1. How are email opens tracked?
Vuture, like all email platforms, records an Open when the recipient either downloads images in an email or clicks on a link. It is important to understand that open rates are not 100% accurate because they are limited by these factors. Since it depends on downloading images, recording an Open can only occur if the recipient’s email client is capable of displaying images in email and images are not blocked.
Clicking a link will always record an Open with 100% accuracy so it is good practice to encourage your recipients to click through to content. This has the added benefit of indicating engagement to the recipient's ISP which can also help deliverability rates.
2. Will search engines index my email campaign content?
There is a robots.txt file at the root of the URL used for your email campaigns with rules that tell search engines not to index the content. Well-behaved search engines will respect these rules and not index the content. Bear in mind that since these URLs are publicly available it is possible for anyone who knows the URL to view the content.
The system doesn't record test sends in the database so we don't have the information required to be able to use Forward to a Friend.
3. Can I use animated GIFs in my email campaign?
Animated GIFs can be used in email campaigns but many email clients will not animate them (Outlook for example) and will only display the first frame, so you must make sure that the first frame of the animation is suitable to be displayed as a static image.
There is no specific spam issue with using animated GIFs but they can be larger in file size than normal images. Large image files can set off spam filters.
Animated GIFs can't be uploaded using the normal image library uploader as they will be converted to static images. You can upload them manually if you have access to the HTML Admin feature, otherwise contact Support who can assist.
4. Why are my emails not being tracked?
No opens will be tracked if the email has no body tag as we add the tracking image to the closing </body> tag of our emails.
If you have created your own email templates please check that they contain <body> tags.
5. Do recipients receive plain text emails?
We send emails by default as multi-part, with both the HTML version and a plain text version that is automatically generated from the HTML. If the recipient's email client only supports plain text then they will see the plain text version. You can see the plain text version of the email by clicking on Email Options then plain-text (if this is not visible contact your administrator or Vuture support since you may not have access).
6. How do I whitelist my Vuture server so that internal emails are not blocked?
To avoid emails from Vuture getting blocked or marked as spam by your internal mail systems you should whitelist either your Vuture sending IP address and/or the sending return-path/bounceback address.
You can get your Vuture sending IP by clicking on the Check DNS button against the "Admin.Settings.Emails.HELO" configuration setting.
You can get your sending domain from the "Admin.Settings.Emails.Bounceback Address" configuration setting.
Please contact Vuture Support or your Account Manager for help with getting this information. You can provide this information to your IT department so they can add this exception to your internal mail systems.
7. Does the type of From address affect spam checkers?
Some spam checkers do look at the From email address and apply a small weighting if it looks like a generic address rather than a personal address. In our experience this is a low rating compared to other factors such as the content of the email. A recipient may also be more likely to whitelist what looks like a personal From address but, again, this much more likely to be driven by whether they opted in to the email or it has valuable content that they want to engage with.
8. How do we record the open rates of our sent emails?
When we display totals of email opens in a campaign and/or monthly stats, or when we display an open time, we are always considering just the first open.
We do record multiple opens on each email, but we only display that information in the compound view report.
9. How do I look up my sending IP address?
To find your sending IP address send yourself a test or real email from the system. The sending IP address can be found in the message headers. To find the message headers use the information in this link:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22454?hl=en .
To make the headers easier to read you can paste them into this tool: https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/ - select the Message Analyzer tab and paste in the message headers. Look for the submitting host for the first hop and this will give you the Sending IP address.
10. Why can my forms can be submitted without required fields?
If your forms are not being validated correctly (for example, they can be submitted without required fields or email validation is not being checked) it is likely the validation script has been applied incorrectly or has not been added to the form at all.
There is an automated way to ensure that form validation scripts are always applied. This can be enabled in "Admin.System.Forms.Force Validation". This will automatically load a centralised JavaScript file called bootstrap.js into all your forms which will check for validation before a form can be submitted.
11. How can I rename my campaign?
If you go into your campaign, website or brochure and select "Options" from the icons at the top left of your screen then select "properties" you can rename your existing campaign.
12. Am I able to recall an email that has been sent?
If you have already sent an email to your distribution list there is no way to recall that email.
If you have scheduled an email to send at a certain time you can cancel the mailing by pressing "cancel email". This will cancel the scheduled send and put a copy of the email back into the Compose Email folder for you.
13. How can I add calendar invites to my email?
See this helpdesk page for details.
14. What are international spam laws?
Please see the link below for detailed information regarding international data laws, including spam compliance:
http://uk.practicallaw.com/resources/multi-jurisdictional-guides/dataprotection-mjg
Section 19 for each country explains the requirements which are imposed on the sending of unsolicited electronic commercial communications (spam) by each country.
15. How can I advise recipients to whitelist my emails so they don't get caught in spam filters?
There are usually two places where emails get blocked, or caught in spam filters:
First, the recipient's email client (for example Outlook) can mark email as junk. This can happen automatically or by the recipient choosing to block specific senders. If your problem is with individuals at a given organisation (rather than everyone at the organisation) you can ask recipients to add you to their Safe Senders list.
Secondly, the organisation you are sending to will have mail gateways that scan incoming email and use rules to decide whether to block or allow mail through. To avoid being blocked, which can happen inadvertently, the organisation's email administrators can add a rule to allow your mail through.
In both cases you should provide both the "Display From" address - which is the From email address you choose when sending the email - and the "Bounce Address" which is the underlying email address that the email is sent from and to which bouncebacks are sent back. This information is unique to your instance of the platform. Vuture support or your Account Manager can provide you with this information. Ask your recipients and/or the organisation's email administrator to whitelist the domains for both of those "From" email addresses.
16. Can I send to multiple lists in one send when using Salesforce ?
You will not be able to send to more than one list on Salesforce. When using Salesforce you will need to send to one list at a time.
17. How do I avoid sending duplicate mailings if I am unable to send to multiple lists in one send?
To avoid duplicates you will need to select the first list you wish to send to and send out the mailing. From here the mailing will be located within the monthly folder you sent it in. Once you click on the mailing that was sent, you will be able to select the Send More option and choose the additional list you wish to send to. This will avoid duplicates.
18. If I send multiple emails per event campaign, and I want to be able to differentiate between the first send (original invite) and the follow up emails, how can I do that?
This could be managed via a custom EmailStatus Picklist field, and a PB rule to mark the Campaign Member record when the associated Vx Activity "Email Sent", "Email Opened" are created in Salesforce.
Here's a step by step example from our SalesDemo for Salesforce:
Create new PB rule:
Object Vx Activity on Contact
Criteria: Conditions are met
Condition: VxActivity__cActivity Type = Contact opened email
Immediate Actions: Update Records
Record:
[VxActivity__c].Campaign.CampaignMembers
Criteria for Updating: Updated Records Meet All Conditions*Field*: ContactID Equals Field Reference VxActivity.Contact_c ID*Records to Update*:
Create a new field for Campaign Member Email Opened and set this value.
19. We have a problem with blank forms sometimes causing duplicate records to be created in Salesforce. Can you prevent this from happening?
Unfortunately not. We use Salesforce's standard matching rules to try and find a matching Contact record. If there is more than one match, a duplicate is created, because Vuture does not know which (of possibly several) records to update.
If just one Contact record matches, we use the matched record. If the contact completing the blank form has a matching Last Name AND Email, already in Salesforce, the system will choose to update the existing record instead of creating a new one.
20. Accents turn into question marks in Salesforce, which makes the summaries of activities confusing. Is there anything Vuture can do about this?
Sorry no. This is Salesforce's own character set and we cannot control this