Dashboard guide

Campaigns

Marketing emails to your audience: the list, the editor and the report.

What it's for

A broadcast is a marketing email sent all at once to a segment of your audience (news, offers, newsletter), with personalization, an automatic unsubscribe link and a results report.

When to use it: To tell many people something at once. For emails that depend on something the person did (welcome, abandoned cart), use automations.

#Broadcast list

Where to find it: Marketing › Broadcasts. Address: app.postal.so/broadcasts.

Item	What it does
Create campaign	Instantly creates a draft broadcast called Untitled and opens the editor.
Search by name or subject	Searches the broadcasts.
Filters › Status	Filters by one of the statuses below (All statuses clears it). See how the button works.

Column	What it shows
Name	The name (with the subject below it, in gray). Opens the editor (draft or scheduled) or the report (all others).
Status	See the table below.
Segment	Who the broadcast goes to.
Sent	How many emails have gone out. A dash while it is a draft or scheduled.
Opens / Clicks	The percentage of delivered emails (or of sent ones, if there are no deliveries yet).
Date	When it goes out (Scheduled for ...), when it resumes (Resumes ..., for paused ones) or when it was sent or created.
Row menu	Edit (draft or scheduled) or View report (all others); Duplicate (creates a copy as a draft); Cancel sending (scheduled, queued, sending or paused; anyone who hasn't received it yet won't get it); Delete (drafts and scheduled only).

Broadcast status

Status	What it means
Draft	Still being edited. Nothing has been sent.
Scheduled	Has a date and time to go out. You can still edit it, reschedule it or cancel the schedule.
Queued	Postal accepted the send and will start in a moment.
Sending	The emails are going out, in batches.
Paused	Sending stopped because the plan's sending quota ran out partway through. It continues on its own when the quota renews (the date appears as Resumes ...); Resume now tries again if you raised your plan's limit. It also pauses before going over the limit of contacts that receive campaigns in the cycle: the notice shows the numbers and, if nothing went out yet, the campaign waits for you to send it again after the renewal or cancel it.
Sent	All recipients have been processed.
Canceled	You canceled it; anyone who hadn't received it yet won't get it.
Failed	Sending didn't finish. The report explains why.

See also: Broadcasts (API).

#Broadcast editor

Where to find it: Marketing › Broadcasts, opening a draft. Address: app.postal.so/broadcasts.

The editor is a single page, top to bottom: name, audience, sender and subject, content and personalization. Ctrl/Cmd + S saves.

Header

Item	What it does
Broadcast name	The internal name. Next to it, the Unsaved changes badge or the status.
Test	Sends the saved version to up to 5 addresses, with [Test] in the subject (if the first address belongs to a contact, the email is personalized with their data). The test doesn't count in the stats, but it does count toward the sending quota. Disabled with unsaved changes (Save before testing) or without content.
Save	Saves the draft.
Send	Opens the send window. It stays disabled until you choose the segment (Choose the segment before sending). On a scheduled broadcast, it becomes Reschedule or send, and a notice shows the date with the Cancel schedule button.

Audience

Field	What it does
Segment	Who the broadcast goes to. It can be static or dynamic (with a dynamic one, it goes to whoever matches the filters at the moment of sending).
Topic (optional)	Limits the send to those subscribed to the topic, following the topic's default subscription. All contacts in the segment sends without that cut.
Count	Right below, N recipients of M contacts in the segment. Unsubscribed contacts, suppressed addresses, people who left the topic and Unconfirmed contacts are automatically left out.

Sender and subject

Field	What it does
Sender name	The name shown in the inbox.
Sender email	The Email username (the part before the @) and the Sender domain. Only verified domains appear; with none, the screen tells you to add a domain (see Domains).
Reply to (optional)	Where replies go.
Detect replies	Each reply is recorded on the contact's email and forwarded right away, with the attachments, to the reply address (or to the sender).
Subject	Accepts personalization, like `Novidades de {{{FIRST_NAME\|cliente}}}`.
Preheader (optional)	The text shown next to the subject in the inbox.

Content

With no content yet, the screen asks How do you want to create the email? with three paths: Visual editor (text, image and button blocks; it already comes with the contact's name and the unsubscribe link), Use a template (copies one of your templates, a layout from the gallery or one of your layouts; changing the broadcast later doesn't change the template) or HTML (paste your own).

The Visual, HTML and Preview tabs work like those of the template editor, including the / menu, variables with { and the floating toolbar. In the visual editor, the variables offered are the broadcast's: FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, EMAIL and POSTAL_UNSUBSCRIBE_URL.
In Preview, the Preview contact changes the data that fills in the personalization (No contact (default values) shows the default values). The preview shows the saved version: if there are changes, use Save and refresh.
Save as layout stores the layout in My layouts.
In HTML, if you don't include {{{POSTAL_UNSUBSCRIBE_URL}}}, Postal adds an unsubscribe link at the end of the email. Every broadcast also goes out with the one-click unsubscribe header.

Personalization

The Personalization card lists the placeholders each contact fills in, with a copy button: {{{FIRST_NAME|cliente}}} (first name, with a default value after the | bar), {{{LAST_NAME}}}, {{{EMAIL}}}, {{{POSTAL_UNSUBSCRIBE_URL}}} (the unsubscribe link) and a {{{contact.chave}}} for each property you created.

Send or schedule

Send opens Send broadcast. It confirms Goes to N contacts in the X segment (and the topic, if any), reminds you that unsubscribed and suppressed contacts are left out and, if the remaining quota is smaller than the audience, warns: Your quota allows N more emails right now. Sending pauses at the limit and continues on its own when the quota renews. Under When to send:

Option	What it does
Send now	Starts in a moment. The button says Send to N contacts.
Schedule	Pick the Date, the Time and the Time zone, or one of the Shortcuts (Tomorrow at 9 AM, Monday at 9 AM, In 1 hour). Up to 30 days ahead. The button becomes Schedule send.

Unsaved changes are saved before sending. Scheduled broadcasts also appear in Scheduled.

On a plan with a contact limit, the window also says how many of the campaign's contacts have not received a campaign this cycle and how many are left until the renewal, with How it works next to it. If the campaign would go over the limit of contacts that receive campaigns in the cycle, the button is blocked and the window explains why and what you can do: wait for the renewal, choose a smaller audience, add a Contacts add-on, change plans or, when the plan allows it, turn on contact overage. Sending again to contacts that already received a campaign in the cycle does not use the limit.

Warning

Only send broadcasts to people who agreed to receive them. Postal already adds the unsubscribe link and respects the suppression list, but the list itself is your responsibility. Best practices in Email marketing.

See also: Personalization (API) · Segments · Email marketing.

#Broadcast report

Where to find it: Marketing › Broadcasts, opening a broadcast that was already sent, queued or canceled. Address: app.postal.so/broadcasts.

When the broadcast leaves the draft stage, the same page becomes a report: where sending stands, the numbers and each recipient.

Section	What it shows
Header	The name, the status and a status line (Sent on ... to N contacts, Sending started on ..., Resumes on ..., Canceled on ... or Sending didn't finish). Buttons: Duplicate (creates a draft with the same content to reuse), Resume now (paused) and Cancel sending (until it finishes).
Reason notice	When sending has stopped, a notice explains why: the daily or monthly quota ran out (and when it resumes), or the team's sending is paused because of high bounces or complaints.
Progress	While it is going out, the Sending… bar shows N of M.
Summary	Segment, Topic (or All contacts), Sender and Subject.

Stats

Card	Calculated on
Sent	The total number of recipients.
Delivered	Those sent.
Opens	Those delivered (only with open tracking on the domain).
Clicks	Those delivered (only with click tracking).
Bounces	Those sent.
Complaints	Who marked it as spam, out of those delivered.
Unsubscribes	Who used the unsubscribe link, out of those delivered.
Failures	Emails that could not be sent, out of the recipients.

Recipients

The list shows every person who received (or should receive) the broadcast: Contact (name and email, linking to the contact), Status (the same as for an email, plus an Unsubscribed badge and the error, if there was one), Sent and the View email link, which opens the email in Emails. Use Search by email and Filters › Recipient status to find, for example, only the bounces. Recipients show up here as soon as sending starts.

Tip

Many unsubscribes or complaints on a send are a sign that the audience or the subject was wrong. Compare with the Metrics for the period.

See also: Broadcast metrics (API) · Recipients (API).