Email Sending, Settings, and Best Practices

What we recommend

Levitate Marketing Experts have compiled a list of best practices for writing your own emails. Click here for the entire .pdf.

1. Write emails you would be happy to receive.

Before you even start writing, ask yourself, “Would I want to receive an email on this subject as a client/prospect/contact?” If the answer is no, don’t send it. Embrace quality over quantity of sends.

2. Personalize your subject lines: 

Emails with a personal subject line have an average open rate of 62%. Subject lines we love? “Checking in,” “A quick reminder,” and “Two quick things.” In addition, keep your subject lines sentence case and, in most cases, avoid putting a company name in the subject line. 

3. Say hi and wish them well.

Opening your email with “Hi {{first name}}” makes your email feel more personal. And when you put “Hope you’re doing well” or something similar after your greeting? Clients will take note. One of the first things to get tossed in our go-go-go lives is common courtesy and friendliness. Leading with friendliness helps you stand out from the mass-blast masses.

4. Open with a personal note where appropriate.

Big event coming to town? Mention it! Spent hours at the ballfield this weekend watching little league games? Mention it! Clients love personal anecdotes—when it makes sense in the context of the email. (If you’re sending a payment reminder, you probably should stick to business!)

5. Keep it brief.

The ideal email copy length is between 50 to 125 words. That doesn’t mean all of your emails have to be that short. (In fact, informative emails may regularly be several hundred words.) But to have people consistently read and respond to your emails, try to keep emails to the point where possible and short where appropriate.

6. Use bulleted lists, short paragraphs, and plenty of white space. 

People rarely read content word for word—they’re far more likely to scan. Lists, short paragraphs, and lots of white space make that easier, especially if your content is on the longer side.

7. Steer clear of industry jargon. 

Connect with clients by using everyday language. If you do use industry terms, make sure you define them clearly.

8. Stay consistent in your capitalization.

Decide how you want to capitalize your company’s name, job titles, slogan, and services—and stick with it in all your marketing pieces.

9. Make friends with contractions. 

Don’t hesitate to use them to give your emails a conversational and down-to-earth tone. 

10. Use free online sites to get inspired, find synonyms, and check for typos.

A few of our faves? Grammarly, Powerthesaurus.org, Words to Use, and WordHippo. 

11. Read your emails aloud before you hit send.

It feels silly, but give it a try. You can even whisper it if you want. It will help you catch any lingering errors.

How to avoid getting marked as spam!

The truth is, anyone's email can be flagged as spam. The best play here is defense. Let's take a look at some common reasons why emails get flagged as spam, and what Levitate can do to help you avoid these situations:

1. You can be flagged as spam by sending emails to people who don't know you and never wanted to receive your email in the first place. Here at Levitate, we have always believed in quality over quantity. We do not recommend sending to purchased lists, nor do we recommend sending an email to thousands of prospects with whom you have no relationship. As part of the CAN-SPAM Act, you are required to give recipients a way to unsubscribe. Levitate will automatically add a line below your email signature to let the recipient opt-out of receiving emails from you. Please go to Settings to see the message we have set for you, and how the feature works (it's more authentic than the old "Unsubscribe" link that you are used to with other email marketing platforms).
2. You can get flagged by sending to invalid email addresses over and over again. The first time you do a Group Email with Levitate, we will automatically validate email addresses for you, tag contacts with undeliverable emails with the "Email Bounced" tag so you can find them, and automatically remove those email addresses for you in Levitate.
3. For some email providers, sending a high volume of emails in short amount of time can get you flagged as well. Levitate by default will provide certain safeguards for older email providers such as Exchange and IMAP. We operate within your daily send limits, we add a 30-second buffer between each email send, and we can make sure you are only sending during business hours* instead of in the middle of the night. Please note that we do not recommend sending large group emails with consumer ISPs, such as bellsouth.net and sbcglobal.net.
4. Bad email content can get you flagged as spam. There are keywords to avoid here like "FREE" or "MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE". Typing in all caps certainly won't help either. Luckily Levitate has a content library that is pre-written for your industry, so we can just be your marketing team without you having to worry about it.
5. Don't sound like a marketing ad. This goes with #4. Nowadays 80% of traditional email marketing content ends up in spam. The quickest way to make sure your email never gets read (or worse, being marked as spam) is by adding a ton of branding, marketing images, and content into an email. Talk to your Success Manager and Marketing Coach at Levitate about how to make sure your email is delivered to the right person and READ by the right person. Personalization and authenticity is our goal.

*When prompting a campaign to go out via email, using the 'Send Now' option will override business hours that are in place.

Furthermore, properly setting up SPF and DMARC records would ensure the health of your email server. You can always check if you are on any blacklist, or whether your email server is configured correctly by going to MX Tool Box.

Want more info on email health, or need help getting some email health parameters set up for your domain?

We have guardrails in place, like daily and hourly send limits, that keep your emails from being flagged as spam! Keep up with your email health, your sending habits, and your email content to avoid being flagged and to make your emails look and feel genuine.

Setting a Campaign End Date

When setting up a send, users can set up a hard end date for email campaign sends. Like with our time-sensitive holiday and timely messages, the end date setting will allow for an email to fully stop sending based on a date rather than the completion of the campaign itself.

As an important note, setting an end date will not speed up a send or allow an account to bypass their set daily send limit. The send limit will still be in place and if there are emails remaining after the end date has expired, they will not be sent.

You can find the option to add an end date to a campaign on the last step of campaign setup, where you schedule out the send.

How does the Send Right Away option work when setting up a send?

If you're choosing to Send Right Away, there will be no delay in the campaign sending out. If you choose to Send Right Away outside of business hours, it will send immediately and not wait for your business hours to resume. You will see this warning when sending right away outside of business hours.

Does Levitate send on holidays?

No, by default Levitate does not send on holidays. When setting up a send, you'll see a warning about how a message will not send if you schedule on a holiday.

Sending & Formatting

My email got disconnected during a campaign send. What do I do?

When and if your email gets disconnected during a campaign send, the send will stop. To reconnect, you simply need to login to Levitate as usual— you will be prompted to also get reconnected to your email using your email address and email password.

If a contact is marked Unsubscribe, will they still receive a renewal email? What about birthday emails?

Renewal Automations do not respect the Unsubscribe tag.

Birthday Automations do respect the Unsubscribe tag.

The contact will be automatically excluded from any ongoing or future email automations, with Renewal Automations excluded.

Can Merge Fields be used in the subject lines of emails sent through Levitate?

Yes! Just enter the placeholder to the subject line. It will not format as it would in the body of an email, but if the information is there, it will work.

Working with Images in the Email Body

Images embedded in the email body — like report screenshots or logos — render at their native size unless you resize them in the editor. If they look too small (or too large) for readers to take in at a glance, you can resize them inline.

Resizing an inserted image

1. Click the image in the email editor to select it. Blue corner handles will appear.
2. Drag any corner handle to resize. The image scales proportionally.

Best practices for embedded report or document images

If you're embedding screenshots of reports, PDFs, or other documents:

• Use high-resolution source images. Start with the largest, clearest version available so the image holds up after resizing.
• Be mindful of width. Images wider than 600px will typically be scaled down by most email clients regardless of how you size them in the editor.
• Break content into sections. Instead of one full-page screenshot, crop into smaller, readable sections so text stays legible.
• Link instead of embedding. For multi-page reports, attach the PDF or link to it rather than embedding many images.

Recommended sizes

• Full-width images: ~600px wide
• Half-width images: ~300px wide
• Embedded text: aim for at least 14px effective text size when the image is sized at email width — anything smaller becomes hard to read on phones

Setup & Settings

Can I use an alias email address on Levitate?

It depends! For the most part, no, the email address must have its own mailbox in order to send through Levitate. Alias addresses usually lack an actual mailbox. However, we are able to connect to Shared Mailboxes for accounts connected to Google and Office 365.

Can I connect to a shared mailbox?

If you are a Google or Office 365 user, yes! Shared mailbox connection is user by user, not account by account. The user wishing to connect to the shared mailbox must have access to the shared mailbox in order to get connected. The mailbox must have its own credentials— email address and password— in order for us to connect for sending.

I use an email provider with 2FA or MFA— can I use Levitate?

The answer varies, it depends on your provider! For providers that allow you to make an in-app password for third-party apps like Levitate, which provides Levitate access without the need for continual authentication, we can get connected.

The two most common systems we connection roadblocks with due to 2FA or MFA are Redtail and Smarshmail. Guides to getting an in-app password or connect set up are linked below.

Redtail in-app password how-to

Smarshmail & Intermedia setup how-to

Content Structure

1. No email address: Contacts without an email address on file are excluded
2. Unsubscribed: Contacts who have opted out of emails are excluded
3. Bounced: Contacts with permanently bounced email addresses are excluded
4. Tag/filter applied: The selected group may not include all your contacts
5. Duplicate merge: Imported contacts that matched existing ones were merged, reducing the total count

How to Check Your Full Contact Count

1. Navigate to Contacts
2. Clear all filters to see the total count
3. Compare this with the contact count shown when creating an email

How to Find Contacts Missing Email Addresses

In the Contacts/People page, use the Status filter and select "No Email" to see all contacts without an email address. 

1. Navigate to Contacts (People)
2. Open the Status filter
3. Select "No Email"
4. The list will show all contacts missing email addresses

Understanding Your Send Audience

Why Am I Seeing Fewer Contacts Than Expected?

When you select a group to email (e.g., "All Clients"), the contact count shown is the number of available contacts in that group. This may be lower than your total contact count because:

Identifying and Managing Bounced Emails

When an email permanently bounces, Levitate automatically applies the Email Bounced tag to the contact. The tag is your single source of truth for which contacts have invalid or undeliverable email addresses, so you can review them, update the address, or archive the contact.

Viewing contacts with bounced emails

1. Navigate to Contacts.
2. In the Popular Tags filter on the right, search for email and select the Email Bounced tag.
3. The list will show every contact with a bounced address.

Exporting bounced contacts

1. Filter contacts by the Email Bounced tag (steps above).
2. Select all filtered contacts.
3. Click Export in the action bar to download the list. Use the exported file to update or clean your contact data outside Levitate.

Best practices

• Review contacts tagged Email Bounced regularly.
• Update email addresses when you have correct contact information.
• Remove or archive contacts with permanently invalid emails — keeping a clean list helps overall deliverability.

FAQs

Q: Why does Levitate show fewer contacts than I expect when I try to email all clients? 

A: The send count only includes contacts with valid, non-bounced, non-unsubscribed email addresses. Contacts without email addresses, those who unsubscribed, or those with bounced emails are excluded.

Q: How do I get a list of bounced email addresses?

A: Filter your contacts by the Email Bounced tag, then export the filtered list. See the Identifying and Managing Bounced Emails section above for the full workflow.

Q: Does Levitate automatically track bounced emails?

A: Yes. Levitate automatically applies the Email Bounced tag to contacts whose email addresses bounce, so you don't have to track them manually.

Q: Images in my email are too small to read. How do I make them larger?

A: Click the image in the editor and drag the corner handles to resize. For document or report screenshots, also consider breaking them into smaller sections or linking to the original PDF instead of embedding multiple images. See Working with Images in the Email Body above for guidance on sizes.

Email Footer Requirements

Physical Address in Unsubscribe Footer

All commercial emails sent through Levitate include an unsubscribe link and a physical mailing address in the footer. This is required by the CAN-SPAM Act and cannot be removed.

Why Is a Physical Address Required?

The CAN-SPAM Act (U.S. federal law) requires all commercial emails to include:

• A valid physical postal address of the sender
• A clear way to opt out of future emails (unsubscribe link)

What Address Options Do I Have?

Your footer address can be one of the following:

• Your office or business address
• A registered P.O. Box
• A commercial mail receiving agency address

To update your footer address, please contact Levitate Support.

Can I Remove or Hide the Address?

No. The physical address is legally required and cannot be removed from the email footer.

FAQs

Q: Can I remove the physical address from my email unsubscribe footer?

A: No. A physical mailing address is required by the CAN-SPAM Act for all commercial emails. You can use a P.O. Box or commercial mail address if you prefer not to display your office address.

Q: How do I change the address in my email footer?

A: Contact Levitate support to update the physical address displayed in your email footer.

Q: If I schedule an email to a tag group, what happens if I add more contacts to that tag later?

A: If you add contacts to a tag after the email has been scheduled, they will still be included in the send, as long as the email has not started sending yet.

Q: Will newly tagged contacts automatically be added to the scheduled email?

A: Yes. Levitate will automatically include any contacts added to the tag before the send begins.

Q: What happens if the email has already started sending?

A: Once the email send has been initiated, any contacts added to the tag will not be included in that send.

Q: Do I need to reschedule the email after adding new contacts?

A: No. As long as the email hasn’t started sending, Levitate will handle this automatically.

If you have questions about scheduling or managing recipient lists, your Customer Success Manager is happy to help.