Guide to WordFly

Article author
Kelly Sutter

New to WordFly? This guide will take you on a tour of WordFly with short explanations that link off to step-by-step tutorials. Use this as your training guide, and let us know if you have questions.

 

01 // The Basics

When you create a WordFly account, you agree to WordFly’s Acceptable Use Policy. Follow these email marketing best practices to comply with anti-spam regulations both in the US and any countries where your subscribers reside. For the best experience, we recommend removing plug-ins that may inject extraneous code into your email and page designs. We also recommend working in a single browser tab while in WordFly.

 

Video

Take a tour →

 

02 // Send an Email Campaign

 

Send an email

Go to Email > Create a campaign and follow the five steps of sending a standard email on screen.

  • Settings: Add your from name and address, subject line, A/B testing options
  • Email: Design the email or text email that you want to send. Choose a starter email as the base for your design or duplicate an existing email. 
  • Subscribers: Select or import the list of people you are sending to
  • Testing: Send tests and review the email checklist
  • Send: Schedule your campaign or send it right away

 

Features available in email campaigns

Build your email design

Create beautiful, responsive emails

A/B testing

A/B test from names, subject lines, or two different email designs

Personalization 

Use data fields (merge tags) and conditional logic in your subject line and email design

Segmentation

Send your email to targeted subscribers

Suppress a list

Exclude subscribers from the deployment

Send test emails

Send one or multiple test emails for approval

Inbox preview

See how your email renders in multiple email clients

Send now or schedule 

Send campaign now or scheduled it to send in the future

View results

View campaign metrics after sending

 

 

 

03 // Browse the Design Library

 

 

Blocks

Use custom blocks to quickly add frequently used content like headers and footers to any email, RSVP, survey, or landing page. You can create and save a custom block in the Blocks editor. You can also save a custom block directly from any email or page.

 

Media

Upload your images and PDFs into the Design Library > Media. Organize media into folders, rename, and browse through your media.

 

Image Editor

The WordFly image editor is tailored for people who build emails and pages. Add a play button or a logo to an image, crop and resize images, add shapes and text, and much more. Access the image editor from the Media section or from any email or page design.

 

Starter Emails

You can make any WordFly design into a starter email that can be selected when you build a new email for your campaign. This is a great way to set up reusable design templates for your users.

 

Email Gallery

Get inspired at the Museum of Modern Email. The MoME is dedicated to email marketing for arts and culture. See beautiful automations, newsletters, and more — all built with WordFly. Visit the MoME

 

 

04 // Import Subscribers and Data

 

 

Your subscribers exist in WordFly when you import addresses into lists. We call them subscribers because they are people who have opted-in to receive email from you. A subscriber profile is created for each address that is imported that allows you to learn more about their behavior and preferences.

 

Importing subscribers

Subscribers can be imported under Subscribers > Lists or when you are working in an email campaign under the Subscribers tab. A subscriber list is the list of people you are sending your email campaign to. There are three options for importing:

 

List summary and subscriber issues

After your list is imported, the List Summary shows the current state of your list, subscriber issues, and the number of people who will receive your campaign. Unsubscribe and hard bounce filtering is constantly working in WordFly to ensure subscribers with opt-outs or bad addresses are not emailed again. WordFly will automatically suppress unsubscribes and other issues when you import lists into WordFly. New list imports are the easiest way to ensure you are filtering out subscribers who should not be emailed again. WordFly will also filter out unsubscribes and other issues on existing lists if those lists are reused in new email campaigns. Only lists the subscriber unsubscribed from will reflect the unsubscribe until that subscriber is imported into a new list.

 

Seed lists and suppression lists

WordFly offers configuration of up to two seed lists which allow you to receive any standard or automated email sent. Assign one seed list for standard campaigns and one for automated triggered campaigns. Any list can be used as a suppression list to exclude all subscribers in the list from a campaign.

 

Data fields and personalization

Data fields are essentially the field column headers in your spreadsheet, and tell WordFly which data you’re importing with your subscriber list. You use data fields when you want to personalize your email campaigns, such as First Name, Member Level, or other unique data. In order to get the data from your list into WordFly data fields, you need to map your list fields to WordFly data fields during the import process. It is critical to map your fields during the import process if you are using personalization in your campaigns.

 

Use dynamic content to conditionally display text, images, or other elements based on your customer’s interests, actions, or location. Create if/then conditional statements using Conditions. Use them to personalize your email content.

 

Preferences

Subscribers can tell you their communication preferences when they subscribe or unsubscribe. Preferences are added to your subscribe and preference pages. Here’s how to set them up. Each preference you set up in WordFly is a data field. When a subscriber opts-in or opts-out of a preference that data is stored on their subscriber record as a data field update. An opt-in is logged as a 1 and an opt-out is logged as a 0. Use subscriber preferences to segment your lists so the subscriber receives more targeted content.

 

Segments 

WordFly Segmentation allows you to segment your list to include specific subscribers. Use data fields and/or events to segment your list. The segment is always inclusive but you can use the operator values to exclude subscribers as well. Any segments you save for future use will be saved here.

 

Insights

Use Subscriber Insights to view and export data around subscriber list growth, email clients, and subscriber engagement.

 

 

05 // Review Reporting Data

 

 

WordFly makes your campaign data visual with onscreen results, data exports, reports, and interactive charts and graphs.

 

Sent Email Campaigns

Go to Reporting > Sent Email Campaigns to view your campaign results.

  • View an Overview tab of campaign activity summary, plus delivery percentages.
  • Select Heat Maps to review and export click results.
  • Click the tabs to see Opens, Clicks, Unsubscribes, Bounces, and your top Email Clients.
  • Narrow down your results by date range, domain, or A/B version.
  • Click icons to show results by hour, day of week, or campaign date range

 

Compare Campaigns

Go to Reporting > Compare Campaigns to view all of your campaign metrics and benchmark reporting.

 

Export Data

Go to Reporting > Export Data to export a wide variety of data types as a spreadsheet. 

 

Run Reports

Run a Campaign Report to receive a complete download of all results for a campaign in PDF format. After you run the report, you’ll be redirected to Reports + Data Manager to pick up your report.

 

 

06 // Design Pages

 

 

There are four free pages included with all accounts. In the Subscribers section, you can set up preferences that you can use on your Subscribe and Preferences pages. After updating them, be sure to click Publish to make your pages public. 

 

You can also interact with your audience through RSVP, Surveys, and Landing Pages. Each one of these options serves a different purpose and can widely increase your insights about your audience, engagement, and improve your subscriber’s experience.

 

 

07 // Send an SMS Campaign

 

 

Connect with your subscribers through SMS campaigns by importing mobile numbers. Learn how to send an SMS campaign. Additional configurations and fees apply. Contact us if you want to start using SMS. This feature is currently not available to US customers but it is on the roadmap. WordFly currently supports sending SMS to mobile carriers in the following countries: Australia, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and United Kingdom.

 

 

08 // Use the Tessitura® Integration

We recommend following this workflow for importing your Tessitura lists into WordFly, sending email campaigns, and reviewing your email response data in Tessitura.

 

Create, import, send, view results

 

Get the most from the integration

  • See your customer’s emails in Tessitura using the WordFly custom screen
  • Enable Source number appending in your account, then use it in your email campaign. This allows customers to receive discounts on your website via the source or promo code that was appended to the link and allows you to see sales data connected to that source in Tessitura reports.
  • Send Welcome, Performance Reminder, Abandoned Cart and other automated email campaigns using Tessitura lists
  • Use the Tessitura Preferences Integration to keep subscriber interests, attributes, and contact purposes in sync between WordFly and Tessitura. Subscribers can select their preferences on the subscribe and unsubscribe pages.
  • Set up Page responses for Tessitura to receive your RSVP and Survey responses directly in your database.

 

 

09 // Use the Centaman Integration

We recommend reviewing these articles for importing your Centaman lists into WordFly, sending email campaigns, and reviewing your email response data in Centaman.

 

 

 

10 // Set Up the Account Section

 

 

Basics

Update your Organization Info. Tell us about your organization and select an account owner.

Create New Users. Set up unlimited user accounts and give your colleagues customized access.

  • Add a new user and select which WordFly sections they can access
  • Tell us who your main Account, Billing, and Technical contacts are

Create Labels. Use labels to help organize and filter your campaigns and more.

 

 

Billing

Select your Pricing Plans for services.

 

Settings

Set up your Account Options.

  • Enable Google Analytics for your emails. When enabled, WordFly add GA tags to your links that will send email analytics data back to your website’s GA account.
  • Opt in to benchmark reporting to compare how your campaigns are doing against other organizations in your industry.

 

Set up your Editor Settings. The Editor Settings help you add global brand and font styles for use in all WordFly editors.

 

Set up your Email Settings. Add reusable content for your campaigns.

  • Add the From names and From/Reply-To addresses for your campaigns
  • Enter your organization postal address for CAN-SPAM compliance
  • Enter a footer paragraph with additional info you want to include on all emails, e.g., reminder about how subscribers were added to your list