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Email Marketing Campaigns

Kathryn H.
Kathryn H.
  • Updated

Overview: What are we talking about?

Email Marketing Campaigns allow you to mass email your customers for facility alerts, updates, reminders, special offers, and much more. This is a perfect way for your business to send targeted communications to select owners. Recipient lists can be generated from many locations in the app and you can individually edit who will receive the campaign. Campaigns can be configured in an infinite number of ways. You can get creative with your own design or you can use pre-made templates. Campaigns can be scheduled to send at a specific date and time so that you can communicate with your customers on your schedule. This article will go over everything you need to know about making an Email Marketing Campaign. 

 

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Helpful Hints:

  • Important Note: Emojis are currently not displaying correctly in marketing emails and SMS and will display as "?". Please do not use them until you see Release Notes (found under the ? icon in your app banner) indicating this has been resolved. 
  • Only owner accounts with at least one active pet will receive email campaigns. 

  • It is recommended that you only have one active (unsent) campaign created at a time.

  • All Marketing Emails must contain an Opt-Out link as required by federal law.

  • Marketing Campaigns with 1,000 recipients or more cannot have their recipient list modified.

  • Do NOT use images that contain the primary textual content of an email campaign. It will likely not be seen by a majority of your customers because:
    • Email servers often mark emails of this nature as SPAM.
    • Customers' inboxes may not load images due to connection issues or settings in their email accounts.

  • Gingr also has SMS Campaign functionality. For more information see our article on SMS Marketing Campaigns. 

How to: Create and Send an Email Marketing Campaign

To create a new email campaign, navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Owners & Pets » Marketing » Create a New Email Campaign. 

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Field Guide: 

Field Name Description Helpful Hint
Choose Groups When creating a new campaign, Groups determine what subset of customers will receive the campaign.

If you select multiple groups and an owner falls into multiple groups, they will only receive the campaign once. 

For a full breakdown of the available campaign groups, check out this article: Marketing Campaign Groups

For instructions on how to create a custom group for a campaign, check out this article: Creating Custom Campaign Groups
Choose Reservations Optionally select a specific reservation type to target for the campaign.  For example: Selecting the group Reservations in the Last 15 Days and selecting the Daycare reservation type will contact owners who have had daycare reservations in the last 15 days. 
Choose Locations Optionally select a specific location to target. for the campaign.  This is based on the owner's assigned home location on their profile. 
Name This is the name of the campaign within your Gingr application and is not visible to customers. Be descriptive so that users can easily differentiate between campaigns. 
Subject This is the title of the campaign that your customers will see as the subject line.  



Designing the Campaign: 

In the Campaign Design section of the page, optionally choose a Template. Gingr delivers your application with 5 distinct email templates, however, you can create additional templates on your own.

You can use the designer tool to help build your email. The right side of the tool has 3 tabs: Content, Rows, and Settings. You will primarily be using the Content tab to design your email. To add content to your campaign, simply drag a type of content to the left side of the page until you see the "Drag it here" pop up.

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To edit the contents of a Content block, simply click on that block on the left side of the tool and edit.

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To add columns to your design, click on the Rows tab on the right, and drag your desired column layout to the left. Then, you can add a Content block within the column.

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The Settings tab will provide some options like the background color of the page, default font, and color of links.

Emojis: The text editor contains a built in emoticon option: 

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This selector provides broken-down categories to scroll through, along with the ability to search: 

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Add an Unsubscribe Link

To add an unsubscribe link to your marketing campaign, use the Merge Tags button from the Text editor. Important! Remember, adding an unsubscribe link to marketing emails is required under CAN-SPAM Federal law, please see our article on CAN-SPAM Compliance for more information. 


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Then, click the Opt-out Link merge tag to add it to your Text content block.

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This same process can be used to add any variable or merge tag to your campaign.

Important! If you send out a test of a campaign, you will notice that the opt-out link variable will not generate and will instead show TEST {opt_out_url} in the campaign text where this variable was placed. Not to worry! This only happens with tests, and when you send the campaign to actual customers, it will populate with the owner's custom opt-out link.

 

Attach a PDF to a Marketing Campaign

  1. Navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Reports & More » Company Files.
  2. Drag and Drop your image file into the Drop Files Here to upload box. Once successfully uploaded, the image will appear with a white checkmark on it.

    Important! A PDF is not an image and will not appear as an image in an email. While you can drag and drop PDFs here, and then later attach them to your campaign, the steps are a little different. Scroll down to the next section to see how to attach a PDF to a marketing Campaign.

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  3. Refresh the page to see your file in the list of Files.

  4. From the Actions button, select Public Download.

  5. You will be navigated to the unique webpage for the image. Copy the URL from the navigation bar of your browser.

  6. Navigate to the Edit Marketing Campaign Page: Left-hand Navigation: Owners & Pets » Marketing.
  7. Click the Edit button on the campaign you would like to add this image to.

  8. Paste the PDF's unique URL link in the body of the message. Be sure to make it an active link by highlighting it and clicking on the link icon button.

 

How to: Save and Send a Marketing Campaign

Once the email is complete, make sure to click Save Campaign. Gingr support is unable to retrieve any unsaved marketing campaigns. 

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Here is an overview of the additional options listed. 

  • Preview Email: this button will show you a desktop and mobile preview of what your campaign will look like in recipients' inboxes.

  • Send Test Email: this button will open a pop up where you can enter an email address to send a test to.

  • Save as Template: this button will save your current design for re-use at a later date (via the Pick a Template dropdown menu).

  • Schedule & Send Campaign: this button will allow you to send the current campaign to customers. You must click the Save Campaign button prior to sending it.

Sending an Email Campaign:

If the option to Schedule & Send was not selected on the campaign details page, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Owners & Pets » Marketing. 
  2. Click on the drop-down menu next to the campaign.

  3. Select Email (Schedule & Send). We encourage you to send yourself a test email first to verify that everything is to your liking before sending it to customers. Click the Send Test Email button to open a pop up where you can enter an email address to send a test to. The variables such as {first_name} will not be translated in the test email, but don't worry, they will be in the real one.
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  4. Enter a Send On date and a Send At time. We recommend scheduling this for at least 5 minutes in the future to avoid sending errors. 
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How to: Duplicate a Marketing Campaign

Follow these steps to duplicate an existing campaign. This will duplicate the recipient list from the original campaign. 

  1. Navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Owners & Pets » Marketing. 

  2. Click on the Duplicate button.

  3. Confirm the action of duplicating the campaign. 

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How to: View Campaign History for an Owner

There are several ways in which you can view communication history. From the Owner Profile, you can access the Communications tab with all the customer email and SMS communications in one place. Also from the Owner Profile, you can click their email address and select View History to pull up a complete list of emails to the owner. Additionally, you can scroll to the bottom of their Details tab to see the Marketing Campaign section. You can also view marketing emails from the Outgoing Emails Log. 

Owner Communications Tab

In order to see a record of all communications with a customer, navigate to the Owner's profile and then click the Communications Tab. You will see a list of outgoing and incoming messages. Outgoing text messages and call records are listed on this tab. From this tab, you can also send SMS (if you have 2-Way texting enabled), send emails, create call records, add the customer to marketing campaigns, and more. Click each row to view details of the communication.  

For more information please see our article on the Owner Communications Tab. 

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Owner Email History Log

  1. Navigate to the customer's Owner Profile page by clicking on their name anywhere in the app, or use the main Search box in the upper left of your app.

  2. On the Details tab of the Owner page, under Owner Contact Info, click View Email History.
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Owner Details Tab

From the Owner Profile Details tab, scroll to the bottom of the right side column. You will see a list of all campaigns that they have been sent or that they are a recipient for. 
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View History in the Outgoing Email Log

From Left-hand Navigation: Admin » Reports & More » History, you will see a button for the Outgoing Email Log. This list contains all outgoing emails from your facility and can be filtered as needed. 

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FAQ: 

How do I change the email address my Gingr app sends emails from?

  1. Navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Admin » Location Info.
  2. Choose a Location and click the Edit button in your location's Actions dropdown menu.

  3. On the Edit page, type the new email address into the email field:
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  4. Scroll down and save your changes by clicking Update Changes.

 

How do I Export my Recipient list?

You have the option to download your recipient list, rather than send it. This is helpful if you send your emails through a 3rd party, but are relying on Gingr to set your list parameters. To do this: 
  1. Click the drop-down menu next to the campaign.

  2. Select Download List.
  3. The file will be instantly downloaded to your device.

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Will I know if an email bounced back or was undeliverable?

You can configure user groups to receive a notification when emails bounce. Navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Reports & More » Groups and turn on the Notification: Bounced Email permission.

    • This permission can be local to only the location where the email was for or can be global, meaning a notification will display at all locations when an email bounces, regardless of the location. 
    • For more information see our article on App Notifications. 
    • Optionally you can have these notifications email your personal login email by also enabling Receive Email Notifications.

You may also receive a notification at the email address you use for your Gingr user account. If you find that you are not receiving these notifications, you may want to check the settings on your email provider's website, to make sure that bounced email notifications are enabled.

You can also check the Outgoing Email Log for an email's status at any time. Left-hand Navigation: Reports & More » History » Outgoing Email Log.

 

Why does my Marketing Email show in code format when looking at the email logs?

Images and formatting in Email Marketing Campaigns will convert to a code view when you view the history logs for the email in the Outgoing Email Log or on an Owner's Communications Tab. This is normal and does not mean that the customers received the code format. Rather, they will have gotten the email as configured on your campaign edit screen and the code on the history is simply the business-side display. 

 

Why Isn't a Customer Receiving Emails?

There are a few common reasons a customer may not receive your emails. First, check the settings for the email type in question to ensure it is configured to send. Then, check if one or multiple owners are affected. You can visit your outgoing email logs for all customers from Left-hand Navigation: Reports & More » History, and then click "Outgoing Email Log" at the top. In this manner, you can check if only some customers are affected or if this is a system-wide issue. 

If other customers are receiving the emails but certain customer(s) are not, then you can use the Owner Communications tab to review their communication history. This will allow you to see what emails they have gotten to help narrow down if this issue is isolated to limited customers. 

Common reasons include:

1. No email address is entered or the address is incorrect. Please ensure the customer has the correct email address in the system. 

2. The email is going to the customer's junk or spam folder. Please ask the customer to check this.

3. The customer is opted out of communications. Customers can opt-out of the system, marketing, and reminder emails independently. Please review the owner's settings by clicking to edit their profile and scrolling to the toggles for your communication settings. These should be set to "no" in order for customers to receive the specified emails. 

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4. The customer is on the email blacklist. To check if this is the case, navigate to the owner's profile and click on their email address. From the dropdown choose "Is address blacklisted?". A popup will appear informing you if they are on the blacklist and, if so, why. A button will allow you to remove them from this list so you can try sending emails again. 

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If none of these factors apply and you cannot identify why a customer is not receiving emails, please reach out to support@gingrapp.com, via our online chat, or call in for assistance in troubleshooting. 

 

What reports can I use to build campaign lists?

Many reports in Gingr can be used to add customers to a marketing campaign group. 
Here is a complete list of the reports that can be used for this:

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