This is an optional, paid feature available for Solo, Team, and Business plans only. It is not available for Starter level plans. To adjust your subscription level, head to your account's Billing page and click the "Change Plan" button.
There are a variety of reasons you may wish to email your clients beyond standard transactional messaging options. Whether you wish to send out a newsletter, message all customers subscribed to a specific membership, or prompt clients to re-book with you, email campaigns can be used to keep customers engaged with you and your team.
In this guide we will take a look at how to use custom segments to configure email campaigns on your BusyPaws account.
To be able to send any email campaigns you must first set up a custom sending domain. If you are on a Team or Business level plan it is recommended to configure your custom sending domain before subscribing to campaigns. For Solo level plans custom sending domain configuration is available only after subscribing to campaigns.
For more information, see our help guide on Custom Email Sending Domains.
Enabling Email Campaigns
Due to the associated cost and the potential impact on sending reputation, the use of marketing messaging within BusyPaws requires businesses to opt in. If you wish to begin using email campaigns, you will first need to enable the functionality on your account. To start, click the gear icon at the bottom of the left-hand menu bar.
Then select "Email Messaging" under "Business Settings".
Enabling marketing campaigns requires a subscription. Click the "Subscribe" button to opt in to the additional charges.
Much like SMS messaging, marketing subscriptions are charged monthly based on usage. The amount charged includes a base rate plus additional fees determined by the amount of messages sent during the pay period. For more detailed information on pricing, see our guide on Email Campaign Pricing.
Email campaigns also require the use of a custom sending domain. If you haven't already, use the "Custom Sending Domain" field to configure this on your account. See our Custom Email Sending Domain help guide for full instructions. Once your custom sending domain has been properly configured, it will be listed with a green checkmark on your main Email Settings page.
If you do not configure a custom sending domain, you will not be able to send email campaigns. This setting is required to proceed.
After you have subscribed and set up your custom sending domain, you can begin sending marketing messages through your BusyPaws account!
Setting Up a Custom Segment
Custom segments are used to determine which clients will receive messages from your campaigns. Before you can begin building your campaigns, you will therefore need to save at least one custom segment on your BusyPaws account. This is done from your account's Segments page. Click the "Customers" icon in the left-hand menu bar then selecting "Active Customers" from the submenu.
For more information on building and saving custom segments, check out our Custom Segments help guide.
Locating Your Campaigns
All existing campaigns can be found on your account's main Email Campaigns page. To get there, simply click the "Campaigns" icon in the left-hand menu bar of any page in BusyPaws.
This page will display a list of all the campaigns that have been saved to your account, sorted by their creation date. Each campaign is listed with its name, the customer segment to which it applies, its creation date, the date on which it was last edited, the number of messages that have been sent, its status (active or inactive), and the date on which it was sent or for which it is scheduled.
Select any campaign's name to edit its content or settings.
From here, you can edit any of the settings (as described in the section below) or change the campaign status.
Active campaigns will have a "Pause" button. Selecting that button temporarily suspends the campaign, preventing further messages from going out.
Inactive campaigns will have a "Publish" button. Selecting that button prompts the system to begin sending messages out based on the campaigns chosen settings.
The "Publish" button will only be usable if you have upgraded your subscription to include email campaigns and set up your custom domain.
To delete a campaign, click the "Actions" button, then select "Delete" from the drop-down.
A pop-up will then appear asking you to confirm your selection. Click "Continue" to proceed with deleting the campaign or click "Cancel" to go back.
Once a campaign has been deleted that action cannot be undone.
Creating a New Campaign
Once you have one or more saved segments you will be able to create email campaigns to go out to clients within those segments. To build a new campaign, click the "New Campaign" button at the top of the Email Campaigns page.
This will take you to the New Email Campaign page.
Campaign Settings
The settings for your campaign control its technical aspects. Add a name for your campaign to the "Name" field, then choose the client segment to whom the message will be sent.
After setting the audience for your message, use the "Frequency" section to determine when the message will go out. First, use the "Send once" toggle to control whether the message goes out one time or multiple times. When the toggle is turned on (purple) the message will go out only one time. When turned off (grey) the message will go out on a preset schedule.
Send Once
When the "Send once" toggle is enabled two additional buttons will be present. These buttons are used to determine when the message will go out. Select "Immediately" to send the message out as soon as it is published.
Selecting "Schedule" populates a calendar, allowing you to choose the date on which the message will go out.
Scheduled messages are sent out at 12:00pm in the time zone set for your business' account.
Send Multiple Times
When the "Send once" toggle is disabled additional options will appear to determine the frequency at which the message will go out.
Only new | Controls whether customers in the chosen segment will receive the message multiple times or just once.
If enabled (purple) all clients currently in the segment will receive the message when the campaign is published. After that only clients that are newly added to the segment will receive it (also only once).
If disabled (grey) all clients in the segment will receive the message when the campaign is published then again with the frequency set using the "Send" field, provided they are still a part of the segment. |
Send | Controls the frequency at which the campaign message is triggered. May be set to Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
If set to Weekly, one or more weekdays may be selected. The campaign message will be triggered on those days each week.
If set to Monthly, the "On Day" field is used to set the day on which the campaign message will go out.
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Campaign Start/End | An optional setting, controls the length of the campaign. If set, messages will only go out on the start date at the earliest and on the end date at the latest. |
Scheduled messages are sent out at 12:00pm in the time zone set for your business' account.
Message Content
After configuring the settings for your campaign, you can begin adding your content to the "Design" section of the New Email Campaign page. This includes the subject line for the email as well as the message body.
The options at the top of the content field can be used to format the message body. This includes bolding, italicizing, or striking through text, adding hyperlinks, including numbers or bullet points, and adding file attachments.
Type two open curly braces, {{, to open a drop-down menu with the available dynamic content options for your message. Dynamic content is replaced with specific customer details when the email is sent.
Client First Name | {{first_name}} |
Client Last Name | {{last_name}} |
Client Email | {{client_email}} |
Client Phone | {{client_phone}} |
Company Name | {{company_name}} |
Company Phone | {{company_phone}} |
Once you have added content to your message, use the "Preview" tab to see what your message will look like for customers that receive it.
Saving & Sending Messages
When you are happy with your email campaign settings and content, click the "Publish" button at the top of the page to start the campaign.
If you want to save your campaign but are not yet ready to begin sending messages, click the "Create" button. This will save the campaign with inactive status.
Tracking Campaign Usage
It's important to keep track of how many clients are receiving your marketing messaging. Whether you're keeping an eye on which customers have received a specific campaign, or wanting to better understand how many messages are being sent out overall, BusyPaws makes it easy to gather the information you need about your email campaigns.
Specific Campaigns
Each campaign on your main Email Campaigns page is listed with a count of how many messages have been sent out. Select the number for a campaign to open a list of the clients that have received the message.
The left side of the Sent page for a given campaign will display a preview of the message in its current state. The right side of the page displays a full list of customers that have received the message. The list includes client names, their pets, and the date and time at which the message was sent to them. Select any client's name to open their profile.
Overall Usage
Since campaign usage has different payment tiers, you may wish to keep tabs on how many marketing messages you are sending from your account each month. To get an overview of the month, start by clicking the gear icon in the left-hand menu bar of any page in BusyPaws.
Then select "Email Messaging" under "Business Settings".
A messages count can be found at the bottom of the Marketing Campaigns section on your Email Settings page. The table includes a count of messages for the current period as well as the count from the previous period.
A more detailed view of message usage can be found on your Reports Dashboard. Click/hover your mouse over the "Reports" icon in the left-hand menu bar, then select "Dashboard" from the sub-menu.
The date range settings on this page can be used to adjust the displayed data.
Locate the Campaign Messages card near the bottom of the page. This section shows the total number of messages sent for the selected date range as well as a graph depicting messages sent throughout the chosen period.
For more information, check out our Reports - Dashboard help guide.
Client Opt-Out
Marketing messaging goes beyond the scope of the transactional messages most clients expect to receive from your business (i.e. invoices, booking reminders, etc.). Since it is often not related to a specific purchase, the legal requirements for marketing messaging differ slightly. The most import of these rules is that marketing messaging requires customers have the option to opt out of receiving messages.
The most common way clients are able to do this is by selecting the "Unsubscribe" option that is automatically included at the bottom of any marketing message sent through your BusyPaws account.
The second way clients can indicate they do not wish to receive marketing messaging is through intake forms. When building your forms, if you have enabled email campaigns on your account, you will have the option of including a check box allowing clients to opt in or out of marketing messages.
When clients complete a form with that check box, their response will be saved to their profile.
In either case, whether clients choose to unsubscribe via a marketing message or through an intake form response, unsubscribing from marketing messaging will mark them as such on their profile page.
If you have set up the MailChimp integration on your account, any client that unsubscribes from your BusyPaws marketing message will likewise be unsubscribed from MailChimp messages.
It's important to keep in mind that marketing messages are much more likely to be caught by spam filters or be manually marked as spam by your clients. As such, it is strongly recommended to ensure that your clients have opportunities to opt-out of marketing messaging and that they are not receiving too many messages in a short period of time.
For more information on protecting your account's sending reputation and keeping your message deliverability high, check out our help guide on Best Practices for Messaging.