Overview

Most of the time you are using templates curated by your supplier to create emails in your campaigns. You can also create your own (CYO) emails for use in your campaigns. You can quickly build emails without having to be an expert in HTML using the Email Builder editor. The Email Builder editor provides a way for you to quickly modify email with simple drag and drop functionality. Additionally, you can modify text and images directly, without having to adjust the source code.

The campaign is the foundation or container that holds all the tactics associated with a marketing campaign. The campaign keeps multiple types of content (tactics) organized. Email is a popular tactic in any marketing campaign. Having multiple tactics in a campaign allows you to get reporting for the campaign, not just the tactic. The Email Builder (CYO) provides you a way to quickly create emails for a campaign other than those provided by your supplier.

Before creating your own emails consider the following:

• You cannot send an email without a campaign.
• You can have a single email in your campaign.
• Emails are sent to recipients from your contact list. Email is one activity type (tactic) used to generate leads for the sales staff and provide a way to engage with partners while gathering data about the recipient.
• The Email Builder supports Special Links for adding Unsubscribe, Opt-in and View Email in Browser. Learn more.
• The Email Builder supports Merge Tags that allow you to create personalized emails. Learn more.
• Photo search (free stock photo gallery) in the Email Builder provides access to a large repository of high-quality images via popular stock photo services. The images are free to use under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. Learn more.
• Dynamic images are available via the Email Builder. Users can specify both a static placeholder image and a dynamic image URL when adding an image content block. This allows for scenarios such as personalized birthday cards, countdown timers, dynamic ads, and many other user cases where an image is built dynamically at the time it is served. Learn more.

Learn more about Best Practices for Email Design.

Prerequisites

You should be familiar with the following topics before continuing:

• Zift123 Login
• Zift123 Password
• Getting Started with Email
• Campaigns

How to Create an Email

1. From the selected Campaign, select Add Activity > Email to add an email to the campaign.
2. Select Create Your Own Email.
3. Name the Email. You will land on the Activity Dashboard.
4. Select Edit to access the Email Wizard. The email wizard steps you through the process of configuring, customizing, and scheduling the email. You can also select Review to access each step. The Email Wizard has four steps.
   1. Settings step you through editing the Activity Details. Learn more.
   2. Personalization steps you through creating an unique email using our editor. More details about the editor are below. Learn more about Personalization.
   3. Recipients steps you through adding Contacts. Learn more.
   4. Scheduling steps you through sending the email now or scheduling for a later time. Learn more.

How to Use the Email Editor

1. From the Personalization step in the Email Wizard, select a Template. Templates can save time, promote standards, and guide you through setting up your email. You can brand, format, add text and more to make sending future emails quickly and easily. We recommend creating your own templates to get the full benefit of templates. When making changes in the email, the changes are not saved to your templates. 
2. Select a template from the options below or one of the templates you have designed:
1. E-Commerce has text, four blocks with text under each for product descriptions.
2. Basic Newsletter has three blocks of various sizes and text.
3. Basic One Column is the width of the page with a single block.
4. Basic Standard has left-aligned text with a centered right-aligned image.
5. Blank has no layout design.
3. In the Email Builder you can do the following:
   1. Select Use HTML Editor, to use HTML instead of the WYSIWYG editor. It is easy to drop existing HTML into the email to create a new email.
   2. Select Content to add text, images, buttons, dividers, social icons and links, and html. Drag the content to the place where you want it to appear. When you see the blue line you can drop it in place. Click the block to add your content to the email.
      1. You can delete a Content block when it is selected by clicking the trashcan icon.
      2. You can duplicate a Content block when it is selected by clicking the copy icon.
   3. Select Structure to add page layouts.
      1. Click on the structure block and drag it into the body of the email. Grab the +Handlebars to drag the block for your preferred placement.
      2. When you see the blue line, drop the structure block in place.
      3. Double click the block to delete a structure block using the trashcan icons.
      4. Double click the block to duplicate a structure block using the copy icons.
      5. The following is a list of the different structure blocks available.
         1. Single Column Section
         2. Two Column Section
         3. Two Column Section with Left Side
         4. Two Column Section with Right Side
         5. Three Column Section
         6. Four Column Section
   4. Select Body to change width, color, font, or link color for the entire document.
      1. Select a specific block to make changes only to that block.
      2. Treat the body blocks as rows with properties such as the background, column properties, and borders.
4. Preview the email to see what your readers will see. Check for spelling errors, image placement, and hyperlinks.
5. Use Send Test to send yourself an email to review for accuracy. The email must be Saved to test the email.
6. Select Save to save your work. You can still make changes to the email until it is in a Sent Status by selecting Personalization.
7. Select Save & Next to save your work and progress to the next step.

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