On the third create page, you can preview your email and schedule or send it.
First, you can choose an email wrapper for this email from the wrappers available to the list this email is targeted to if your email uses the visual editor. Saving and sending a test, saving a draft, scheduling the email, or sending it will save your wrapper choice.
The next section of the preview create page shows the email you've written. We choose a random activist from your universe to display in the preview. Their information will be used to fill in your clips and add parameters like source code to your links.
Below you'll see an overview of your targeting, including what list you're sending to and any includes and excludes you chose. If you selected any queries, you'll be able to preview them and have the option to edit them if necessary. You'll be taken back to the targeting page if you do this.
Your count will never be larger than your random limit, but it may be smaller if your limit is larger than your entire universe. If you didn't set a random limit, or you want to change the limit after viewing the real size of your sending universe, click Edit under the random limit count on the preview page. Note that if you make the limit larger the email will need to recalculate targeting.
When you first load the preview create page, you may not see a count. Rather, you may see "[calculating...]" where the count should be. After you save your targeting, we calculate the number of activists targeted by your email. Usually that process is very quick. Sometimes for more complex targeting, it can take a few seconds or even a minute. The preview page will automatically refresh when targeting is finished, replacing "[calculating..."] with a number of activists that this email targets, but we'll also send you an email when your targeting has finished calculating, so you'll know when we're ready for you to come back to the preview page. You can refresh targeting as well by clicking the "Refresh Targeting" link to generate a new count.
Once calculating is finished, you'll be able to send your email. You can save your email as a draft by clicking "Save Draft" in the toolbar below, or you can continue on and send or schedule it.
You can also click 'automate testing" to automate a testing down the list process, which will send a test email to different active cohorts on your list. For more on that, click here.
After you've done all of your spell checking and previewing and you're ready to send your email, click either the "Schedule Email" or "Send Email" buttons.
If you choose to schedule an email, you'll have two options — send at a specific time or send by time zone. Sending at a specific time will allow you to choose a date and time in the future and confirm your scheduling. All times are U.S. Eastern.
If you choose to send by time zone, you can select someone's local time to send an email. For example, everyone will receive the email at 4:00pm their local time. Local time is determined by someone's zip/postal code. If a zip/postal code is not on their activist record, the email will be sent in the "first" time zone. For example, if the email is scheduled to go to everyone at 4pm and I schedule the email at 3pm ET, people without a zip/postal code will receive the email at 4pm ET. This means that your email will be sending for a full 24 hours, as the local time you set works its way around the world. If you're sending to a large list (tens of thousands of activists), there may be some delay in the exact timing the email is sent out. You'll see a warning if you're sending lists larger than this.
NOTE: Sending by time zone is separate from ordering by timezone (which can be done in the targeting page). Sending by timezone sends emails out over a 24 hour period. Ordering by time zone sends your emails out all at once, but prioritizes activists based on their time zone going east to west. Click here to read more.
By default, when you schedule an email it will only be sent to people who were included in the initial targeting. This means if someone meets the targeting parameters after the email has been scheduled, they would not receive the email. You can tick off the 'Refresh targeting before send' checkbox below the scheduling section to have the system automatically refresh the targeting so your email is sent to the most up to date audience. Note that if you choose this option, there will be a slight delay in the email send as our system refreshes your targeting. You can have this box checked by default by editing your group email settings in the Settings tab of the Group Manage page.
If you need to reschedule your email, you can do this by going to the Emails tab of the Group Manage page and clicking Manage next to the drafted email. On the following page, click the Reschedule button in the upper right. You'll be able to reschedule the email on the next page.
If this email is part of a Mailstream, it will send at the time you scheduled, not in the order it is listed under in the Mailstream. The Mailstream prioritizes which email activists will receive for that day. It does not affect the scheduling of an email. You can learn more about Mailstream here.
If you choose to send immediately, click Confirm and Send to start the sending process. If you want to throttle this email, click Set Throttle. You'll be able to choose a certain number of emails to go out each hour. Every hour, we'll send out a batch of emails until the entire audience has been reached. We'll give you an estimate on how long it will take to send to your audience. This is useful if you want to slow down traffic for certain actions or API calls.
On the email manage page, you'll be able to see what time the email is sent and done sending, as well as the send progress, and what time the email is sent and done sending.
Note: Emails are checked for unsubscribed users before they are sent, whether they're sent immediately or scheduled, so activists who unsubscribe after you targeted your email but before you send it won't receive the message.