Please note that push campaigns are only available to accounts that have sub-users. Please contact support to see if adding sub users to your account is possible.
What are push campaigns?
Push campaigns allow you to create content for a single email and then deploy that content into a branded template in each of your sub-user accounts. This allows you to manage multiple users that will send the same content. It is going to save you a lot of time as opposed to creating an individual version of the newsletter for each account or location.
Push campaigns can be used in a variety of ways and because it is so versatile, here are some usage examples:
Example 1- Mixing local and national content: If you were managing email campaigns for a chain of restaurants, you can push out a promo and each subscriber would receive the promo in a template that has the links and contact info for the location they are subscribed to. The location can have regions in the template that are specific to them.
Example 2- One Message Multiple Brands: If you are managing email campaigns for multiple companies that all fall into the same niche but each has its own brand guidelines for colors, fonts, etc. you would be able to push the content and have the styles applied to the content at the sub-user level.
Example 3- Sub-user gets to edit and schedule aka “push to scheduled”: If your sub-users need to be able to make edits or schedule the email to go out when they would like them to, there is an option to push the content into their account without sending it to their contacts. This gives them the ability to approve, edit, and schedule the email on their own.
Push Campaign Setup
Before you can push any content, you must create a push template and then create styled copies of that template that you will upload into each sub-user.
The version of the template that’s in the parent user is called the “push source” template, and the version that’s in the sub-user is the “push target”.
The Push Templates contains a special region that we call a push region. On target templates, this region is where the content will be injected when it gets pushed. For source templates, this is where you would place your content for that individual message.
For the initial setup, the push region will be left blank.
You can style each target template, you can also add any custom sections outside of the push region. For example, you could put that sub-users address, social links, links to their website, their phone number, their logo, and anything else you want outside of the push region.
1. Convert a regular template into a push template in the email studio
To create a push template start by building a normal email campaign in the Parent User. Select any template from the library as your starting point and move to step 2 – the email studio.
While in the email studio you must enter designer mode in order to add push regions. Any email studio template can be converted into a push template.
To enter into designer mode, hold down CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + D. A small notification will display indicating that you have entered designer mode, and you will see a new button on the top row that says export template.
While you are in designer mode, you now have a new set of controls. The following controls relate to push campaigns under the content tab on the left menu. Find the setting for Push Mode this is where you determine if the template is a push source or a push target.
You need to make the source template first, so switch the setting to Push Source.
2. Add a push region
When push mode is enabled, you will see a new block appear in the blocks tab called “push region”. Drag and drop this into the template.
Push regions have a purple icon in the left margin that indicates it is a push region. If you hover over the region icon it will display a region label. You can rename the label if desired under the content tab. This is a good idea if you want to have multiple push regions in a single template.
3. Save the source template to your template library
Click on “Save as template” in the upper right save dropdown
Give the template a name, and save.
It’s a good idea to include something in the name that tells you it’s a push source template. That way you can see that it’s a push source in the template library.
4. Make a target template, using the source template
To stay organized, it would be a good idea to create a new campaign and select the recently saved source template as your starting point in step 1 of the campaign builder.
Open designer mode again (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+D), and change the push mode to target. (this is now optional, as the system will automatically convert the template to a target template upon export)
Style the template and add user-specific sections. You can add some blocks outside of the push region. you can add blocks above and below the push region, and add links, images, and define the global styles. These styles will be applied to the content that gets pushed into this template later on.
It’s a good idea to save a copy of the target template after the design is finished in the parent user, in the event that you want to update the design later on.
Export the template in designer mode by clicking the export template option.
5. Upload the Target push template into the sub user’s account
*Note – in the admin configuration settings for the child using the upload/download HTML and visible template library must be turned on.
Log into the sub-user that this template was designed for, and find the template library under the account menu
In the template library, click on the “custom” tab, then click on “add template” icon which looks like a page that has a plus sign in the upper right side of the custom templates tab.
You will be prompted to name the template and save
Again it’s a good idea to use a naming structure that you understand internally that indicates which push template this is as it is possible to have multiple push templates for different reasons.
On the next screen you will see a place where you can upload the templates HTML file, it’s the first section on the left.
Choose your exported template file, and click the “upload HTML” button. Afterward, click the Save button.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for as many sub-users as you would like.
Each time you make a new target template make sure that you are starting with the original source template. Each source template has a hidden ID that is used to match the source and the target templates when content is deployed. Making a new source template will make a new template ID.
Very important! You can’t have more than one target template saved in an account if those target template have the same source template in the parent account. If you need to update a target templates design, replace the existing template file, or just make sure you delete the duplicate.
Deploying a push campaign
Once the templates are loaded, deploying push campaigns is very simple!
In the parent account, start a campaign using the source template.
In the email studio, you can enter designer mode (CTRL+ALT+SHIFt+D), In the content tab, there is a setting labeled “push step”. The options are scheduled, or content.
Push to scheduled – pushes the content and schedules the email for all sub-users. The email will be deployed based around the time zone of that sub-user.
Push to content – pushes the content into the sub-user account allowing them to edit and schedule on their own.
Add your content to the push region. Content outside of this region will not be pushed through to sub-users. Keep in mind that font’s and styles are applied at the sub-user level so you don’t need to define this in the parent unless you need to deviate from that templates style.
Save and continue to step 3, contacts. It will only display sub-users that have a matching template ID. It will also display contact list names.
In this step, it displays every unique list name across all sub-users. It’s a good idea to use consistent list labels to reduce the total number of lists that display.
Make your selections and continue to the next step.
If your push step was set to “scheduled” you will be able to schedule the email push from step 4 and confirm and publish in step 5.
If your push step was set to “content” then on step 3 you will see “save and push”. Save and push may take longer to save than a normal campaign would. Please allow some time to save and push to finish working.
That’s it!
You can see scheduled emails in the email queue. If you did a push to scheduled campaign you should see all of the variations in your parent email queue.
Additional notes on functionality
When you push a campaign, it will create a new campaign in the sub-user account that has the same campaign name. If the campaign name already exists it will overwrite anything that was currently in progress.
You must have the sub-user account setup complete, including a verified email address. this address will be the from email address used in push campaigns.
You can create multiple source templates, and each source can have multiple targets, but you can’t have multiple targets for the same source in a single user account. If you want more than one push template in a sub-user, you will need to make more than one source template.