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:
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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.