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Introduction
The Email Settings page contains the administrative functionality for the email module. In this page you can create and manage Email Profiles and Email Categories.
- To access the Email Settings page, hover the mouse over the Outreach section of the Navigation Menu, hover your mouse over Emailing, and click Email System Settings in the sub-menu.
Creating an Email Profile
Email Profiles are used to assign a name and email address to the email messages that are sent through the PDI email module. Any email sent through the PDI module, along with test emails, require an Email Profile. You will need to have access to the email address used in their Email Profiles, since those email address will need to be verified before they become they can be used to send email messages. Email Profiles can also contain a unique Reply Name and Reply Email that is separate from the from name and email address. This allows users to send emails from a trusted address while ensuring that all responses are being sent back to the correct individual.
- Name - The Name is how you will reference the Email Profile throughout the program. This field is used for internal reference only.
- From Name - The From Name is the name of the sender that will be displayed in the recipient’s inbox.
- From Email - The From email is the Email Address that will be displayed in the recipient’s inbox. Note: If the email address is not SPF Validated the email address will appear different from what you have entered.
- Reply Name - The Reply Name is the name that will show up if your recipient would like to reply to your email.
- Reply Email - The Reply Email is the email address that will receive the responses from the email message. Note: You'll receive automated replies, out-of-office messages, and subscriber replies at this designated address. If you're concerned about the volume of emails you may receive, set up a dedicated email address just for your email campaigns to avoid overflowing your personal inbox.
Creating Email Profiles
- Click on the Create New Profile button.
A pop-up window will appear. - Use the Name textbox to name the email profile. The profile is only used for internal use, and is not seen outside the PDI system.
- Use the From Name textbox to enter in the name that will be displayed as the sender of the email.
- Use the From Email textbox to enter in the email that will be displayed as the sender of the email.
- (Optional) Activate the Copy the "From Name" and "From Email" to the Reply Name and Reply Email checkbox to copy the From Name and From Email textboxes to the Reply Name and Replay Email textboxes respectively.
- (Optional) Use the Reply Name textbox to enter in the name that will be used as the reply name in the email.
- (Optional) Use the Reply Email textbox to enter in the email address that will be used to reply to the email.
- Click the Save button.
Tip: The From Name can be as important as the subject line, because your recipients won’t open emails from people they don’t recognize. Use the From Name to say who you are as the sender, and keep it consistent over time.
Email SPF Validation
NOTE: You can only SPF validate email addresses from domains that you own. You must also have admin access to the email address you setup when Creating a Profile in order to validate the SPF.
SPF Validation (Sender Policy Framework) is a simple email-validation measure we take to ensure you own the email address you would like to send emails from. In other words, the purpose of an SPF record is to prevent spammers from sending messages with forged “From” addresses at your domain. This process helps keep your email messages out of spam folders and protect the reputation of you, the sender, by ensuring others can’t use your domain without permission.
We have designed a simple and automated SPF validation process. You will need to first create your Email Profile. Once the Email Profile has been created, you will need to verify your email address.
You will receive an email from NoReply1@politicaldata.com with a link to approve your email address.
Make sure you are logged into PDI, then click the Approve Email Address button in the email.
If you do not receive an email, check your spam or junk folder. If it is not there, you can re-send the email from the PDI platform. In the Email Verified column, there will be a Verify link. Click that link to re-send the verification email.
Once you have verified your email address, you will see a 'Yes' in the Email Verified column for that email profile.
Once the Email Profile has been verified, click the “Validate” link in the SPF Valid column. Two things can happen,
1. If SPF validation has already been setup for that domain the SPF Valid column will automatically switch to Yes.
a. If the column switches to Yes and both the Email Verified and SPF Valid columns say Yes then congratulations you are complete and ready to send emails!
OR
2. You will be presented with the following pop-up asking you to complete process.
The second step in the process is configure your server by adding the following TXT Record to which ever website host is hosting your domain: "include:distmx.focalbeam.com" .
We know things can get a little complicated at this point, so stay with us! We suggest sending the SPF TXT record above to the IT Team that helped you create your website or contact your website hosting service (ex: GoDaddy, Enom).
To create an SPF record for a domain:
- Log in to the administrative console for your domain.
- Locate the page from which you can update the DNS records.
- You may need to enable advanced settings.
- Locate the SPF record, which is a TXT record, which will be something similar to this:
- v=spf1 a yourexisitingSPFrecord -all
- Add: "include:distmx.focalbeam.com" to the existing SPF record that you located:
- v=spf1 a include:distmx.focalbeam.com -all
- Save your changes.
- Keep in mind that changes to DNS records may take up to 48 hours to propagate throughout the Internet.
Note: This process is for including the PDI SPF record to your existing records. If you already have a TXT record for SPF, don’t create a second one. Only one is allowed for your domain. Multiple SPF records are not recommended and may cause delivery and spam classification issues.
Here are instructions for two most common website hosts, where you probably purchased your unique domain. If you don’t see yours listed below, please let us know.
Troubleshooting Domain Verification
- I didn’t receive the email
- Please allow some time for the email to be sent to your inbox. Depending on internet traffic and how busy your ISP is, it can take a couple hours for emails to arrive. This is more likely to happen around holidays and peak sending times.
- Add us to your safe senders List
- Add goldrush@politicaldata.com to your approved senders list. This will help prevent the email from being mistakenly blocked or marked as spam.
- Whitelist PDI IPs
- Work with your IT team to whitelist our delivery IPs. Whitelisting tells your mail server to allow emails send through our servers to be delivered to your inbox.
- If this is the first time your domain is receiving email from PDI, it’s possible that your server is dropping the mail because it doesn’t recognize PDI’s IPs.
Can I use a free or personal email address as my reply or from email address?
Yes and no. We allow you to create accounts with a “free-email” account (ex., Gmail). However, many free email providers use DMARC authentication policies that affect the delivery of your email messages when your “From” email address comes from a free email provider’s domain. Currently, only AOL and Yahoo! have this policy. However, it is possible that other free email providers could adopt this policy without warning. We encourage you to register and use a private domain for your email sending.
What happens if I don’t validate or verify my SPF Record?
If you do not validate or verify your SPF record, the messages sent from your campaign will be sent “on behalf” of your email “from” and “reply” address that you configured when you set up an email profile.
Your From Name Here <test.example@mailservices1.com> On Behalf Of Your From Name Here <test@example.com>
Additionally, not verifying and validating your SPF record will result in a negative impact to your deliver-ability rates. We highly encourage all Email Profiles be properly verified and validated. It is a one time process per each unique email address.
When you use a free domain (ex: Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) as your “From” email address, you don’t have to manually verify the domain, our SPF validation process will work simply for you. However, if you are sending from a personal or company domain, you’ll need to go through the verification process. To learn how to configure your SPF record, Click here.
Email Categories
Event Categories are folders that store your email messages, and allow you to easily group your various types of email messages together. The Email Categories can be used to create universes in the Create Voter Universes and Create People Universes page, allowing you to query multiple email deliveries at one time.
Creating New Email Categories
- Click the Create Message Categories button.
- Use the Name textbox to assign a name to your Email Category.
- Click the Save button.
Deactivating Email Categories
- Activate the checkbox of the Email Category you want to deactivate
- Click the Deactivate Selected Categories button at the bottom of the page.
- Click the Yes button in the pop-up.
Reactivating Email Categories
- Activate the Show Inactive Categories checkbox.
- Click on the name of the Email Category you would like to reactivate.
- Activate the Active checkbox.
- Click the Save button.