Create an email campaign

Current version: 10.2

The Email Experience Manager (EXM) guides you through the process of creating and sending your email campaigns. You can also create lists of recipients straight from EXM or, alternatively, you can use the List Manager. There are two types of email campaigns and each has a set of templates that contain default content and layout. This makes it easy to create new email campaigns and enables you to focus on crafting the best content for your audience. If the templates provided do not fulfill your requirements, you can create your own templates, import an HTML file, or use a design from an existing web page.

The email campaign type defines how you can use, configure, and send email messages. The two types available are:

  • Regular email campaign – this type of campaign uses recipient lists to define who receives an email and can be scheduled as a recurring event. Using regular email campaigns, you can perform A/B tests using variants of the campaign. Delivery of a regular email campaign is done manually by clicking Send message.

    Use a regular email campaign, for example, if your company releases a new product in a specific country and you want to send an email campaign to all your contacts in that country to let them know that the product is now available for purchase.

  • Automated email campaign – this type of campaign is used to send a single email to one contact at a time. When you create an automated email campaign, there is no Recipient tab in the email campaign builder. Delivery of an automated email campaign is triggered as part of a marketing automation campaign, when a contact submits a form, or as part of a custom implementation where the client API is used. You cannot add a list of recipients to this type of email campaign.

    Use an automated email campaign when, for example, you want to send a confirmation to every contact who signs up for a newsletter, or if you want to send a special campaign offer to every contact who has visited your website but has not returned to the website in three weeks.

You do not have to follow the process, however, from start to finish. You can, for example, create an email campaign and then decide to edit the content and add recipients at a later stage.

Note

The following campaigns, which are automatically created when you create a new manager root, are marked as service messages by default: Automated notification, Subscription notification, Subscription confirmation, Unsubscribe notification, Dispatch completed notification. This means that opt-out and suppression lists are ignored.

To create a new email campaign:

  1. In EXM, click Create and, in the window that displays, select the type of email campaign you want to build.

    Choose whether you want to build an Automated email campaign or a Regular email campaign
    Note

    In a multisite solution, there can be several available EXM manager roots. For example, you might have a manager root for different markets, such as APAC or EMEA. If you have access to more than one manager root, you can switch between them from the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of the EXM dashboard.

  2. In the Regular email campaign window or the Automated email campaign window, click the template you want to base your email campaign on, and then click Create.

    By default, EXM contains a number of predefined templates. You can also import templates.

    The templates for a Regular email campaign

    The email campaign builder opens.

    The email campaign builder
  3. On the General tab, in the Name field, enter a name for the campaign.

  4. In the General information section, in the Sender details section, edit the relevant fields.

    • To change the location of the email campaign, in the Location field, click Browse  and, in the Specify location dialog box, navigate to the relevant location, and click OK.

    • To associate the email campaign with a campaign, in the Campaign group field, click Browse  and, in the Select campaign group dialog box, navigate to the relevant campaign and click OK. By default, there is no campaign associated with your email campaign.

  5. If you are creating a regular email campaign, on the Recipients tab, select the recipient include and exclude lists.

  6. On the Message tab, edit the content and layout.

  7. On the Message tab, click the drop-down button, and then select Quick test, to send a quick test of the email.

  8. On the Delivery tab, in the Schedule Delivery section, send, schedule, or activate an email campaign.

Note

To display all Delivery settings, click the More hyperlink at the bottom left of the Delivery Options section.

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