This article is about the step to build a Message when creating a new messaging broadcast. A messaging broadcast is a campaign sent via the Marketing Tools, via Email and/or SMS. It consists of several stages which can be worked on individually (and in any order) until you are ready to send:
Setup – the name and type of broadcast
Audience – who the broadcast will go to
Message – the broadcast message itself
Testing – testing the message by sending tests to yourself, colleagues or a seed list
Sending – sending the message
Reporting – reporting on a sent message
You enter the Message stage after selecting your Audience, although you can come back to this stage or skip others.
Build your message screen
If you haven’t yet created a message, you will see a screen like this:
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It will show you a summary of the Broadcast Name and Objective (set in the Setup stage ), the selected Query or Segment (set in the Audience stage), and Total Audience based on that query audience as well as Suppressed supporters (who are selected but won’t receive the email). If a segment is used, there will be an option to preview the segment being used by selecting 
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You can have additional messages display displayed within the broadcast if you have set up conditional or split test emails.
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SMS only delivery method: If you have chosen this method, then because SMS messages do not use templates you will see a Create Message box with an option to “Start Start from scratch” scratch or “Clone Existing” Clone Existing Email and SMS delivery method: If you have chosen this method, then you will need to create your Email message first. Once done, you will then have options to Edit SMS when hovering over the message item in this screen |
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Once you’ve chosen to Start From Template or to Clone Existing, you will be taken to the Email builder screen.
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You will not use this Email builder if you are creating SMS messages. For SMS, see the additional section on the SMS builder below.
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This is where you will do the building of your email’s content, along with its subject line, Sender email, Reply to email, and so on.
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Subject – the subject of the email. Click “Special field” to insert User Data. These use fallbacks which kick in if the insert contains no data, for example “First name” with a fallback of “Friend” or “First name” with an entirely different fallback subject line with a User Data insert.
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Preview text – abbreviated copy from an email that is displayed in supporter inboxes usually next to or underneath the subject line. This is automatically added to your emails when using Marketing Tools. There’s no need to add a placeholder in your template
Name – the name of the message, used for internal reporting and querying. This is suffixed with ” – Core” for your first main message. If you have additional conditional or split test emails within the same broadcast, this will ensure it is differentiated from them
Sender – who is the sender of the message. This can be managed via the edit icon within the sender box, or via the Hello menu > Account settings > Accounts emails of the type “Broadcast email sender”. Make sure that the sender’s domain is authenticated
Reply to – this can be “Same as sender” but you can have a different email address if you want supporters’ replies to not go to the sender. As of release 4.8, you You can manage reply to emails – create new, delete or edit existing reply to email addresses.
Tracking Parameter – the default tracking parameter for links in your message. Campaign links with a tracking parameter of “inherit” will use this value, meaning you can change several links in one go via this setting
Google Analytics -This will be the utm_campaign value included in your broadcast’s URLs
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You must have Google Analytics integration enabled in order to use this field. For information on enabling Google Analytics integration click here. |
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This tab shows you the Global template settings. These are fields (known as “replacements” replacements), grouped into categories, that allow you to change certain aspects of the email template, for example its background colour.
What you see here will depend on what template you used to create the email and how the template designer decided it should work. In our Sample templates, you will see things like Logo URL, image, alt text and alignment, along with other design options. In your own templates you will see whatever settings are available (you may not even see anything!).
Email builder – Content
This tab is used when editing the email itself and selecting a Block. For example, for a text block, this area would allow you to edit the text within the block. For an image block, it might allow you to choose the image and its Alt tag.
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When a block is selected, you will see options in the blue border around it:
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allows you to drag the block into a different positionThe bin icon
deletes the block from the messageThe + icons
duplicates the block. The duplicate will include any changes made to the block after it was added to the message
above and below the block allows you to insert a block before or after it. This will show you a new screen where you can insert either Sample Blocks (for our sample templates), or Custom Blocks which you or your designer has made for your accountThe left-hand icon
allows you to add Conditional Content for that block only, based on Profiles
Editing existing block content
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SMS This section is about the Email builder. The SMS builder does not use blocks. See the section below for more information. |
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Simply type into this area to change the content. You can also use the icons to format the text.
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Functionality | |
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 | Add Bold, Italics or Underline to the selected text |
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Create bullets or numbered lists | |
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Undo or redo | |
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Left align, Centre align, Right align selected text | |
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Set the text as normal (paragraph text), add a |
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horizontal rule, or set the text as Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Heading 4, or Heading 5 |
– unlink the text (if you added a text via the Special Field dropdown)
– insert a Special field into the email. This can be one of:
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| Insert merge tags or links in the block |
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Insert Supporter Data will insert data as a “mail merge” for that supporter from their database record (with a fallback if the data is blank for that supporter). As of release 4. 8, the Insert User Data option includes untagged fields in addition to tagged fields.
Insert Campaign Page Link will link selected text to an Engaging Networks page (which will pre-populate the page with their data), a Static Page, or an External URL (for example your website or Facebook page). More on this below
Insert Unsubscribe Link will link selected text to allow the supporter to unsubscribe from an opt-in question by clicking the link, or send them to an email subscription page. More on this below
Insert View in Browser Link will link selected text to view in a browser and display the email as a web page
Insert Next Suggested Gift Value will insert a dynamic value based on the supporter’s prior giving history. Read more about Next Suggested Gift here. The fallback text will be used if the supporter doesn’t have an HPC or MRC value on their supporter record.
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Insert email link will insert a ‘mailto:’ link. The email address and email subject can be added.
Insert telephone link will insert a clickable phone number link
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Inserting Page Links
When inserting a campaign link (via the Special Field dropdown), you will be shown a screen with various options. The URL Type will change the options available on the screen.
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Name: the name of the link for reporting purposes
URL Type: an Engaging Networks Page, Static Page or External URL.
Pages: for a URL Type of “Engaging Networks Page”, this will list Live pages you can link to
Static Pages: for a URL Type of “Static Page”, this will list the Live static pages in your account
External URL: for a URL Type of “External URL”, this will set the URL of the link. This is recommend for non-Engaging Networks pages
Start page: for a URL Type of “Engaging Networks Page”, you can also choose to start on Page 2 instead of 1 if you want it to skip the first page (assuming this will be pre-populated. This does not auto-submit a petition though should Page 2 be a thanks page
Tracking Parameter: for a URL Type of “Engaging Networks Page”, this shows you the tracking parameters available for that page. You can choose “Inherit” if you wish this to take the setting from the main message Settings (see above)
Append custom URL parameters
For a URL Type of “Engaging Networks Page”, this allows you to insert your own custom defined parameters to the campaign URL. This option will append the parameter and value you assign to the URL you’re inserting in the email.
For more complex parameter structures there is also the option to paste custom parameters. That allows several parameters to be pasted to be appended to the campaign URL (rather than appending each parameter individually).
Insert Next Suggested Gift Value - This will display if the selected page is using a Next Suggested Gift string.
You can configure text that will link to the page with NSG and it can also include the supporter’s NSG value in the text by including
[NSG].[NSG]will be replaced by the fallback text if the supporter doesn’t have an HPC or MRC value on their supporter record.
Inserting Unsubscribe Links
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Attached Images: Use this to can add images if supported by your Twilio account.
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Twilio will automatically resize supported images file types (.png, .gif, and .jpg) to the necessary size for delivery based on carrier specifications. The total combined request size (message and attachments) must be under 5MB in size. Messages with an image larger than 5MB will fail with an error. If you would like to resize your own images, images should be no larger than 600KB. |
Analytics: If you are using Google Analytics (set under Email Settings) or Campaign References, then they will appear under this tab
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