Create email campaigns

Create and send personalized email campaigns using either a visual drag-and-drop editor or an HTML builder. This guide explains how to create, configure, and test campaigns.

Watch this short introductory video about this feature.

Prerequisites

Before you create email campaigns, ensure you have:

• Integrated email service provider: You must connect a supported email service provider to send emails. Review the available integrations or contact your consultant or Support team for help.
• Valid customer profiles: Each customer profile needs:
  • Email attribute with a value
  • Valid email format including the @ symbol
  • Lowercase email address

If these requirements are missing or formatted incorrectly, the message won't send.

Create email campaigns

You can create email campaigns in 3 ways:

• Standalone campaign: Go to Campaigns > Email campaigns to create a campaign for a specific audience.
• Scenario email node: Add an email node within a scenario to send emails based on customer behavior.
• Template reuse: Select a project template or predefined template from the Asset Manager. Customize it before sending.

The template creation process and settings remain the same across all methods. The key difference is how you define your audience:

• Scenarios: Define complex audience conditions using multiple criteria.
• Standalone campaigns: Use customer and event filters only.

Choose your email builder

When you create a new campaign or open an email node in a scenario, you'll see 3 options:

• Visual builder: Build emails using a drag-and-drop interface.
• HTML builder: Code emails directly in HTML.
• Reuse template: Start with a template from the Asset Manager.

To learn how to create email templates, read the Email Editors article.

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Note

We recommend using the "Do not stack on mobile" option under the Rows tab. You can achieve a responsive template by switching it off. Otherwise, your template might not look good because it's not responsive.

Image size limitations

• Maximum image size: 20MB
• Images wider than 1920px are automatically resized
• Resized GIF images may lose animation

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HTML editor note

The HTML content in the Visual Editor doesn't accept the logical operators <=. The workaround for this is to use the character code for the < and sign <=.

Configure subject and sender details

In the panel above the email editor, you can:

• Define your email subject line.
• Set the sender's email address and name.
• Choose which integrated email service provider to use.

The three-dot menu lets you:

• Add language versions.
• Change the template you're working with.
• Save your work as a new template for future use.
• Download your work as an HTML template.

Add language versions

You can create separate email versions for each language defined in your project settings. Click the three dots in the top-right corner of the email builder. Then select Add language version.

The system automatically selects the correct language version for each customer. It uses the language attribute in their profile. When a customer doesn't have a language attribute, the system uses the default template.

When you create a new language version, the system copies the default template. However, changes to the default template won't update existing language versions.

Jinja code attributes

If you use the {{customer.language}} attribute in the HTML Email builder, the preview behaves differently based on your language selection:

• Selected language: The Editor View renders the email as if the customer has the language matching your current editing tab.
• Default language or no selection: The {{customer.language}} renders as empty in the preview.

This preview behavior doesn't affect live emails. When you send the campaign, emails are personalized correctly with each customer's actual language value.

To see how the email renders with a customer's actual language attribute, use the Test tab instead of the Editor View.

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Interactive tour

Learn how to deliver different language copies within emails with an interactive tour.

View tour 14 steps, 3 minutes

View email in browser option

This feature lets customers open emails that don't display correctly in their email client. Email content is stored on the platform and remains accessible via a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for 90 days.

To set it up:

1. Insert the Jinja tag {{email.view}} in your email or email template. The system replaces this tag with a View in Browser link.
2. Send your email campaign.
3. If a customer has trouble viewing the email, they can click the View in Browser link. They'll see it correctly in their browser.

Set default email settings

You can set default email settings after clicking on the settings icon in the top right corner under Project Settings > Channels > Emails. Here you can set the default email sender.

Pre-header and reply to

Click Show more in the upper control menu to access these features:

• Pre-header: Set custom text that appears next to the subject line in email clients. A relevant pre-header can increase open rates and engagement. Keep it between 80-100 characters. Some devices show as few as 30 characters.
• Reply to: Set a different reply-to email address. This address receives responses when recipients click "reply" to your email.

Consents and frequency policy

Bloomreach Engagement has advanced consent management and lets you set frequency policy to limit the number of emails (or SMS, push notifications) sent to a single customer within a timeframe. Each campaign can belong to a single consent and policy group. You can set this in the campaign settings.

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Note

Set your customer filter to target only customers with relevant consent. This way, you won't generate unnecessary events.

Campaign settings

Access campaign settings through Email campaigns > Settings or Scenarios > Email Node > Settings.

Pre-populate settings from a template

When creating an email template in the Asset Manager, you can enable template settings. This lets you predefine some campaign settings directly within the template.

These settings include:

• Link transformation
• Transfer identity to URL links
• Custom headers
• Custom Campaign Tracking attributes

If you create a campaign using a template with these settings enabled, the system pre-populates and pre-configures your campaign settings. This saves you from configuring the same settings repeatedly for the same template.

Read more in the Asset Manager article.

Use custom recipient

If you prefer to use a different property than the standard customer attribute email, you can use the custom recipient option. For example, if you have a property called secondary_email or father_email (for students), you can tell the campaign to use this property instead.

Specify {{customer.secondary_email}}. The campaign sends emails to the value stored in that attribute.

Important considerations

If you send an email to someone other than the original customer, set the identity tracking setting to "none." This prevents the cookie from being merged with the original customer if the recipient clicks something in the email.

You need to fill in the customer attribute value for the recipient. Do the same for the name. If you have a custom name like {{customer.secondary_email_holder_name}}, you need to specify that as well.

Key limitations

Every profile is tied to one "email" property. This is the standard property used for a customer. It assumes one person will only have 1 email for communication.

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Important

Don't use custom recipient unless you have specific requirements. Only use it to send emails to a value other than the one stored in the email property.

Since email is a reserved attribute, all consent management flows are tied to it. This means consent isn't followed if you use a secondary email.

For example, a user has the email [email protected] and consented to newsletters. The secondary email recipient receives communications regardless of their consent status. You're using consent for the profile. Each profile only has one value for consent.

You can use Jinja in both "Recipient's email address" and "Recipient's name to display" fields. These fields can only hold one property, not a list.

Warning about custom email recipient

Using custom email recipients with "Set recipient manually" may disable the automatic check of customer consents and email policy.

If your custom recipient or its rendered Jinja value differs from the customer's email property, the system won't validate consents or email policy for this customer. If the custom recipient equals the customer's email property, normal validation applies.

Be very careful if you use a custom recipient for more than one customer. You might:

• Send emails to customers without validating their consent (GDPR breach).
• Send emails to customers too frequently (no validation of policy).

If you have no other option and must use a custom recipient, we recommend implementing a scenario condition node. Use it to check for correct consents and email frequency. For more details, contact Bloomreach Support.

Use optimal send time

If you choose the optimal send time in the Schedule, you can set it up in the same way as in a Wait node in Scenarios.

Based on your customer's past behavior, the optimal send time option under the Schedule setting lets you automatically send out email campaigns to individual customers at a time when they're most likely to click or open your email. The time is rounded to an hour. Learn more about Optimal send time.

Add videos to emails

Most popular email client apps don't support embedded videos in emails. While it's technically possible to embed videos using the Visual Builder (provided by BeeFree) or HTML Builder, we don't recommend it. These videos aren't accessible to most users through emails. In the best case, users see a fallback static image.

Consider your users' devices when planning to embed videos in emails. Most users access emails through mobile or handheld devices. This leads to a poor user experience due to data connection quality and mobile data consumption.

To learn more about using embedded videos in emails, refer to the guide on embedding videos.

Test your email

There are various options for testing your email template before launching a campaign. Learn more in the email testing article. We recommend using at least one testing option before launching the live campaign.

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Note

Remember to always test your dark mode emails. Our email preview generator includes snapshots from email apps in dark mode. You can refer to Dark mode email design by our visual builder provider BeeFree. It includes tips on creating dark mode-friendly emails.

Set up A/B testing

For email campaigns created via scenarios, configure A/B tests using the dedicated A/B test operator node.

To set up an A/B test for Email campaigns, go to the A/B Test Setup tab under DESIGN. You can choose between two types of tests:

• Automatic winner distribution
• Custom distribution

Read more on A/B tests in our A/B testing guide.

To set up A/B testing, enable the feature by turning the button on in the setup. Or click the Enable A/B test button.

To navigate between the designs for each variant or add new variants, use the A/B test menu in the top right of your email editor. You can switch between different variants. Design the campaign for each version separately.

Evaluation

After starting a campaign, you can evaluate its performance. Under the NEW EVALUATE tab, you'll find an out-of-the-box dashboard. It contains different data and tools for evaluating your campaign.

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This dashboard will be removed in the upcoming months

The data in this dashboard may differ from the new Performance dashboards due to different calculation methods. We recommend using the new Performance dashboards for more accurate insights.

Under the Results sub-tab, you'll find all key metrics for evaluating your email campaign. Click on the Click map sub-tab to preview and use click heatmaps. These help you analyze your customers' interactions with the campaign.

Automatic bot detection in emails

The automatic bot detection feature checks for bots scanning content and email links. These bots identify spam and phishing emails. The feature helps tackle the issue of opens and clicks that are generated by bots rather than real users.

Email opens are an unreliable metric as privacy standards have evolved. Clicks provide much better insight into how your email campaigns perform.

We use the honeypot link solution. It's based on adding an invisible link that real humans can't click, but bots do. Every tracked click on the honeypot link is identified with a status containing a special value clicked_honeypot. This feature doesn't suppress any events. It provides the necessary data to let your analytics sort it out.

This feature won't identify 100% of bots. This isn't technically possible. There's no universal solution. Bots are constantly changing and trying to identify themselves as real humans. This prevents them from being identified by spam creators.

Turn this feature on/off in project settings under Campaigns > Channels > Email > Automatic bot detection. After turning it on, it automatically starts identifying bots with a specific status.

Reliable email clicks

We developed the Reliable Email Clicks feature to keep up with ever-changing email privacy standards. It helps with evaluating click behavior.

The platform recognizes non-human behavior based on honeypot clicks (from the automatic bot detection feature) or other factors. These factors include the speed of consecutive clicks and recognized bot user agents. Bot-generated clicks are automatically filtered out. This lets you focus exclusively on clicks from legitimate human users.

The reliable email clicks feature also works without automatic bot detection turned on.

This option is available in the email click map or predefined email evaluation dashboard. By default, the toggle is turned on. This provides reliable and trustworthy data for your evaluation.

By enabling the Reliable Email Clicks filter, you can ensure that metrics more accurately reflect genuine user engagement. They're free from bot activity influence. However, if you need to include bot clicks for specific purposes or research, you can disable the filter with a single click.

When a user-agent is identified as a bot, the property bot = true is added to the campaign event. It's subsequently excluded in reporting.

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Note

IPs that click on the honeypot link are flagged as a bot for 1 hour. The property bot = true is added to campaign events coming in within that hour from that IP as well.

Track campaign performance

Email campaigns generate campaign events for all customers in the audience of the campaign. These events cover actions from the email being sent to customers opening and clicking the email. Learn more about email campaign tracking and bounce management.

Clone to another project

This feature lets you clone Email campaigns to other projects to which you have access. Read more about cloning.