In this article, 'Email-Only' refers to customers who only have email enabled for their community - there is no member experience (web or mobile app) access for their community members. Below we provide an overview of what you can expect with Email-Only, as well as some helpful links to get you started.

Email-Only Content

All Firstup customers can send beautiful emails that can be fully experienced within the email platform. The exceptions are content blocks that require the user to click on the content, videos, and links to other campaigns. Users with the full member experience will be prompted to sign in to the member experience to play videos or open linked content - in contrast, Email-Only users will simply click on the videos and links within the email to view the content! Clicking on links to external content (external URLs) will take the user directly to the URL.

Users can access Creator Studio content by following a link in an email without having to log in. Authentication is handled by a token embedded in a link. The token is valid for 24 hours and allows access to all Creator Studio content relevant to the user. Each link has its own token. If a user clicks a link after the token has expired because they already used it 24 hours ago, they will be offered the option to resend the email to themselves with a new token. Please note that this functionality does not work for test emails.

Regarding metrics, if an email is sent to a distribution group, any interaction that happens on that email would be associated with a single user, the distribution group. The same also applies if an email is forwarded. This is because email tracking happens through:

• A pixel embedded in the email (opens). That pixel is unique to the recipient and does not change if different people are opening an email intended for another user.
• Tokens on links - These tokens are unique to each recipient. For example: If someone forwards you an email intended for them, you are interacting with a link that only tracks activity for them and will only be associated with that user.

Video Example (Web)

Linked Creator Studio Content Example (Web)

Video Example (Mobile)

Linked Creator Studio Content Example (Mobile)

In order to view linked Creator Studio content, the user must also be part of the target audience or topic for the linked piece of Creator Studio content. If not, they will receive a 'Content Not Found' error when trying to access the content.

Intelligent Delivery

With Email-Only, instead of comparing email, push, and Notification Center, Intelligent Delivery will only evaluate email as a reachable channel. This places more emphasis on the other variables - such as how many emails the member is already receiving on a given day, what priority they are, etc. - but does not change how Intelligent Delivery works.

Email-Only campaigns will also not be able to utilize features such as Commentable, Resources, Featured, and Shareable. These features are limited to communities with access to the member experience. However, Email-Only can leverage the Translation (premium feature) and Acknowledge features. Note that campaigns cannot be acknowledged directly in an email. Refer to 'Email Best Practices' in our Acknowledge Setting article for a call-to-action workaround.

FAQ

Are all content blocks available for Email-Only?

All content blocks, except poll blocks, are available for Email-Only.

Note: Video blocks will require click-through to the web or mobile app experience in order to view.

Also, users cannot interact with image carousel blocks within email. Users will need to access the campaign via the web or mobile app experience to interact with and click through/hover on images in the carousel.

How can Email-Only customers use topics in Creator Studio? 

An Email-Only community can still use topics to organize content internally and for publishing without sending communications. For example, if you want to create multiple stories to feature in a newsletter, you can publish those stories first without an audience to avoid sending an email about them.

Which reports are available for Email-Only?

• Campaign Performance report
• Email Campaigns Overview report
• Campaign Delivery report
• Video Performance report 

How do you create a newsletter? 

Use link blocks when creating a new campaign to create a newsletter. The Creator Studio experience allows you to create a newsletter by linking to existing Creator Studio content, linking to external content, and/or placing content directly in the email.

An example of creating a newsletter in Creator Studio can be found here.

How do the drips or other multi-step emails work?

Drips and other multi-step emails are configurable from Creator Studio under Workflows in the Configure section.

We recommend archiving both the Invitation Drip and Welcome Drip for Email-Only communities, as you do not need or want to drive your members to register.