Bridgeway Mailer Documentation

Quick Send Guide

Following these steps will allow you to set up and send a campaign quickly and easily. More information about the individual steps can be found throughout this documentation.

Create your campaign

Figure 1.1

Once you've logged in, click the "Create a new campaign" button from the Overview screen.

Define your campaign

Give your campaign a name and subject line, and enter the sender's name and email address.

Figure 1.2

Select a template

Select the template you'd like to use for your campaign.

Figure 1.3

Enter your content

Using the editor, enter all the content for your campaign including text and images.

Figure 1.4

Choose a list

Select a list of recipients to send to - you can select more than one at a time.

Figure 1.5

Test the campaign and edit as required

Send yourself (or anyone else) tests of the campaign to make sure everything is correct. You can edit the campaign and send as many tests as you need to get it perfect.

Figure 1.6

Send the campaign

Send the campaign to your list immediately or schedule it to send at a specific date and time.

Figure 1.7

View reports

You can watch people open emails as they receive them in real time with WorldView. Statistics are recorded and you can extract full reports at any time after the campaign is sent.

Figure 1.8

Setting up an email campaign

Creating an email campaign in Bridgeway Mailer is simple and you can send tests of the campaign to get it perfect for sending. Choose the “Create/Send” tab to get started.

Creating a new campaign

Figure 2.2

You can set up campaigns as often as you need, and save them as drafts, send them straight away, or schedule them for sending at a later date. To get started, click the “Create a new campaign” button on the right after you’ve logged in.

Defining a campaign

Each campaign must be given a name. The name is only used internally to identify the campaign.

You also need to choose the subject line and a ‘from’ name and email address. These will appear in the recipients’ email client, and can be changed at any time before sending.

Figure 2.3

Choosing a template

Once you’ve set the name, subject line and ‘from’ details, you’ll be able to decide how your email will look.

Most of the time you’ll want to choose from one of the pre-defined templates, but you can also decide to send a plain-text campaign.

Figure 2.4

Editing Content

Once you’ve picked a template, you’ll be taken to the editor where you can add content to your email. Throughout the editor you’ll see buttons next to content that you can add or change. Clicking these buttons will load up that section in the editor on the left and changes will be reflected in the preview on the right.

Figure 2.5

You can add new sections, move sections around and delete sections from the email using the buttons next in the edit button bar.

Figure 2.6

After you’ve edited a section, click “Save changes” to update the template. Once you’ve finished adding all your content, click “Preview” in the top right corner to view your email, and then return to the campaign snapshot to confirm the content.

Choosing recipients

After you’ve added your content, you’ll need to select recipients.

Most of the time, you’ll want to choose an existing list but you may want to enter recipients manually. See the Managing Subscribers section for more information.

Figure 2.7

Testing your email and making changes

After you’ve added content and chosen subscribers, you can send as many tests of the campaign as needed to get it looking perfect. Test emails can be sent to any email address and will appear as recipients will see it.

Figure 2.8

The campaign snapshot screen

If you leave the campaign setup process at any stage, or need to make changes after the campaign has been set up, select the campaign from the “drafts” section of the Overview or Create/Send tab.

Figure 2.9

This will take you to the campaign snapshot screen - click the relevant “Edit” buttons on that screen to change the details, content and recipients.

Figure 2.10

Sending or scheduling your campaign

Once you’ve tested the email and are happy that it’s looking good, you can send the campaign immediately or schedule it to send at a later date. A scheduled campaign can be edited at any time before it is sent.

You’ll receive a confirmation email as soon as your campaign has been sent.

Figure 2.11

Viewing Reports

Once the campaign has been sent, Bridgeway Mailer will immediately track open rates and other recipient activity. This information is accessible via the “Reports” tab. More details can be found in the Campaign Reports section.

Figure 2.12

Managing Subscribers

You can manage your current subscriber lists and create new lists from Bridgeway Mailer. Choose the “Lists & Subscribers” tab from the main navigation to see and manage your lists.

Creating a new subscriber list

You can create as many subscriber lists as needed to keep track of recipients. To add a new list, choose “Create a new list” on the right of the Lists & Subscribers page.

Give your list a meaningful name and select “Single opt-in..” as the list type and click “Create List”. Your new list will be created and you’ll be taken to the Manage List page.

Figure 3.2

Adding subscribers to a list

Figure 3.3

You can add subscribers to any list at any time. You can do this by manually typing in email addresses and names, or you can import them from a CSV file.

After creating a new list, choose “Add new subscribers” from the Manage List page.

If you want to add subscribers to an existing list, select the list from Lists & Subscribers and then click “Add new subscribers”.

Creating a CSV file in Excel

You can create a CSV file from any Excel spreadsheet. An Email Address column is required but the spreadsheet can contain other columns for extra information - we recommend including a “name” column at the very least.

To create the CSV, choose File > Save As... in Excel, then select CSV (Comma Separated Values) option as the file type.

Importing a CSV

From the Add Subscribers screen, choose the “Import from a file” tab. You’ll be prompted to confirm that the email addresses you are importing comply with the ACMA Spam Act and that you are allowed to send to send to them.

Confirm the addresses are OK to use and click “Proceed with import”, then select a CSV file on your computer click “Import these subscribers”.

Figure 3.4

Figure 3.5

Custom fields and matching CSV columns

Custom fields are used in email templates to personalise the content - for example, a custom field for “name” can be used to automatically add “Dear John” at the top of an email.

Once a CSV file is imported, you will see the “Match columns to fields” screen. This will allow you to match up columns in your spreadsheet to custom fields.

For each column you want to use, choose “Create New Text Field”” and give it a name - if you want to use this field to personalise a template, make sure you enter the correct field name. Email Addresses will be automatically detected and matched for you.

Figure 3.6

Automatic removal of bad email addresses

Figure 3.7

Bridgeway Mailer will automatically remove email addresses that are not in a correct format, that have previously unsubscribed from email lists, or have been problematic when sending to in the past (see “bounces” in the Campaign Reports section). This ensures you don’t send campaigns to email addresses that won’t be able to receive them.

Campaign Reports

Bridgeway Mailer keeps full statistics of open rates, bounce rates and click rates as well as other useful recipient activity for every campaign you send.

Reporting is a useful tool for tracking the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Open the “Reports” tab to view your campaign statistics.

Accessing Reports and the Report Snapshot

Reporting of recipient activity is available immediately after a campaign is sent and statistics are tracked in real time. Reports can be accessed at any time for every sent campaign from the Reports tab by clicking on the campaign name. This will take you to the Report Snapshot for that campaign. The Report Snapshot will show you an overview report of the most important statistics for the campaign.

Figure 4.2

WorldView

Bridgeway Mailer tracks statistics of recipient activity as it happens and WorldView plots this information on a map in real time.

Because most of your recipients will open their email in the first few hours after it’s sent, WorldView is most active during that time period. A link to WorldView will be in the confirmation email you receive after the campaign is sent, and can also be accessed from the right hand side of the Report Snapshot screen.

Figure 4.3

Types of reports

Whilst WorldView is useful immediately after the campaign is sent, Bridgeway Mailer also offers other more detailed reports. These reports can be accessed from the right hand side of the Reports Snapshot screen.

Each report contains details of different types of recipient activity, including open and click rates, link popularity, the times people opened emails and clicked on links, which email programs people are using and who couldn’t receive the email.

A lot of the information in the reports can be cross-referenced and the statistics can be used to adjust future campaigns for the audience.

Figure 4.4

Report terminology

Reports use specific terms to refer to particular events. Below is a brief overview of the most important terminology used in reports.

Figure 4.5

Recipient - An individual email address that was sent the email.

Open - The first time a recipient looks at the email, it is recorded as a “Unique Open”. An open is also recorded each time the email is looked at by a recipient - these count towards the “Total Opens” for a campaign.

Bounce - When an email can’t be delivered to a particular email address, this is referred to as a bounce. There are a number of different reasons an email could be undeliverable - the Bounce Summary report has more information on each bounce.

Click - Each time a recipient clicks a link in an email, Bridgeway Mailer records which link was clicked and aggregates the total number of clicks on all links in the email.

Email Client - This is the program that recipients use to view the email, such as Outlook, iPhone Mail or Gmail.

Downloading reports

You can download a PDF version of the overview report by clicking “Export Report” at the top of the Report Snapshot.

Other reports can be downloaded as CSV files - which can be opened in Excel - by clicking “Export” from a particular report.

Figure 4.6