Writing an issue

Write, review, send

Start a draft from the Campaigns page. A campaign goes through three steps, shown at the top: Write, where you type the subject, the preview text and the issue; Review, a checklist of what to fix before it can go out; and Send, where you pick who gets it and when. Everything saves as you type, and a check shows each time it's saved.

The preview text is what inboxes show after the subject. Without one, they show your issue's first words.

The editor

• Formatting: select text to get bold, italic, strikethrough, a link, two heading sizes and a quote.
• Slash commands: type / on an empty line for text, three heading sizes, bulleted and numbered lists, a picture, a quote, a divider or a box, which sets a block apart on a gray background.
• Links: select text, press ⌘ K (Ctrl K on Windows) and paste the address. An email address becomes a link that opens an email to it.
• Markdown: shortcuts work as you type, like # and a space for a heading, - for a list or > for a quote.

Pictures

Paste a picture, drop it in the editor, or type / and pick Image to upload one or use one you uploaded before. PNG, JPEG, GIF and WebP work, under 4 MB. Wider pictures are resized to 1,200 pixels. A picture shows at once and uploads in the background, and its address never changes, so sent emails keep showing it.

Drag the handles on a picture's sides to resize it. Point at it to show its toolbar, inside its top edge (on a touch screen, tap the picture): place it on the left, in the center or on the right, add its alt text, or delete it. Emails and your website keep it where you put it.

Alt text describes the picture in a few words, for readers who can't see it, inboxes that block images and search engines reading your website. Click Alt and type it: it saves as you type, and Enter closes it. The Alt button stays highlighted once a picture has one.

Moving blocks

With a mouse, a grip appears to the left of the paragraph, heading, list, picture or box under the pointer. Drag it to move the block, and a line shows where it lands. Click it to select the block. From the keyboard, ⌘ Shift ↑ and ⌘ Shift ↓ (Ctrl instead of ⌘ on Windows) move the block the cursor is in. Moves undo like any other change.

Greeting readers by name

{{first_name}} shows each reader's first name. Type / and pick First name, or click the person icon at the end of the subject. Both add {{first_name|there}}: the word after the bar is what readers without a first name see, so “Hi {{first_name|there}}” reads “Hi Jane” or “Hi there”. Change it, or remove it with the bar to show nothing.

It works in the subject, the preview text and the content, and in your welcome and confirmation emails. Your website and its issue pages always show the fallback, so no reader's name is ever public. The preview and test emails show the name Jane, or in a test email your own first name if you're one of your contacts with one. The review step flags any other {{...}}, like a tag from another platform, since it would go out as written. First names come from your contacts.

Preview and test emails

Preview, in the write step and in the ⋯ menu at any step, shows the email in a mail app's window on a desktop, or in Gmail on a phone: the inbox first, then the email once you tap it. Press Esc to close it.

Send a test email, in the same menu, sends the email as saved to your account's address, with [Test] before the subject. Nobody else gets it. It counts toward your plan's emails. The review step reminds you when you haven't sent one.

Duplicate, discard and HTML

The ⋯ menu also duplicates a campaign into a new draft, or discards a draft. A sent campaign can't be changed or deleted.

A campaign made with the API or an AI assistant can be a whole HTML document. The dashboard then shows its HTML to edit, and it needs {{unsubscribe_url}} where the unsubscribe link goes. API and AI assistants

When you're done, send or schedule it.