Once you are happy with the content in your email or Template it is time to either test, save as a Template or apply it. This can be done using the icon buttons on the top right of the email layout panel. For this titorial we will just use "✓" = apply.
STEP 6 (Campaign Name and Subject)
Now we need to enter the "Campaign Name" and the "Email Subject" line and any "Tags" and "Email preview line" if you wish to.
Following that we click the "Save & continue" button on the lower left side of the page.
STEP 7 (Adding Recipients)
From the left box we will select the mailing lists to use in this campaign by clicking on the "+" after it. It will then be added to the other side. If you selected a list in error then you can always remove it using the "-".
Once you have selected the mailing lists you wish to send to then you need to click the "Save & continue" button on the lower right again.
Should you wish to add a new recipient list please ask the DiG team to assist you with this as there are some parametres that can cause corruptions to the database of the website.
STEP 8 (Send settings)
You will notice that the DiG team has set the "From name", Reply-to name", "From email" and Reply-to email" defaults for you but you could change these if you need to.
But note changing the from name to something from a different domain might adversely affect the SPAM score!
Then you get to select when you wish to send the email too. For the purpose of this tutorial we will select "Now".
Once again when selections have been made use the "Save & continue" button on the Right lower part of the page progress to next screen.
STEP 9 (SPAM test and Send test)
At this point you can run the SPAM test. A test score of 75% and above is good and if you wait for the report you can get more details on your score note that the All links checked will follow all links to see if the linked websites pass tests too if you have other organisations linked there is not much you can do if they get a warning as you do not administer those website. But these warnings can be for silly little things like images that are not labeled on the other website. So this is not such a big issue.
The important issue is your SPAM score which should be over 75%
You can also send a test to yourself to see what is sent.
As before click the "Save & continue" button to progress.
STEP 10 (Summary and Send)
This screen gives you a summary of your settings and shows your total number of recipients etc.
If you wish to go back and adjust anything at any time you can use the navigation tabs to jump back to a stage and make edits.
If you are now happy with all the settings you can begin the mail run by clicking the "Send campaign" button on the Right lower side of the page.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have finished this tutorial and are ready to send your first campaign.
Things to Note:
- The emails are not all sent at once, as this would trigger the SPAM prevention protection protocols on the server, and also would get your domain immediately listed as an offender by the receiving servers. So instead the emails will be sent in batches per hour as to comply with the rules of internet mailing.
- Recipients can use the script at the bottom of the email to unsubscribe from a list which will automatically remove flag them them on the mailing list so that they will not receive future emails when that specific list is loaded. This is mandatory to comply with legislation.
- If you have any errors that prevent your email from running please do inform the DiG team.
- Before setting up an email run it is advisable to notify the DiG team so that they can run a backup on the website just in case something goes horribly wrong as your Username and Password gives you access to a lot of the settings under the bonnet of the software that you could inadvertently change and cause the website to malfunction!
Safe Sending!