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Working with Email

Shrawani Bhattarai
Shrawani Bhattarai
  • Updated

Effective email communication is essential for engaging customers and achieving business goals. This article covers best practices for writing and sending outbound emails, emphasising the use of Pendula for personalisation, design, testing, and security.

General guidelines for writing emails

  • Keep subject lines concise and relevant, and use action-oriented language to encourage recipients to open the email. Avoid using all caps or excessive punctuation, which can trigger spam filters
  • Focus on delivering one main message or call to action per email. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, and clear headings to make the content easy to read and understand.
  • Maintain a friendly yet professional tone. Avoid using jargon or overly complex language. Tailor the tone to match your brand's voice while ensuring it resonates with your audience.
  • Include a clear and conspicuous unsubscribe link in every email and honour opt-out requests promptly, adhering to legal requirements where applicable, such as the five working days timeframe in Australia. Ensure that your email header information, including the "From" and "Reply-To" addresses, is accurate and not misleading.

Personalisation with merge fields

Using merge fields in emails allows for dynamic personalisation, making messages feel more relevant and engaging to each recipient. Merge fields automatically insert specific data from your database into your email templates, such as names, order numbers, or other details.

Hello {{FirstName}},
This is a reminder for your appointment on {{AppointmentDate}} at {{AppointmentTime}}.

For more details, see Working with merge fields and Designing emails with Outbound Email node

Using the email builder

In Pendula, there are two primary methods for designing emails within the Outbound Email Node: building from scratch using an email builder with a drag-and-drop interface or utilising custom HTML code. While custom HTML offers flexibility, it may cause visual discrepancies across different email clients. For instance, background images in custom HTML may not render correctly in Outlook, which defaults to a white background unless otherwise configured. To ensure visual consistency, we recommend using Pendula's email builder.

For more details, see Outcome Email Node and Designing emails with Outbound Email node

Optimising email campaigns with A/B Testing

A/B testing is a powerful method for optimising your email campaigns by comparing different versions to see which performs better. In Pendula, you can use the Criteria Filter to implement A/B testing.

The example below demonstrates the use of a Criteria Filter in an A/B testing scenario, initiated by a form submission. The Criteria Filter divides customers into two groups based on predefined criteria. Customers who meet the criteria for Group A receive Email A. Conversely, those who do not meet the criteria for Group A and fall into Group B receive Email B.

criteria-filter-example.png

This setup allows for a direct comparison between different marketing approaches. By analysing the results from both groups, you can determine which email version is more effective in achieving your goals, such as higher open rates or conversion rates.

For a detailed guide, see Criteria Filter and Criteria Split

Ensuring email delivery coverage

Email delivery events provide critical insights into the performance of your email communications. Key events include clicks, opens, deliveries, and bounces (with soft bounces indicating temporary issues and hard bounces indicating permanent ones).

In Pendula, the "Outcomes" tab in the Outbound Email Node allows you to configure the workflow path based on these events. The "Sent" path is followed if no failure is detected within the default 10-minute wait time or if the email is opened or clicked. The "Rejected" path is followed if a failure occurs within the wait time and can be toggled on in the node settings.

Merge fields in the subsequent nodes help track and personalise email delivery outcomes. The Outcome field indicates whether the email was successfully delivered (success) or failed (failure), and the Outcome Reason field provides specific details (e.g., opened, failed: [reason], rejected).

By configuring these outcomes and using merge fields, you ensure comprehensive email delivery coverage, effectively managing both successful deliveries and failures.

For more details, see Outcome Email Node

Email security

Ensuring email security with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is essential for preventing spoofing and phishing attacks. SPF verifies that incoming mail comes from authorised hosts, DKIM uses cryptographic signatures to ensure email integrity, and DMARC instructs mail servers on handling emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks.

Using a custom domain allows you to configure these records, enhancing your email credibility and deliverability. With Pendula, SPF is pre-configured, DKIM involves adding CNAME records to your DNS, and DMARC requires setting up a TXT record for additional security and reporting.

For more information, see Setting up Custom Domains for secure email delivery using Pendula