Getting started

The Setup tab walks you through everything needed before your first campaign, in order, with one thing to do at each step. It shows how many steps are done, and you can leave it and come back — nothing is lost, and each step checks itself.

The tab stays there after you finish. Come back any time your branding changes, you take on new staff, or you want to look at who you can email.

1. Agree to the terms

Someone with owner-level access reads and accepts the email marketing terms. The current sending rate is shown alongside them. This happens once.

2. Set up sending

Press Run setup. It connects your store, creates the sending channel and switches on delivery reporting — all by itself.

Below that you'll find your sending domain and the three DNS records to publish. These prove to Gmail and the like that email from your domain is really from you. Without them your emails are rejected.

Each record has a Copy button for the name and the value. If someone else looks after your website's domain, send them the list. When they say it's done, press Check now — that looks the records up straight away and tells you which are live.

Tip

DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to spread. If Check now says a record isn't visible yet, that usually means "not yet", not "wrong". Try again later.

Once all three are live there is nothing more for you to do — the final confirmation happens on our side within the hour.

3. Make it look like you

Your business name and mailing address are required by law on every marketing email, so sending stays blocked until they're filled in. Everything else here is about looking like your business: your logo, your colour, your typeface, and your design.

4. Your audience

This is where most people are surprised, in a good way.

Your customer list is already your mailing list. Anyone who has shopped with you in the last two years, has an email address on file, and hasn't opted out can be emailed right now — without importing anything from anywhere. The step shows the number, and where it comes from.

You'll also see who can't be emailed and why: people who unsubscribed or bounced, and people with no email address on file. That last number is usually the big one, and it's the reason step 5 matters.

Two questions to answer

Did you use another email service before this? If you did, everyone who unsubscribed there has to be on your do-not-email list here before you send anything — otherwise your first campaign goes to people who already told you to stop. Export the unsubscribes from your old service and upload them. If you didn't use one, say so; we record that either way.

Customers who haven't shopped recently. If you have customers with an email address on file who haven't shopped in the last two years and never signed up, you'll be asked what to do with them. The step shows exactly how many, and what your audience becomes either way.

• Include them if you know they asked to hear from you — at the counter, on a form, or by asking to be added. You're confirming that, and it's recorded in your name.
• Leave them out if you're not sure. Nothing happens to them: they stay in your customer file, they're not deleted or unsubscribed, and any of them who shops with you or signs up joins your audience automatically.

Warning

Emailing people who never agreed to hear from you is the fastest way to get marked as spam — which affects whether everyone else sees your emails. If you're not sure, leave them out.

Bringing a list over

If your list lives somewhere else — another email service, or just a spreadsheet — upload it here. A CSV or an Excel file both work, and we find the email column ourselves.

You'll see exactly what would happen before anything is imported: how many can be added, how many are already your customers, how many aren't customers yet, and how many are skipped because they're on your do-not-email list or marked as unsubscribed in the file itself. People who aren't customers yet can be added as new customer records, or left out — your choice.

More than one list? Import one file at a time and give each its own list name — "Newsletter", "Workshop people", "Wholesale". Someone who appears in two files ends up on both lists, which is exactly right; importing the same file twice doesn't duplicate anything. Reusing a name adds to that list rather than making a second one with the same name.

You don't have to pick a list at all. Everyone imported can be emailed either way — a list just gives you a named group to send to. Without one you'd reach them with a smart list instead, like "everyone we're allowed to email".

5. Collect new sign-ups

You have a sign-up page ready to use. Copy the link and put it on your website, or open it on a tablet at the counter.

Two settings sit here:

• Confirm new sign-ups by email — recommended. Someone who signs up online gets an email asking them to confirm, and only starts receiving marketing once they click it. It keeps mistyped and fake addresses off your list, and some places require it.
• What staff say at the counter — a short label for the wording your staff use when they ask a customer if they'd like your emails. It's saved with each sign-up, so you have a record of what was asked at the time.

Warning

If you used another email service before, turn its sign-up forms off now. Otherwise new people keep landing there instead of here, and an unsubscribe in one system never reaches the other.

6. Send your first campaign

Start from a ready-made layout and change the words. The campaign has its own checklist covering who it goes to, what it says, and a test send.

You can send the test to yourself and to a few colleagues at once, so the owner or whoever writes your newsletter can sign it off before it goes out. Only people on your staff list with an email address can be picked, and each test is billed as one email.

Switching from another email service

Everything above applies, plus a short checklist of its own:

1. Send your last campaign from the old service.
2. Export its unsubscribes and upload them here first.
3. Export its contacts and bring them over (step 4).
4. Replace the old sign-up form on your website with yours (step 5).
5. Turn the old service's forms and any automated emails off.
6. Keep the old account for a month in case you need to look something up, then close it.

Doing 4 and 5 close together matters: while both systems are live they'll both email the same people, and an unsubscribe in one doesn't reach the other.