Email

Email lets you design, test, and store the email content you send to your audience: newsletters, promotions, onboarding journeys, and more. You build the content once here, in Content > Marketing > Email, and then use it in your campaigns.

How Email works

1. Create your content on this screen, using one of four tools: the Rich Text Editor, Code Editor, Email Builder, or Upload File.
2. Set up the message details (sender, subject, pre-header) and design the body.
3. Test and publish it so it is ready for use.
4. Add it to a campaign: a Targeting campaign or a Flow (as an Email action node). This is what actually delivers the email to your audience.

Step 1: Create new email content

1. Go to Content > Marketing > Email.
2. Click the New button in the top-right corner.
3. Choose the tool you want to build the email with.

Which tool should I choose?

Detailed walkthroughs are in the Rich Text Editor, Code Editor, Email Builder, and Upload File subsections.

Step 2: Name and file your content

Fill in the General section:

Click Next. The Content section then becomes available for editing.

Step 3: Set up the message details

The Content section is where you define what the recipient sees in their inbox before they even open the email.

Step 4: Design the email body

How you build the body depends on the tool you chose in Step 1.

• Rich Text Editor: write directly in the editor, using the toolbar for headings, lists, links, images, and tables. Use Insert to add personalization and dynamic content. Switch to Source code if you need to check or tweak the underlying HTML. See Rich Text Editor.
• Code Editor: paste or write your HTML in the code pane and check the result in the live preview. See Code Editor.
• Email Builder: start from the Template Gallery (templates are grouped by Industry, Seasonal & Holidays, Usage & Campaign Types, and Automated), from Saved Templates, or from Blank Content. Then drag Content blocks onto Rows, and set global styling under Settings. Toggle Mobile and Desktop to check both views. See Email Builder.
• Upload File: upload a ZIP containing your HTML file and its images, and Dengage builds the content for you. See Upload File.

Step 5: Add languages (optional)

To send the same email in more than one language, click Add Languages and choose:

• Copy from Content: start from the version you have already built and translate it, or
• Create Blank Email Content: start the language version from scratch.

How the right version is chosen: at send time, Dengage reads the language column on the contact's record in the master_contact table. If there is no version matching that contact's language, the default version is sent.

Configure the languages available to your account, and which one is the default, under Settings > Content Languages.

Each item's languages are shown in the Languages column of the listing, and you can filter the listing by language.

Step 6: Preview and test

Before publishing, verify how your email will look and behave for real recipients. All preview and testing tools are gathered in the Preview & Test wizard, which you can open from the Preview & Test button in the upper right corner of the email content page. Save your content as a draft first; Preview & Test works on the saved draft version.

The wizard has three steps: Audience for Sample, Preview, and Send Test.

What to check on a test send

Audience for Sample

If your email uses personalization (customization tags or variables), the preview needs sample contact data to render real values instead of raw tags. In this step you choose where that sample data comes from:

1. Pick a source type from the tabs: Segment, Predefined Segments, Table, or Remote Segment.
2. Select an audience from the list. Use the search box and Filter to locate it quickly.
3. Click Next.

Preview

The preview shows the email as a recipient would receive it: the From name and sender address, the subject line, the pre-header, and the fully rendered body, with personalization tags resolved using a contact sampled from the audience you selected in Step 1.

• Use the HTML and AMP tabs to switch between the two versions of your content.
• Use Back to sample from a different audience, or Next to continue to test sending.

Detailed Preview

From the Preview step you can also open Detailed Preview, which generates previews of your email in a selection of real email clients and devices, so you can catch client specific rendering issues before sending. The detailed preview opens in a new browser tab, so make sure your browser allows pop-ups for the dEngage panel.

Send Test

A test send delivers the email to a real inbox, which is the most reliable way to check links, images, formatting, and how the subject and pre-header appear in an inbox list. Choose who receives the test:

• Predefined Audience: Select one of your saved test audiences from the dropdown.
• Type-in Addresses: Enter the recipient addresses manually.

Click Send Test Email to deliver the test.

Step 7: Publish

Publishing makes your content available to campaigns.

• Save Draft stores your work without making it available.
• Publish makes it available to campaigns or, if an approval workflow is enabled for your account, submits it for review.

The listing shows each item's status:

Step 8: Use your content in a campaign

Once published, your content is ready wherever email campaigns are set up:

• Create Campaign: the quickest route. Click the three-dot menu next to the content in the listing (or the Create Campaign button on the content page) and a wizard opens with this content already selected.
• Flows: add an Email action node to a Flow and select your content, to send it as part of an automated journey.
• Targeting campaigns: use the content in a Targeting campaign to send it to a chosen audience.

Editing content you have already published

Open the content from the listing. What you can do depends on its status.

• Draft content: edit it directly, with no restrictions.
• Published content: the current live version is shown under Current Content and is read-only. Click Edit Content and choose Copy from Content (start from the live version and change what you need) or Create Blank Email Content (start the new version from scratch). Your changes are saved as a draft alongside the live version, so the live email keeps going out untouched while you work.

Other actions on the content page

Managing your email content

The Email listing shows all your content with its Name, Status, Last Edited On, Last Edited By, and Languages. Click any item to open it.

• Folders: Keep content organized by sorting it into folders. Click New Folder at the bottom-left to create one. The three-dot menu on a folder offers Rename, Copy Public ID, Move Item, and Delete. All shows everything; Created by me shows only the content you created.
• Search: Find content by name from the search box above the listing.
• Filters: Filter by language and by date range, based on either creation date or update date. Clear Filters removes all applied filters; Cancel closes the pop-up.
• Sorting: Sort by Name (A-Z or Z-A) or Last Edited On (newest or oldest first).
• Page view: Show 20, 30, or 40 items per page.

Item actions

The three-dot menu next to each item offers:

FAQ

I published my email. Why hasn't anyone received it?
Publishing only makes the content available. To send it, use the content in a Targeting campaign or in a Flow with an Email action node (Step 8).

Why can't I select my content in a campaign?
Only published content is available to campaigns. Check the Status column: if it says Draft, Waiting Approval, or Rejected, the content is not yet available.

Which editor should I use?
See the comparison table in Step 1. In short: Rich Text Editor for simple text emails, Email Builder for designed emails without code, Code Editor when your team writes the HTML, Upload File when the email was designed elsewhere.

Can I change the editor after I have started?
No. Each tool creates a different content type, so the choice cannot be switched on an existing item. Create a new content item with the tool you need.

My From Address isn't in the list.
Only domains registered and verified for your account can be used as senders. Contact Dengage Support to add a new sending domain.

I edited a published email but recipients still get the old version.
Your edits are stored as a draft next to the live version. Click Publish to make them live.

How do I send the same email in several languages?
Use Add Languages on the content (Step 5). Each language version is managed on the same content item, and the version sent is chosen from the contact's language value.

Personalization options don't open in the Email Builder.
Disable your browser's ad blocker for app.dengage.com and reload the page.

What is a good Spam Score?
The scale runs from 0 to 5, and lower is better. Review the flagged items in Detailed Preview and rewrite the phrases it highlights before you publish. See Spam Checker.

Someone else's content is in Waiting Approval and I can't delete it.
Content waiting for approval cannot be deleted. Ask the reviewer to approve or reject it first. Approval workflows are configured under Settings > Approval Workflows.