Managing and creating email templates

Being able to customize the emails sent out from your event is crucial.

The emails that attendees receive leading up to, during, or after the event are part of the full event experience. In the case of build-up or invitation emails, they may provide participants with their first glimpse of the upcoming event, therefore encouraging them to attend while enabling a smooth and secure access.

The Email editor in Backstage provides all the tools that you need to create high-standard and fully customized emails.

Emails are managed in workspaces using email templates. Your event will always have a set of predefined email templates that are based on the workspace type.

You can edit these existing email templates in your workspace to fit your needs, or create and save new ones. Emails can be edited and created by Backstage users with managers or editor roles in the workspace.

Accessing the workspace email templates

To access the Emailing module and all the email templates present in the workspace, go to the Design category in the workspace main menu, and select Emails. A list of the existing email templates present in the workspace is displayed:

From this screen you can:

• See the full list of email templates present in the workspace, including their name, subject line, last modification date, and availability for use status (active/inactive).
• Click on each individual email template, in order to edit it.
• Create and save new email templates.
• Delete individual or multiple templates.

What does each default email template do?

The below list of email templates is present by default in your workspace. Below you'll find information on what each of these templates is used for:

Reminder - 2h prior
Reminder email to access the event. This is an automated email that is sent out two hours prior to the event start time, to attendees who have been added to the Users module or who have registered to the event. It includes an "Access the app" button.

Event invitation
Standard invitation email to the event. Typically sent manually before the event starts, to attendees who have been added to the Users module. It includes an "Access the event" button.

Post-event thank you
Thank you email with a reminder to access session replays. Typically sent manually after the event if finished to attendees added to the Users module. It includes an "Access the replays" button.

Automated email - Forms module behavior
Email template used by the Forms module to automatically send attendee form results to Backstage users (when configured).

Registration - Login link
Email sent automatically to attendees who register for the first time via a registration page that does not have manual approval configured, or who register a second time via the same registration page using the same email address. It includes a "Go to event" button.

Automated email - Feed behavior
Email template used by the Feeds module to automatically send requests to a Backstage user in order to moderate posts added by attendees on feeds (when configured).

Registration - Pending approval
Email sent automatically to attendees who register via a registration page that has a manual approval step configured. Does not include a "Access the event" button.

Registration - Unknown account
Email sent automatically to attendees who try to access an event that they have not registered to. Includes a "Register for event" button.

Registration - Confirmation
Email sent automatically to attendees who have fully registered for an event via a registration page, sent after registration is manually approved. Includes a "Access the event" button.

Creating a new email template

To create a new email template in your workspace, go to Design > Emails in the workspace main menu, and click on New template. The New template tab is displayed, where you can create your email template using the new email editor:

At this point, you can follow the steps below to create your email template using the design editor (recommended), or you can select Use my own HTML code if you want to copy paste the code from an email created on a third party platform. More information

Add the email information

Start by adding the following basic information to your email:

Name
Add a Name for the email template that will only be visible in Backstage, and that will allow you to identify it. When you are sending emails from the workspace and selecting email templates to be used, if an email does not have a Name, then the Subject will be displayed in the drop-down in order to help you identify it (instead of “untitled”). The title is therefore very helpful to help identify email templates that often have very similar subject lines.

If you are working in a workspace that contains your custom email templates (that were created previously using the “legacy” email editor), they will not have a Name. Instead they will be called “Untitled” in the template list.

From
If needed, edit the From field, should you wish to change who the email is sent from.
By default, "SpotMe Support" is the sender, with the email address being "event-management@spotme.com". You can change the sender name here directly, but to change the email address domain to that of your organization, your organization's domain administrator will need to amend the domain SPF and DKIM records. More information.
Should you change the email domain in this field without having amended the SPF and/or DKIM records, the email editor will not allow you to save the change, and an error message will be displayed.
In older templates and workspaces, the default "From:" address may still be set to "noreply@spotme.com." This address should never be used. Replace it with "event-management@spotme.com" to ensure successful email delivery.

Active/Inactive
Toggle whether you want the email template to be Active (i.e. accessible for use in the workspace) or Inactive (not accessible).

If an email template is already being actively used for sending emails in the workspace, even if you set it to inactive it will continue to be used for sending those emails. Setting the email template to inactive will only mean that the template will no longer be available to be selected when sending new emails.

Subject
Enter a Subject line for the email, it will be seen by the recipients.
The subject line, like any text in the email template, supports dynamic placeholders (for example {{_event_name}} or {{fname}}) that can be used to personalize the email.
The email subject should be no more than 60 characters or 10 words, in order to display properly on mobile and on all email providers

Edit the main body of your email

When starting to create the email itself, you may wish to edit the main characteristics of the email body first. This includes the main text color, the main background color, the email body width, alignment, the preheader text, and even how hyperlinks will look:

To access the settings for the main body of the email, click on the Body button in the right panel:

Tip: For a more comfortable experience, you can edit the body of your email in full screen (like in the above screenshot), by clicking on the button.

Remember to click on Save once you have finished editing.

Add content to your email

You can add content to your email by adding and editing items such as rows and columns, headings, text blocks with dynamic content placeholders, buttons, hyperlinks, images, and dividers.

To access the content menu, click on the Content button in the panel to the right.

From here you can drag and drop content items from the panel to the right, into the the email editor in the panel to the left:

Once you have added a content item, you can configure that item. Read-on below to find out how to configure each item type.

Add rows and columns

Before you start adding content, you can adjust the layout of your email, by adding rows and columns to your email body:

Click on the Add row button. Here you can decide whether you want to use a single or multiple column layout in the row, and adjust the properties for the row and the columns: this includes background colors or a background image, padding, borders, responsive design. You can also adjust this after having added content items.

Add headings

Enter the heading text in the panel to the left.
In the panel to the right, choose the heading level (H1-H2-H3-H4), the font family, the font size, the text color, the alignment, line height, the padding, and whether any links should be active.

Add text blocks

Enter the text in the panel to the left.
in the panel to the right, choose the font family, the font size, the text color, the alignment, line height, the padding, and whether links should be active.
You also have the toolbar in the text component to help you format the text to your needs using all the usual formatting options, inserting emoticons, hyperlinks, and "Merge tags" dynamic content placeholders).

Tip: When typing text, if you wish to enter a line break, you can use Shift+Enter. This will move to the next line without creating a new paragraph.

Use dynamic content placeholders (merge tags)

In headings or in any text content items, you can insert dynamic content placeholders (or merge tags) to personalize the email to match the event and/or the email recipient's details.

This can be done by using the Merge tags button in the toolbar:

Here you can for example insert tags for the event name or for the participant details, i.e. all the fields/metadata present in the user profile in the workspace. These tags/placeholders will be replaced in the received email by the event name or the corresponding participant's data.

If you wish to add a custom color to a tag, please first select the color for your text and then (with the correct color selected) insert the tag. If you try to change the color of a tag that is already inserted it will not work.

You can also insert merge tags by starting to type a curly bracket "{" into the component. The email editor will pull-up a drop-down list of tags that you can insert.

Add a user ID

If you wish to insert the personal ID of your attendees in the email template, you can use the {{_id}} placeholder. 

Do not use the {{fp_ext_id}} tag. The {{fp_ext_id}} tag corresponds only to the ID of the attendees who were created directly in Backstage. This means that all self-registered users - users that registered via a public (open) registration page -  will not have a "fp_ext_id".

Add buttons

Enter the text for the button directly in the panel to the left.
In the panel to the right, choose the action type for when attendees click on (or tap) the button in the email. You can choose if the resulting action should open in a new browser tab or not, and configure the link itself (if the action is to open a website). More information on links is available below.

Use hyperlinks

Links can be used on any text (or buttons) in your emails, by selecting the text where you want to add the links and clicking the "link" button in the email editor toolbar:

This opens the link editor window, where you can configure the link as a URL.

This URL can be edited to point to online content outside the app, and specific content within the app:

More information on the types of links that can be used to access an event.

Use special links

Special links can also be added by selecting the text where you want to add the link and clicking on the "link" button in the email editor tool bar.

They are used to add the:

• app install link: https://install.events/{{_app}}
• privacy policy link: {{_privacy_link}}
• add to calendar links: {{_calendar_ical_link}} or {{_calendar_google_link}}
• access web app link: {{_webapp_link}}
• access the main registration page link {{_registration_link}}
• access the registration page form link {{_registration_link}}&redirect=/registration
  

Note: The information in the Add to calendar buttons can be customized via the workspace settings. The look of the links in the emails can also be modified. 

Use a "access web app link" with a redirect to specific content in the web app (page, form/survey, feed, sponsor, etc.)

Follow the below two steps to add a link to your email that allows users to directly log-in and access specific content in the web app. Please note that direct links to documents are not supported.

STEP 1 - Copy the path to the web app content you wish to point users to:

1. Access the web app for your event, and navigate to the content that you want the link to point to.
2. Copy the "path" part of the URL from your browser, as explained below.
   Here, for example, we will copy the path to the agenda:
   

Example URL:

https://eu-webapp.spotme.com/63470310100b46d5a560f7b488296614/agenda

The "path" part of this URL that you need to copy is:

63470310100b46d5a560f7b488296614/agenda

STEP 2 - Add the content link to the email:

1. Go to Design > Emails in Backstage, and open the email template you wish to add the link to.
2. In the email, select the text you want to add the link to, and click on the link button:
   
3. Now click on Special link, and then Personalized link, and finally Web app link:
   
   
   
4. Now, in the URL field, add &redirect=/PATH, and replace PATH with the part of the URL you copied previously in STEP 1 one above:
   

Here for example, the full URL for the link is:

{{_webapp_link}}&redirect=/63470310100b46d5a560f7b488296614/agenda

Click on Save to finalize your changes in the email template. You can check that the link works by sending yourself an email.

Note: Email opens and clicks are only counted when recipients click on the following links: {{_webapp_link}}, {{_registration_link}} or https://install.events/{{_app}}. Other links are not counted.

Add images

In the panel to the right, you can upload an image to the email template using a file from your computer, or enter the link (URL) that points to an online image that will be inserted into the email.You can then adjust the width of the image, the alignment, and the padding, and even apply a variety of effects (cropping, resizing, inserting text, rounding corners, etc.):

The recommended aspect ratio for images is 4:1, with recommended dimensions of 800 x 200px.

Add dividers

In the panel to the right, adjust the horizontal width of the separator, choose the line type (solid/dotted/dashed) and the thickness, adjust the alignment, and adjust the padding.

Add background colors

You can add a background color to the entire email body, by clicking on the Body button in the panel to the right:

By selecting any specific item in the body of your email (a row, column, block, or any specific content item) you can also add a background color to that item. After selecting the item, use the Background color field in the panel to the left.

Add a custom preheader to your email

A "preheader" is the short summary text that follows the subject line when recipients view an email from the inbox.

In the Email settings of the Body section, in the panel to the right, you can enter your own personalized preheader:

If you do not add a custom preheader, the email editor will automatically use the first few words of the email text as a preheader.

Change how links look in the email

You can change how hyperlinks will look in your email. To do so click on the Body button in the panel to the right, and scroll down to the Links section:

Here you can modify the color of the hyperlinks, as well as whether they should be underlines or not.

Rearrange, delete, or duplicate items

Once you have added content items to the email editor, you can easily move them around to find the right structure for your email. Simply select the item in the email editor and use the button to drag and drop the item to the desired location. You can also use the bin button to remove an item from the email editor, or the duplicate  button to duplicate an item.

Example of a basic 1-column email with dynamic content

Below is an example of an email containing each of the above mentioned items:

Here you can see that we have also used dynamic placeholders that work with the workspace metadata, using the attendee's first name {{fname}} and the name of the event {{_event_name}} to personalize the email.

Using multiple columns for your email layout

By selecting the main frame of the email editor, you can change the layout of the email by using the columns options in the panel to the right:

By selecting a "two column" layout, all the existing content is moved into one column to the left, and a new empty column is added to the right. You can then add additional items to the other column, or easily drag and drop existing or duplicated items from the left column into the right column.

You can at any time change back to a 1-column layout, using the columns options.

Create, save, and reuse content blocks for email consistency

Any row or column that you create in an email template can be saved as a reusable block. This saved block can then be accessed and inserted from other email templates within the workspace. Saved blocks are therefore a great way to save time by reusing content, as well as an efficient way to ensure that consistency between different emails within a workspace is maintained.

Some examples of saved blocks that are useful to reuse are branded headers, disclaimers, signatures, banners, buttons, etc.

To access the default SpotMe blocks, simply click on the Blocks button in the panel to the right. Here you can drag and drop any block into the email body, or use the search bar to find a specific block:

To save a new block that can be reused later, select the row or column in the email editor, and then click on the blue Save icon:

Next, you can enter a name for the category of the block, and apply tags that can help you identify the block using the search bar (especially helpful when you have many saved blocks to choose from):

Editing for desktop or mobile devices

In the email editor, you can toggle between editing how the email will look for recipients who open the email on desktop, and how it will look for recipients who open the email on mobile:

This is done by selecting Desktop or Mobile in the panel to the right, when editing a content item:

When editing the email for desktop, you will have more options available in the email editor, and the system will automatically adapt how the email looks so that it displays properly on mobile. As a result, we recommend that you always edit for desktop, and that you only use mobile to preview how the email will look.

Note: In each content item in the panel to the right, depending on whether you have selected Desktop or Mobile, if you scroll down you will see a section called Responsive Design. Here you have the option to toggle Hide for Desktop or Hide for Mobile. Toggling this option will hide the item in the email when seen on desktop or mobile.

Copy and pasting the email body from one template to another

The below copy and paste functionality is supported on Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Safari.

You can use the Copy and Paste buttons in the email editor to copy the entire email body from one email template into another:

Simply click on Copy in the email template for which you want to copy the body, go to (or create a new) email when you want to paste the email body, and click Paste. This will work across emails within the same workspace, but also between emails from one organization to another (as the email body is copied to the clipboard).

Note: The From and Subject line information will also be copy-pasted along with the email body into the new email. Only the email template Name is not copied over.

Previewing the email

While creating or editing your email, you can at any time preview the email to see how it will look to the recipients.

To do so, click on the eye icon located in the bottom left of the email editor:

The preview is immediately displayed:

From here you can select the device type (laptop, tablet, mobile) and the corresponding screen resolution for the preview. You can also open the preview in full screen for a better view of the email and device/resolution options:

Send a test email

Once you have finished editing your email template, before you start sending emails out to your audience we highly recommend that you send out some test emails in order to verify that everything looks and is working properly, whatever the recipient's device type.

To do so, go to Content > Users in the workspace, select yourself in the user list, then click on Send an email.

Find out how to send emails to your audience

Tracking email clicks and opens

You can see the number of opens and clicks for the emails you sent out via the email logs in Backstage.

Email opens and clicks are only counted when recipients click on the following links: {{_webapp_link}}, {{_registration_link}} or https://install.events/{{_app}}. Other links are not counted.

How do I use my own HTML code?

To add your HTML code to an email template, by click on the Use my own HTML code button.

This button is only available before you start adding any content to the email:

From here, click you can simply paste in the HTML code from your external template.

Tip: Before using custom emails, if your event is internal to your organization (or you know specifically what email client or software your recipients will be using), check that the email client or software will properly support/display HTML.

Creating your own emails from scratch can however be delicate due to the lack of standardization between systems: there are many different email design tools available, and each of them can produce emails that may display differently depending on the email system or browser your recipients are using.

Below are some recommendations on how you can create/design your own custom email templates:

1. Use a professional email design tool (for example Mailchimp, BEE Free, Pardot, or Marketo).
2. Purchase an email template from verified provider (for example Envato or Theme Forest).
3. Have your own web or marketing team develop the custom email templates for you.
4. Test the custom email template out on several email systems. You can do this using a service such as Litmus, or you can manually test on the most frequently used email systems (Gmail, Outlook 365, Outlook 2016 and Apple Mail) and on different platforms.

If you have any issues with a custom template, we recommend that you contact the service or person that has designed/built the template.

Note: Remember to convert any variables or to merge any tags from the source design tool, so they align with SpotMe’s conventions, and then test the template on multiple email clients.

Below is a table containing the most frequent conversations that are needed:

Variable	SpotMe	Mailchimp	Marketo	BEE Free	Pardot
First name	{{fname}}	*|FNAME|*	{{lead.First name}}	[first-name]	%%user_first_name%%
Last name	{{lname}}	*|LNAME|*	{{lead.Last name}}	[last-name]	%%user_last_name%%
Unsubscribe URL	{{unsub…}}	*|UNSUB|*	N/A	[unsubscribe]	%%unsubscribe%%