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Bulk email shots

A bulk email shot sends one template to every contact on a mailing list. Shots are managed at Marketing → Bulk Email Shots.

The bulk email shot list: each shot with its state, progress, opens and clicks

Open in Clockwork CRMEnter your Clockwork CRM address at the top of the page to open this in your Clockwork CRM.

Before you start

To create a shot you need:

Bulk email shots cannot be created during a free trial.

The bulk email shot list

The line under the heading shows how many email send credits you have left, out of your allowance, with any top-up credits in brackets. Hover over it to see when credits are next added.

Column What it shows
Name The shot's name, and the template it was created from
State Where the shot is up to. See States. Underneath is when it started, or when it stopped or finished. A shot with a schedule shows Scheduled, or Resume Scheduled, with the time it starts or resumes underneath
Progress A progress bar and Sent out of the total number of recipients. While addresses are being checked, it shows Cleaned instead
Opens How many emails have been opened
Clicks How many links have been clicked

The list updates live while a shot is sending. The search box filters the list. Double-clicking a row opens its statistics. To delete several shots at once, tick them and select Bulk Delete.

You only see the shots you have permission to see.

Creating a shot

  1. Go to Marketing → Bulk Email Shots and select New Bulk Email Shot.
  2. Choose From Email Stencil or From Marketing Template.
  3. Work through the steps below, selecting Next after each one.
  4. On the Done step, check the summary and select Save.
Step What you do
General Details Enter a Name for the shot, up to 255 characters
Choose your template type Choose Email Stencil or Marketing Template in Create Bulk email shot from...
Select your template Search for and pick the stencil or template
Select your mailing list Search for and pick the mailing list to send to
Choose a sending address Pick the address the email is sent from in Use this sending address.... Only addresses on verified sender domains are listed
Permissions Choose the Users and Teams who can see and work with the shot. You are always added
When to send Leave Schedule a time to send off to start the shot yourself. Turn it on and enter a Date and Time for the shot to start on its own
Done Shows a summary of the shot. Save creates it

Create Campaign on a marketing template or email stencil starts a shot with the template already chosen.

A saved shot is created in the Not Started state. It does not send until you start it, or until its scheduled time.

What is fixed when you save

When you save a shot, Clockwork CRM takes a copy of the template and works out the recipients from the mailing list. Changes made to the template or the mailing list after that do not change the shot. To send an updated version, create a new shot.

Sending a shot

The ... menu on each shot has these actions:

Action When it shows What it does
Statistics Always Opens the shot's statistics
Start Not Started Starts sending
Pause Running Stops sending. Emails already sent are not affected
Resume Paused, Process Error or Sender Error Carries on from where the shot stopped. Recipients who have already been sent the email are not sent it again
Schedule Not Started Sets a time for the shot to start on its own. See Scheduling a shot
Schedule Resume Paused, Process Error or Sender Error Sets a time for the shot to resume on its own
Reschedule The shot has a schedule Changes the scheduled time
Remove Schedule The shot has a schedule Removes the schedule. The shot stays as it is and does not send until it is started
Delete Any state except Running Deletes the shot

Start, Pause, Resume, Remove Schedule and Delete ask you to confirm. You, and the user who started or scheduled the shot if that is someone else, get a notification when the shot starts running, when it is paused, when it completes, and when it stops with a Sender Error or Process Error.

Scheduling a shot

The When to send step of a new shot, with Schedule a time to send on and a date and time entered

Schedule, Schedule Resume and Reschedule ask for a Date and Time. The time is in your local time and must be in the future. At that time the shot starts, or resumes from where it stopped.

Start or Resume on a scheduled shot sends it now and removes the schedule.

What happens during a send

  1. Starting Up...: the shot is queued to send.
  2. Cleaning...: every recipient's email address is checked. Addresses that fail the check are added to the blacklist and are not sent to. An address that passed within the last six months is not checked again.
  3. Running: the emails are sent, one per recipient, with the merge fields filled in for each one. People are sent to first, then companies, then imported addresses.
  4. Complete: every recipient has been dealt with.

Each recipient is only sent the email once, even if they appear more than once or share an address with another recipient.

A recipient is skipped, and counted as undelivered, when:

  • they have unsubscribed from every mailing list the shot is sent to
  • they have no email address
  • their address is on the blacklist

Every email includes an unsubscribe option that email clients can show, and, if the template contains the Unsubscribe module, a link to the recipient's email preferences. See Mailing lists.

Links in the email are changed so that clicks can be counted, and a tracking image records when the email is opened. If your sender domain has a verified tracking domain, those links use it. See Sender and tracking domains.

If the sending address has a reply-to address, replies go there. For an email stencil with Include Sender Signature? turned on, the sending address's signature is added to the end of the email. The stencil's attachments are sent with every email.

Credits

Each email sent uses one email send credit. Skipped recipients do not use a credit.

If your credits run out part way through, the shot is paused. If auto top-up is on, a top-up pack is bought and the shot carries on. Once you have more credits, select Resume. See Subscription information.

States

State What it means
Not Started Saved but not yet started
Starting Up... Queued to start sending
Cleaning... Checking the recipients' email addresses before sending
Running Sending
Paused Paused by a user, or because email send credits ran out
Complete Finished
Sender Error The sending address or its domain no longer exists
Process Error Something went wrong while sending

Statistics

Statistics opens the results for a shot. The refresh button next to the heading reloads the figures.

The statistics of a sent newsletter: headline figures, engagement over time, links and devices

Headline figures

Figure What it shows
Status The shot's state, and the date it completed
Emails Sent Emails sent out of the total number of recipients. Underneath, undelivered counts recipients who were not sent the email, split into failed, already unsubscribed and no email. Select it to see the undelivered list. All delivered shows when there are none
Bounce Rate Bounced emails as a percentage of emails sent. Select the bounce count to see why each email bounced
Open Rate Opened emails as a percentage of emails sent, with the number of opens
Click Rate Unique link clicks as a percentage of emails sent, with the total number of clicks
Click-to-Open Rate Unique link clicks as a percentage of opened emails
Unsubscribe Rate Recipients who unsubscribed from this shot, as a percentage of emails sent. A recipient counts when they use the email's one-click unsubscribe, or turn off a mailing list the shot was sent to on the Email Preferences page reached from the email

Each rate is shown in green or red:

Figure Green Red
Bounce Rate 0.5% or less Over 0.5%
Open Rate 17% or more Under 17%
Click Rate 4% or more Under 4%
Click-to-Open Rate 10% or more Under 10%
Unsubscribe Rate 0.5% or less Over 0.5%

A unique click counts one click per recipient per link, however many times they click it.

Filtering the statistics

Selecting a bar, point, slice or link adds a filter to the whole page:

  • Opened or Unopened on Total Email Interactions
  • a day's opens bar or clicks point on Engagement
  • a slice on Device Breakdown, Operating System Breakdown or Browser Breakdown
  • a row in Link statistics

The filter applies to the headline figures, every chart, Bounce Information, the Email Statistics table and its export. Each active filter shows as a tag at the top of the page. Select the × on a tag to remove it. With more than one filter on, Clear all removes them all. Selecting the same bar, slice or link again also removes its filter.

While a filter is on, Emails Sent shows how many emails match the filters instead of the undelivered count.

Charts and tables

Section What it shows
Engagement Opens and clicks by day
Total Email Interactions The split between opened and unopened emails
Link statistics Each link in the email, with Clicks (unique) and Total Clicks
Device Breakdown The type of device recipients read the email on, such as desktop or mobile
Operating System Breakdown The operating system recipients read the email on
Browser Breakdown The browser or email program recipients read the email on

Email Statistics

Email Statistics lists every email sent, with the sending address above the table.

Column What it shows
Recipient The recipient's name and address
Sent When the email was sent
Opened When the email was first opened
Links Clicked The number of link clicks

Search recipients... searches on a recipient's name or address. Select a column heading to sort by it. The table shows 25, 50, 100 or 200 emails per page.

Filter by shows All emails, or only those Opened, Unopened or Clicked. It sets the same filter as Total Email Interactions. Export downloads the list with the search and filters applied. The export is prepared in the background and you are notified when it is ready.

A row is highlighted when the address failed the address check. Hover over it to see why.

The ... menu on each row has:

  • Further statistics: the sent date, whether and when the email was opened, the total link clicks, the browser, and each link with whether it was clicked
  • Go to person record or Go to company record: opens the contact's Emails tab

Undelivered and bounced emails

View Undelivered Emails lists the recipients who were not sent the email, in separate tables for companies, people and non-contacts, with the reason for each. Export Failures downloads the list.

A recipient whose address is on the blacklist shows Blacklisted: Undeliverable since the date it was added, followed by why it was added when that is known.

Bounce Information lists each bounced email with the reason the recipient's email provider gave, such as the address not existing, a full inbox, or the message being too large. An email that permanently bounces adds the address to the blacklist.

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