Watch this video for help with creating an automated sequence of emails in Engaging Networks. For more general information on building emails in Engaging Networks, please see our Email Creation Guide.

• 00:00:30 locating automated sequences and duplicating an existing one.
• 00:02:50 Setting frequency
• 00:03:17 Adding or Editing Emails in a journey
• 00:04:55 Setting Conditions or Decision points in a journey
• 00:09:10 changing the setup of an existing journey
• 00:16:45 split test emails in an automated journey
• Admin setting and selecting the target audience for the sequence
• 00:24:45 Launching, pausing and stopping a sequence
• 00:26:11 Setting priority order of live sequences
• 00:27:28 Setting up exclusions on automated journeys

Step-by-step instructions can be found on the Engaging Networks support pages on how to set up automation sequences.

Tracking in Welcome Sequences

Emails in the welcome sequence will use the WL (Welcome) type appeal codes in all the emails.

The utm_campaign should be "welcome" for the generic welcome-type emails, or an appropriate campaign type for the emails which are promoting an appeal or action.

The utm_source will be "email-welcome" for all emails in the sequence and utm_medium will be "email".

Any share buttons in the linked-to actions or donation pages will use the appropriate Appeal or Campaign type appeal codes.

This guide explains how to create more complex target messaging. This is an advanced target setting guide. For target setting basics check out this Engaging Networks support page on target settings. This guide explains;

• How to insert custom target data into ETT messages without creating individual messages for each target using 'contact biography fields' in Engaging Networks. 
• How to send bespoke ETT message from a question and answer in Engaging Networks.

Contact Biography Fields

Where it is desirable to send customised paragraphs of copy according to the target, this can be set up using contact biography fields and avoids the need to create multiple ETT messages.

• From within an action page, click on the 'cog icon' for page settings. Then select 'Target Settings' and click the edit pencil icon by the selected targets. Nb if the action is currently set up to use a database, select ‘Start Over’ and then select 'Custom Targets'.

• Find the target you are looking to edit from the list, click the pencil by their name. Expand the ‘Biography fields’ section. Using the Biography fields 1, 2, 4 etc, add the target specific text. Avoiding using the Twitter handle field.

• Save changes. Save and close all windows until back in the edit area of the action page. Click 'Edit' on the target block containing the ETT message/s. In the target messaging block, set messages to have 'Type: ‘Editable Areas’. Target and supporter data can now be inserted into non-editable sections. This ensures correct rendering and prevents the supporter from accidentally deleting it.
• Tick ‘Target Address Block’ and ‘Display On Page’.
• Tick 'Sender Address Block' and ‘Display On Page’.
• In the target address block, add salutation details as appropriate, then add the biography fields previously populated.

CUSTOM ETT MESSAGES FROM A QUESTION

As the title suggests this set up allows different ETT messages to be sent to targets according to the users preference.

• On page one edit the form to contain the required question. On the 'Questions'  tab click 'MANAGE QUESTIONS'  then 'NEW QUESTION'

• Give the question a unique 'NAME' related to it's purpose. For example 'Choose your subject'
• Enter a name in the 'LABEL' field. The label is what appears above the dropdown on the form. So the user knows what this field is for. For example 'Subject of message'
• Set 'FIELD TYPE' to 'SELECT'  for a drop down menu. Alternatively  'RADIO' or 'CHECKBOX' for a static list of options.
• Check the mandatory tick box

• Click on the ‘EDIT SELECT VALUES’ button.
• Enter a 'LABEL' name. The label fields are what the supporters will see in the drop-down list.
• Enter a 'VALUE' name. The value field is the value that gets recorded in EN and will be referenced in the email processing rules.
• Add or remove items using the green plus symbol or the red X symbol.
• Reorder the values using the drag and drop function on the left.

• Create all the message variations required. The green plus symbol adds additional ETT messages.
• On each new message select ‘Assign a processing rule to this message’ from the two radio button options. Click the  'EDIT' button to set up the rule.

• Set the rules to 'IF' 'A SUPPORTER SUBMITS THE PAGE' 
• 'WITH' 'QUESTION NAME' - e.g 'Choose your subject'
• From next the drop down, select 'IS EQUAL TO'
• In the last field enter the 'VALUE' name that the message relates to.
• One option from the question list not assigned to an ETT rule  will be associated with the default ETT message
• 'SAVE'

How to redirect and filter, or message swap, for different UK regions

Sometimes, you may only want to allow people in Scotland (for example) to take part in an action, and you may want to display a message for people in other UK countries if they attempt to complete the form. Or perhaps you want people to take different actions or send different target messages if they are in Wales to those in Scotland, but still only use one form to do so.

Because the region or country won’t necessarily be part of the supporter’s record, and you may not want to ask the supporter to fill it in, it is better to use one of EN's contact databases to determine the region from their postcode. 

See the EN support page for details on different scenarios and the setup for target block settings and Redirect and Filter rules.

Introduction

Auto-responders are the automated thank you emails that will be sent to a supporter after they have submitted a form on our pages, i.e after donating or signing a petition.

For information on adding these to a page, please see the Engaging Network support page.

Please ensure you do not include donation asks in thank you emails that non-opt ins will receive. It is not GDPR compliant, and we could face a fine!

Thank you email templates

There are thank you email templates saved in your libraries, you can 'load' these in from the library, into your page.

Pages > Components > Thank you emails > folders called 'Donate Pages' and 'Action Pages'.

Editing emails

Unlike broadcast emails, we cannot edit thank you emails using the Engaging Networks 'Email Builder'.

To edit these email work in the source code, via the 'Advanced HTML editor' tab.

Thank you email module code blocks are found in the SharePoint module library.

If you are editing the code and the email layout becomes broken, it is usually best to start from scratch using the Engaging Networks email library templates, or you can ask the Digital Team for help.

If you need fresh code for just a single module and you are confident replacing the code in the email, you can do so using the modules linked above.

These are the typical sections you will want to look for and edit in your thank you emails. Highlighted sections are the parts you can edit.

Click on the images to view at full size.

H1 header section

Full width image and paragraph sections

Spacer section

Start of social share section

End of social share section

H2 subheading section

Editing Action Thank You Emails

Action thank you emails have new templates, with some helpful comment additions to assist with editing your emails.

When you need to add or remove a block, you would include the yellow comments in your copy or deletion. It will be clear where one block finishes, and you would paste another block after the previous block's "END" comment (after the yellow).

Some blocks like the Image block have content within them that you might like to remove, such as image credit. Here you would remove from green to green (including the green comments themselves).

Basic HTML Explained

When working with HTML, we use simple code structures (tags and attributes) to mark up a website page or in this case an email. For example, create a paragraph by placing the enclosed text within an opening <p> and closing </p> tag. Every block of code for an attribute will sit inside these kinds of tags.

HTML consists of a set of tags (also called elements), which are referred to as the building blocks of web pages and html base emails. They create a hierarchy that structures the content into sections, paragraphs, headings and other content blocks.

Most HTML elements have an opening and a closing that use the opening <tag> and closing </tag> syntax.

Below, is an example of how HTML elements can be structured:

• The outermost element is a simple division (<div></div>) used to mark up bigger content sections.
• It contains a heading (<h1></h1>), a subheading (<h2></h2>), two paragraphs (<p></p>), and an image (<img>).
• The second paragraph includes a link (<a></a>) with "a href" attribute that contains the destination URL.
• The image tag also has two attributes: “src” for the image path and “alt” for the image description.

Preheader

Note: In Action emails this is called Preview.

The preheader has default copy and this needs to be edited directly in the code via the 'Advanced HTML editor' as it cannot be seen in the Rich Text Editor. The templates in your library have the default preheader text defined by each office.

Adding Images

Images need to be sized depending on the location and whether it is an action or donation email.

Images must be uploaded to the Engaging Networks media library and saved in a folder for thank you emails. Make a note of the image url. In the autoresponder email editor, Advanced HTML tab, look for the img src HTML and replace it with your desired image url and update the alt text.

Do not use the image picker tool, this will break the template.

Creating Links

External Links: To create a hyperlink on any image, text or button that will point to a CIWF website page or any other website page that is not an Engaging Networks action or donation page;

1. Select or highlight the place where the hyperlink is to go
2. Click on the Blue Globe Icon with the Link Chain over it
3. Paste in the external url including the https part
4. In the NAME field enter appeal, action or other _ txt, button or img _ the first few words of the txt or describe the image. Examples of how the name might look: appeal_button_DonateNow or action_txt_WillYouHelp or other_img_piglets
5. Click on OK
6. On text links, highlight the hyperlink and click on the grey link chain icon.
7. Click on the ADVANCED tab. In the STYLE field enter: text-decoration: underline; color: #0BAB47;
8. OK
9. SAVE

Campaign Links: To create a hyperlink on any image, text or button that will point to an Engaging Networks action or donation page;

1. Select or highlight the place where the hyperlink is to go
2. Click on the Blue Link Chain icon
3. In the NAME field enter appeal, action or other _ txt, button or img _ the first few words of the txt or describe the image. Examples of how the name might look: appeal_button_DonateNow or action_txt_WillYouHelp or other_img_piglets
4. Select the action or donation page from the CAMPAIGN drop down list. The action or donation page must be set to LIVE for it to appear in the drop down.
5. Click on OK

1. With the text, img or button still selected click on the grey link chain icon.
2. You will see that EN automatically apply "?chain" to the end of the URL. Replace the whole url with your fully tracked link. Direct links to other Engaging Networks pages should be using an appeal code with the Type=TY eg TYEM_ES1023 For details on this see the section Linking from Thank You pages and emails in this guide.
3. For text links, click on the ADVANCED tab. In the style field enter: text-decoration: underline; color: #0BAB47;
4. Click OK
5. Click SAVE

Social share buttons

Remember that if you are using the share buttons with text and a logo, then the share URLs need to be entered twice (for the logo and the text), to make the buttons 100% clickable:

If you need a customised share module, please ask the Digital Team to create and test one for you, please do not customise the code yourself.

Social button share links

Note that these links are neither campaign nor external URLs, instead, you copy and paste the encoded link directly into the source code.

Facebook:
Take the default URL of the action/donation page and create the tracked url with appeal code and google tracking in Sales Force 

Once created, encode the tracked URL here https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ - then add it to the URLs on the social share buttons

Locate the piece of code below within the share-ask block code (when the buttons contain text you need to do this in two locations) and replace with the new encoded url:
on the FB link it goes after u=
on LinkedIn it goes after url=

WhatsApp and Twitter :

Take the tracked URLs and shorten them in Bitly: https://bitly.com/

Then go to the encoder and add it to the end of your share copy e.g This brought a smile to my face! A really joyful video of farm animals having a life worth living #loveanimals https://bitly.com/yourlink

Encode the message and bitlylink, copy and paste it on to the URL after "text=" (when the buttons contain text you need to do this in two locations).

Customise the text on the buttons.

Email:

This one is a little different. Notice there is a “mailto:” command and it has a subject line too, which also needs to be encoded (but separately to the body copy).

Once the subject line has been encoded, copy and paste the part after subject= and before &body=

On the the main part of the message, replace everything after body=

When the buttons contain text you need to do this in two locations

Customise the text on the button.

Donate page thank you emails

In your libraries, in Pages > Components > Thank you emails, each account has:

• a generic donation thank you email template 'Donation thank you email template'.
• email templates with content specific to each type of donation that you offer, for example:

These are available for you to load into any page, but remember to unlink them from the library before making any edits. 

Custom donation thank you emails

A custom email will be any email that is not simply ‘single gift’ or ‘recurring gifts’. Make sure that you do not edit the rules or filter settings if you are using one that has been created by Digi in the library.

For example, the below rule and filter ensures that a supporter donating via monthly PayPal will receive the email that contains information on how to manage their gift in their PayPal account, not the standard regular gift email.

Action page thank you emails

Similarly, you have email templates in your library for petition/email to target thank you emails.

These cannot be loaded from the library, like donation thank you emails. You will need to copy and paste the code into the advanced HTML editor tab.

There should be an Opt In and Opt Out Thank you email templates already populated in your action template pages.

Remember to unlink from the library before making any edits.

Donation links in thank you emails

You must ensure that you are not asking for money from people who did not opt in! Therefore, you need at least one thank you email that has no donation ask in it. You can also create different emails for opt ins - one email for regular donors (perhaps asking for a single gift, or no gift at all), and one for non-regular donors (asking for a monthly gift). If you do not wish to ask regular donors for money, you will still need to create all three emails, as the processing rules for opt outs and regular donors cannot be covered by one email filter. If you want to ask opted in regular donors and opted in non-regular donors for the same gift type (eg both single), then you can just create two emails - default with gift ask, and custom without ask for opt-outs. It's very simple to set these three emails up:

1. When creating the action, in the autoresponder section, first add the email asking for a regular donation (opted-in non-regular donors) - this will be the default email.
2. Add the second email (non-opt ins, no donation ask) by clicking the plus button in the tab at the top, and select 'custom' (you won't be able to select anything else)
3. Provide the name of the rule and short name - these can be the same, eg 'opt out' for both.
4. Set the priority to '1'
5. Click the green plus button next to 'Supporter Field' and set the rule to be Opt in to all XX equals N
6. Add the subject line, HTML, plain text and click save.
7. If you wish to send a different email to opted in regular donors than the one going to opted in non regular donors (default email in point one), then add a third email
8. Provide the name of rule and short name - eg 'Regular Donors'
9. Set priority to '2'
10. Click the green plus button next to 'Supporter Field' and set the rule to be donor type ends with Active Regular. Ensure that 'Active Regular' has a capital A and capital R.
11. Add in the subject line, HTML (copy without a donation ask), plain text and save.

Introduction

This document covers automation emails, for thank you auto-responder emails please reference that guide. For main supporter broadcast emails please go to that guide.

If you are updating an existing automation or making a new one please consult the digital team first to assist with your email template.

We are currently changing between two different email builder systems in Engaging Networks. To make your automation emails look the same as our broadcast emails you will follow these steps:

• First build the email in the main Email Broadcast tool.
• Do not add any links to the build.
• Request Digital team help to check and test the design and to import the HTML code ready for adding links in the automation sequence.

If you already have an automation sequence using the new templates you can follow the guidance on customising the HTML blocks and adding links. If you are unsure if the automation has old or new templates please contact the Digital Team for help by making a SalesForce case or email us.

Important Things To Note

When customising elements of the automation email such as editing the text or changing an image, you must work in the Advanced HTML Editor tab. When you are finished editing always update the Plain Text HTML by going to the Plain Text Editor tab and clicking on the button titled "Generate Plain Text From HTML" This ensures plain text will display the same as the HTML you just updated. Then click SAVE at the bottom of the window.

Please pay attention to and follow this guidance:

• Do not manually add styles to the html. The email templates have style sheets applied to them which are approved designs to fit with the CIWF branding and which have been extensively tested across platforms and devices to achieve the best user experience.
• Do not use coloured highlights on copy unless there’s a special case and a very specific reason for doing so. It is better to draw attention to copy using one or a combination of bold, italics, underline, capitalisation or impact blocks. Or break text up using subheadings formed by H2's and H3's
• Keep links on text to cover the key action words, avoid making whole sentences a link.
• Do not make subtitles hyperlinks.
• Buttons are limited to 22 characters.
• Keep H1 Titles to two lines when viewed on desktop. Titles cannot contain words longer than 13 characters.
• Button text should be capitalised
• Orange buttons are for donation links. Green buttons for CTA and everything else.
• Do not use images with text overlaid. Use captions and subtitles to illustrate image information.
• Do not insert images using the image picker tool. Always work in the Advanced HTML Editor tab. 
• Image and text block allows for the copy to sit the right or left of a small image. Note that it will not wrap.
• Do not customise lists with other types of icons. There are several styles of lists available already. Bullets, Numbered, Crosses and Ticks.
• DO NOT edit the email in the Rich Text Editor. Always use the Advance HTML tab to add/remove or customise content.
• DO Generate Plain Text from HTML in the Plain Text Editor when you have finished making edits. This updates the plain text to match the HTML display.

How To Customise An Automation Email

Log into Engaging Networks with your credentials selecting the country account you wish to work in.

Select MARKETING TOOLS then MARKETING AUTOMATIONS.

Click on the pencil icon to open the automation you want to work on. Email content sits inside the blue boxes in the journey flow. Click on the pencil icon to open the email editor.

Use the EN Email Campaign Naming sheet to create consistent naming for your emails. There is a tab for each country office.

Give the email a subject line and select the Sender and Reply-To details from the dropdown list. Do not edit these lists. Please contact the digital team if you need new contacts added. Preview text will be added in the HTML. Leave the preview text field empty.

HTML Code Blocks

Notice our email code blocks have been created using tables which results in the most consistent display and rendering results across email platforms e.g:

Important:

DO NOT change any of the code block structures except where specifically indicated in these instructions. Only the parts relating to the content such as h1, h2, h3, p, a and img tags should be customised.

If you need to change a block or there isn't a block that fits your requirements please make a request for it in a SalesForce case to the Digital Team. 

DO NOT mix in or add different coding languages or styles. Exceptions include pasting in a YouTube embed code or an iFrame in special circumstances but otherwise, no other code variations should be added.

Basic HTML Explained

When working with HTML, we use simple code structures (tags and attributes) to mark up a website page or in this case an email. For example, create a paragraph by placing the enclosed text within an opening <p> and closing </p> tag. Every block of code for an attribute will sit inside these kinds of tags.

HTML consists of a set of tags (also called elements), which are referred to as the building blocks of web pages and html based emails. They create a hierarchy that structures the content into sections, paragraphs, headings, and other content blocks.

Most HTML elements have an opening and a closing that use the opening <tag> and closing </tag> syntax.

Below, is an example of how HTML elements can be structured:

• The outermost element is a simple division (<div></div>) used to mark up bigger content sections.
• It contains a heading (<h1></h1>), a subheading (<h2></h2>), two paragraphs (<p></p>), and an image (<img>).
• The second paragraph includes a link (<a></a>) with "a href" attribute that contains the destination URL.
• The image tag also has two attributes: “src” for the image path and “alt” for the image description.

This is an external ten minute HTML tutorial video that you can use to help you learn some HTML basics:

Learn HTML basics

H1 Title

When customising the text in the HTML editor do not type in capitals. Capitalisation is added automatically through CSS (Custom Style Sheets). Keep individual words 13 characters or less otherwise the template breaks.

Editing Images

Please size all images to the correct dimensions according to their use before upload to the EN image library.  It's helpful to keep the image library organised by using folders.

All images used for email should be max 200kb file size when possible.

Images don't need to be pre-sized, but they do need to meet the minimum width requirement for the block. Depending on the block being used landscape or portrait cropping should be used:

• Full width images & main story image – min width 660px max 1000px (suggested width 800px), landscape
• Half-width images (2-col) – min width 500px max 700px, portrait to square format
• GIF files should be no more than 1 MB in size and have a width of either 660px or 500px depending on block placement
• Donation impact – width 500px, landscape
• Follow block – width 500px, landscape
• Signature images: Portrait 200px wide by 240px high

Do not blow images up to fit the minimum size requirements and ensure images are sharp and of high quality. Using degraded images, blurry images reflects poorly on our professionalism and undermines the message we are conveying.

Upload images to the library folder in Engaging Networks by going to Pages >Components. This takes you straight to the image library.

Select a folder to save the new image into from the dropdown menu and click "UPLOAD" to upload new images. If a folder doesn't already exist for email images create one.

Select any uploaded image to locate and copy the url. Add or update the alternative image description field in the library if it is not already populated.

Paste the copied URL of the image directly into the HTML source code of the block using an image in the email. Locate the src=url part of the code and replace the template https address. Don't forget to update the alt text here too.

It’s important to give all images an Alt tag name both in Engaging Networks library and in the source code of the email. Alt descriptions should describe how the image looks. In the case that someone could not see the image they would know what it was by reading the alt description. Giving images Alt descriptions also improves SEO (search engine optimisation).

Please complete this training course on how to create good alt-tag descriptions. Request a Site Improve log in from Digi Team to access.

Image with text blocks

There is functionality for a small image with text next to it which can be left or right-aligned. Care should be given to the amount of text next to the image so that it fits the height of the image. The text will NOT wrap around the image.

Links On Images

!IMPORTANT! Links on images should be added in the same way as any other type of link. See notes on creating links below.

Text On Images

Please avoid overlaying images with text. Especially informative text. It's important to consider that not all of our audience will have good vision, some may be using screen readers, have images turned off and over 50% of our audience read our communications on mobile devices.

Overlaying text on images is bad practice for accessibility reasons. Our content should be accessible - everyone should be able to consume it, we want everyone to know how awful factory farming is, and we don't want anyone to feel excluded from this. We want to have a reputation for providing accessible content. Or at least, not have a reputation for not doing so. So this means we need to consistently produce accessible content, and not make any exceptions.

For those viewing images it is still a problem. While the text is legible on a desktop/laptop it's not easy to read on a mobile. The text sizing will not auto-adjust for the device, it will be fixed and simply reduce in size resulting in the text on the images being illegible on smaller screens. Over 50% of people read their emails on mobile devices.

Images with accompanying text should be in captions or subheadings below the image. They could be h2 and h3's respectively and centered to give them some style if desired. There are also impact blocks and infographics that are designed with accessibility in mind and are a great way to display images with short excerpts of text to make a point.

Lists

Currently, only bullet or numbered lists can be used. Other list types or using emoji icons will break or not display in some email clients.

Buttons General

To edit the button title, carefully customise in the Advanced HTML Editor.

Take note the Orange buttons are to be used for donation links only. Green buttons should be used for Calls To Action and everything else.

Donation Impact Buttons

When using the donation impact module, or creating a Donate Buttons that stipulates a pre-set donation amount and/or frequency, for example, 'Donate £15 Monthly' the link should represent this value.

When generating the tracked url in the SalesForce URL Generator use the Optional URL Parameters section to add the extensions for each button accordingly.

Below are examples of how the links will look without utm tracking added so you can see clearly the result. You will need to add the appropriate url tracking for your links.

Pop Up Pre-Set Monthly

So "transaction.recurrpay=Y" will open the pop up monthly and "transaction.donationAmt=15" will put the amount 15 in the popup

Pop Up Pre-Set Single

So "transaction.recurrpay=N" will open the pop up single and "transaction.donationAmt=6" will put the amount 6 in the popup

Adding Links

External links (any non-EN page links)

To add a hyperlink on any image, text, or button that will point to a CIWF website page or any other website page that is not an Engaging Networks action or donation page:

1. Select or highlight the place where the hyperlink is to go
2. Click on the Blue Globe Icon with the Link Chain over it. 
3. Paste in the external url including the https part
4. In the NAME field enter appeal, action or other _ txt, button or img _ the first few words of the txt or describe the image. Examples of how the name might look: appeal_button_DonateNow or action_txt_WillYouHelp or other_img_piglets
5. Click on OK
6. On text links, highlight the hyperlink and click on the grey link chain icon.
7. Click on the ADVANCED tab. In the STYLE field enter: text-decoration: underline; color: #0BAB47;
8. OK
9. SAVE

Campaign links

To add a hyperlink on any image, text, or button that will point to an Engaging Networks action or donation page;

1. Select or highlight the place where the hyperlink is to go
2. Click on the Blue Link Chain icon
3. In the NAME field enter appeal, action, or other _ txt, button or img _ the first few words of the txt or describe the image. Examples of how the name might look: appeal_button_DonateNow or action_txt_WillYouHelp or other_img_piglets
4. Select the action or donation page from the CAMPAIGN drop down list. The action or donation page must be set to LIVE for it to appear in the drop down.
5. Click on OK

1. With the text, img or button still selected click on the grey link chain icon.
2. Select from the “h” of the http... all the way to the last number or letter before the ~ of the link and paste the tracked SalesForce link. Learn how to create tracked links in SalesForce with This Guide.
3. For text links, click on the ADVANCED tab. In the style field enter: text-decoration: underline; color: #0BAB47;
4. Click OK
5. Click SAVE

Social Button Share Links

Button Titles

On all social media buttons please make sure to only use one word maximum in the button title. For example, "Facebook". This ensures that the button looks correct across all devices and email clients.

There are optional styles for social buttons using an icon and title, or icon only.

Link Tracking

If the link you plan to share is a CIWF owned page you must add tracking to the link. Tracking will be unique for each platform share button.

Take the default URL and create the tracked URL with an appeal code (if appropriate) and UTM tracking in SalesForce or the Google Tracking sheet. Please see the guide on creating tracked links for details.

Once you have your tracked links created, encode the tracked URL using the dencoder tool: https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ - then add it to the URLs on the social share buttons following the directions below for each button type.

Facebook and LinkedIn Share

Locate the piece of code below within the share-ask block code and replace with the new encoded url:
on the FB link it goes after u=
on LinkedIn it goes after url=

When sharing an action or donation page, Facebook generates messaging from the "Social Details/General Tab" of the page. The image is also pulled in from here.

WhatsApp and Twitter

Take the tracked URLs and shorten them in Bitly: https://bitly.com/ or your preferred link-shortening tool.

Then go to the encoder and add it to the end of your share copy

For example: This brought a smile to my face! A really joyful video of farm animals having a life worth living #loveanimals https://bitly.com/yourlink

Encode the message and bitly/short link, copy and paste it onto the URL after "text="

Customise the text on the buttons.

When sharing an action or donation page from Engaging Networks, the Twitter card pulls it's image from the "Social Details/General Tab" of the page being shared.

Email share

This one is a little different. Notice there is a “mailto:” command and it has a subject line too, which also needs to be encoded (but separately to the body copy).

Once the subject line has been encoded, copy and paste the part after subject= and before &body=

On the the main part of the message, replace everything after body=

Customise the text on the button.

Telegram

A telegram share link is made up of two parts, the share text and the link.

The URL starts with this (not encoded) https://t.me/share/url?url=

After this we insert the encoded tracked URL, this can be bitly or a standard URL e.g. https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F414fxml

After the URL we have the text parameter (not encoded) &text=

This is where we add the encoded share text e.g. I%20just%20took%20action%20for%20pigs!%20Join%20me

Twitter Card Trouble Shooting

Twitter Card Not Showing An Image

• If sharing an EN page make sure there is an image inserted in the social share section of the EN page at the correct size Min 600px wide and ratio of 1.91:1
• Use the Scrape function in the EN page Social Details Facebook Tab. Ensure it generates the message and image saved in the general tab
• Make sure the page being shared is in Live mode
• Share on Facebook - you can set the post to share privately so the public won't see it.
• Make sure that the message does not exceed the max character count of 280 including spaces.

Reminder / Re-Send Emails

To create a reminder or re-send an email in the automation sequence, simply copy and paste the HTML code from the Advanced HTML Editor tab. Paste the HTML into the Advanced HTML Editor tab of the email action block in the journey that will be set up as the reminder email.

How to avoid having emails sent to SPAM folders

Here is a list of things that are considered flags for spam by email clients:

• Using 'Hot Words', capital letters and punctuation in subject lines especially exclamation marks
• Using 'Hot Words' in the body content
• Using a large number of links throughout an email. More than 12 links including footer links can cause SPAM flags in some clients.
• An uneven ratio of text and images in the email
• Using 'Friend' as an alternative to addressing the subscribers name if we don't have their name (Spam Assassin doesn't like this)
• Images missing alt text

Avoiding doing the things listed above will help your emails stay out of SPAM boxes. While there are several factors as to why this can happen, the list above is not exhaustive, nor is it a guarantee, but it should help.

Checkout our guide on best email practices to avoid SPAM and increase open rates.

Test your email and check your potential SPAM score in MailTester. 

Using emoji's

A limited amount of emoji use in email subject lines and email content is fine. But don't overdo it. Please don't use emoji icons in place of bullet points. Use only the style list blocks provided.

If you are using emoji's be careful to use one from either of these two sites: Emojipedia and Email Emoji

While not guaranteed these two sites do seem to be fairly good at providing stable emoji icons.

Carefully test the email in various email clients and platforms. They can have a tendency to stretch and blow up, particularly Gmail desktop in Chrome browser. 

Windows 7 machines and earlier versions will not show emojis, some emojis will be converted to Emoticons. Gmail will always show emojis regardless of the operating system.

Setting Up A Split Test

To set up a split test, use the split test action block from the blue action icons in the left hand tool-bar. You will need to check on the performance results of the emails after the automation has been running for a little while. Once you have good enough data you can decide which email is performing better and select it as the winner for all future journey participants to receive.

Sending Email Tests

All emails built should be tested by yourself and by anyone who needs to sign off on the content.  You should check all links test functionality for this. Final tests should be sent to Digital team in good time ahead of your desired launch day.

On each email click on the black circular arrow icon in the Email Action Block.

Add an email address/es to send a test to. 

Always check how to the email looks on both desktop and mobile. If possible check how the email looks in both Outlook and also in a webmail client such as Gmail.

Once you are satisfied with your own tests, create a SalesForce Case for an email test with Digital Team. When creating the case please include the following details:

• Subject line/s
• Any testing such as content or subject line testing
• The number of emails to be tested and if there is an action page and/or donation page that also needs to be tested.
• When the automation is to be launched
• When you expect to have a test delivered – an estimate is fine
• EN name of the automation sequence, email names