Sending an email campaign

Sidebar: Marketing, then Campaigns. Marketing is on the Professional plan and above. You need the View marketing permission to open it and Manage marketing to create and send.

The page shows Messages Sent, Open Rate, Click Rate, Unsubscribes and Bookings Influenced, then your campaign list.

Step 1: Campaign Setup

Press Create Campaign. The builder has four steps: Campaign Setup, Audience, Content, and Schedule & Review. Press Save Draft at any point.

On Campaign Setup:

1. Enter a Campaign Name and an optional Description.
2. Set the From Name for email, such as "Sarah at Happy Paws".
3. Choose the Channel: Email, SMS or Both. Texts only go to clients who agreed to marketing texts, and each text counts against your text allowance, then credits.
4. Choose the Campaign Type:

• One-time — one send to everyone who matches.
• Automated — sends whenever a trigger happens. This needs the Premium plan. Triggers: Re-engage Inactive (no booking for 30 to 180 days), Pet Birthday, Welcome New Client, Post-Visit Follow-up, Vaccination Reminder (7, 14 or 30 days before expiry), Booking Confirmation, Booking Completed and Tag Applied.

Step 2: Audience

Add filters to choose who gets it. All filters must match.

• Booking Activity — days since last visit, has an upcoming booking, total bookings
• Service History — has used a service, never used a service, last service type
• Client Info — has or does not have a tag, client since, lifetime value
• Pet Attributes — birthday month, species, breed, age
• Vaccinations — expiring within a number of days, expired, or by vaccine type

Save the filters as a segment to reuse them, or load a saved segment.

Two Suppression Rules sit underneath:

• Skip if has future booking
• Skip recently contacted — 3, 7, 14 or 30 days, or Disabled

The Audience Preview shows how many will receive it, with a few sample names. It updates as you change filters.

Step 3: Content

For email:

1. Start from a template, or build your own in the drag-and-drop editor. Blocks: Header/Hero, Text, Image, Button, Video, 2 Columns, Divider, Spacer, Social Links and Footer.
2. Write a Subject Line.
3. Click a personalization tag to insert it: client first name, pet name, last visit date, next booking date, business name, booking link and unsubscribe link.
4. Send yourself a test with the test email box.

Every email must include the unsubscribe link, or the campaign will not send.

For SMS, write the SMS Message. Keep it under 160 characters, and include "Reply STOP to opt out".

Step 4: Schedule & Review

Choose Send immediately or Schedule for later, check the Campaign Summary, then press Send Now, Schedule, or Activate for an automated campaign.

When it actually sends

Sending puts every recipient in a queue. The queue is worked through every 5 minutes, so a big campaign goes out over several minutes. Automated campaigns are checked once a day.

Your email allowance

Each plan includes a number of marketing emails a month. Booking confirmations, reminders and invoices never count. When the allowance runs out, campaigns draw from prepaid email credits. With no credits, campaigns pause until next month. Owners buy email packs and turn on Auto-refill under Business Settings, then Billing, on the Marketing Email Usage card.

Who it comes from

Press the settings icon on the Marketing page to open Email Sender Settings:

• From Name — the sender name people see
• Your Email — campaigns are delivered from Alaga's sending domain with your name. Replies go to this address.
• Reply-To Email — where replies go. Your business email is used if this is blank.

On the Premium plan, you can send campaigns from your own domain, such as mail.yourbusiness.com. Go to Business Settings, then Customer Notifications, and find Custom Sending Domain. Enter the domain, add the DNS records it shows at your domain provider, then press Verify DNS. Once verified, campaigns send as marketing@ your domain. You need the Manage integrations permission.

Unsubscribes

Every marketing email has a personal unsubscribe link. Clicking it stops marketing email to that client right away. Booking confirmations, reminders and invoices still send. A client who replies STOP to a text stops all texts.

Reporting

Open a campaign to see Sent, Delivered, Open Rate, Click Rate, Bounced and Bookings, plus Performance Over Time, Top Clicked Links and a Delivery Log for each recipient. Export CSV appears for anyone allowed to export reports.

Templates

Template Library and Create Template on the Marketing page let you save designs to reuse.