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Affiliate Sailthru Guide

1 Campaigns

  1. Creating campaigns
    1. Navigate to Messaging > Campaigns
    2. Select NEW CAMPAIGN
    3. Name your campaign following the naming convention: YYMMDD AffiliateCode Audience EmailCampaign
      1. ex: 191107 NM GradeAD SJEmpathyTour See the naming convention guide.
      2. *It is important that your affiliate code is the 2nd part of the campaign name and that it is separated by a space. This is what the affiliate loader looks at when it pulls your affiliate information.
    4. Select campaign type (regular campaign -or- AB test)
      1. Regular campaign: A one-off email campaign you can send to a list of users.
      2. AB Test (see AB Test section later on for details)
        1. AB Split: This test will split your send in segments based on a particular test such as subject line or sending name.
        2. AB Winner: This test will split your send in segments based on a particular test such as subject line or sending name, and then deem a winner. The “winner” is then sent to the remainder of the list.
      3. Select your target audience
      4. Select your suppressed audience. The one listed below should be included on every send.
        1. CAN Default Suppression
    5. Select your template
      1. Input the following fields: From Name, From Email, Email Subject, and Reply Email.
      2. Note: ignore the Personalize section
      3. Save and continue
    6. In this design tab, you can copy the HTML and edit it within an HTML editor such as Dreamweaver, or you can directly edit from this screen.
      1. When you are finished, you can preview the email as if you were a specific user by inputting an email address. (If you are a subscriber, your name will appear in the salutation).​
    7. Create a text version of your HTML email by selecting the Text button.
      1. Click Convert from HTML ​
    8. Send yourself and whoever else is QAing the email a test. Click Test Send. image.png
      1. Note: when you select Send Test Email, only an HTML version will go through. You will need to hit Test Send again, and check the Text Only box in order to receive a text only version. image.png
  2. Scheduling a campaign
    1. Once your email has been thoroughly reviewed and approved, you can schedule it to go out.
    2. Select specific time, and input the date and time that you want the email to go out
    3. Enter the emails that would like to receive a confirmation email.
    4. NOTE: Sailthru will send you an email automatically once the send is complete. They do not send a 24 hour metrics report like Message Studio did.
    5. ALWAYS enter seedlist-nat@aclu.org into the Seed Emails text box.
    6. Save & continue
    7. Review the summary page thoroughly! image.png
    8. Select Schedule.
    9. You will see a Sending Progress bar appear at the top indicating how sending progress of the email. image.png
    10. If for some reason you need to go back in and edit your campaign before it has begun to deploy, you can do so here by clicking Unschedule.
  3. Labeling your campaign
    1. Every template contains only the Affiliate label. You need to manually add all labels that do apply.
    2. Navigate to Messaging > Campaigns
    3. Check the box next to your campaign. It will become highlighted in a light blue.
    4. Move to the top and select the label icon.
    5. Click the x next to the labels that do not apply to your email in order to remove them.

2 AB Testing

AB testing is a way to compare two versions of a variable (email subject line, from email, etc.) in order to determine which of the variants is more effective. We suggest only using AB Winner Campaigns, unless you have a particular use case for a simple AB split.

With AB testing, you can also test design, copy, or signatures if you are sending to the same list. For instance, you could use different greetings between A campaign and B campaign.

  1. AB Split
    1. AB split campaigns allow you to set two to five test segments for a campaign. Sailthru will split the recipients at random, using the proportions you choose. For example, you can try out a new subject line on 20% of your audience, and 80% will receive a different subject line. You then can see how both of these performed.
  2. AB Winner Campaigns
    1. AB Winner Campaigns allow you to set two to four test segments and one final segment.
  3. Setting up an AB Winner Campaign
    1. Name your campaign following the naming conventions, select AB winner, and select Create Campaign
    2. Select your target list and suppressions.
    3. Select your template
    4. Plan out and select your segments. You want to make sure that the winner has the majority percentage. We suggest splits of (10% / 10% / 80%, or 15% / 15% / 70%).
    5. Under the Basics section, you can select which type of test you want to do.
    6. Here is an example for testing subject lines:In this example, 10% of your audience will receive subject line A, 10% will receive subject line B, and then 80% will receive whichever of those subject lines performed best.
    7. Ignore the personalized section.
    8. Design your HTML and text email.
    9. If the body of the email in both A and B testings is the same, then you can keep this selected until you are ready to send both tests to yourself.
    10. When you select +Add Test, you will then be able to toggle back and forth between the two A and B, and send individual test emails to yourself.
    11. NOTE: You must send individual test emails, if you send a test email for A, you will only receive A.
    12. Once the email is approved, you can schedule it.
  4. Scheduling an AB Winner Campaign
    1. Select Specific Time
    2. Select +Add Test at the top
    3. For both A and B you will need to choose a specific time for them to deploy. This can be at the same time, and then you will be able to monitor how both are performing.
    4. Once you have inputted these, hit Save & Continueimage.png
    5. Review the Summary and hit Schedule
    6. You will be able to view the progress of the send at the top.
    7. Once the email sending for A and B is complete, you will receive an email confirmation.
    8. Sailthru recommends to wait three hours in order for the testing to be complete before choosing a winner, however, depending on your list size and test, there may be an obvious winner in the testing before this timing is complete. Ultimately, this is up to you on when to go in and schedule the winner.
    9. You can go in and view the metrics of your send at anytime in order to determine how the test is performing.
  5. Selecting and scheduling the winner
    1. Once you feel that there is an obvious winner and/or have waited your desired time frame, you can choose the winner from the tests.
    2. Navigate back to the confirmation page in your email campaign.
    3. At the bottom of the page, there will be a ` next to each test that says SET AS WINNER. This will deploy the email.
    4. The remainder percent you previously set will now get the winner email.

3 Lists

  1. Creating a new list
    1. Navigate to Users > Audience Builder ​
    2. Depending on your assigned group, you will only be able to see lists that are affiliated with your group. For instance, Alabama can only see the Alabama list.image.png
    3. Select your source list. For the most part, this will be your entire list, from this you can build off particular queries.
    4. Creating lists by location or zip code. Note: you can also enter city name, however, zip code data is more accurate.
      1. On the left-hand side, under Custom Profile Fields (VARS), select Field: Exists, Contains, Isimage.png
    5. To create a list by zip code, type and select billing_postal_code into the Field
    6. Leave “is”
    7. In Value, enter your postal codes in quotes separated by pipes. Make sure the final zip code ends in a quote, not a pipe. Do not use any spaces. For example: "30301"|"30305"|"30317"
    8. You can use the tool https://psd-zippy.netlify.com/ to convert comma-separated zips to Sailthru format. You can do this for any field that has a string value (Check User Profile Custom fields to find the type)image.png
    9. Select DONE
    10. In the bottom right-hand corner, select SAVE AS SMART LIST
    11. Name the Smart List following the naming conventions guide: AffiliateCode Description. Affiliate lists MUST begin with their code and contain spaces, not dashes between each of the descriptors. See the naming convention guide.
      1. If it is a one-time list like a list of emails, then you must add the date.
        1. Example: FL 200210 EventSurveyimage.png
      2. For lists created by area, the description will be the city or counties. For example: FL AnnualLeadershipDayEvent
    12. Hit save
    13. You can also create a snapshot report of your list for more details on the specific list. It will open in a new window. Note: it will take around 10-15 minutes for this to load. image.png
  2. Creating lists by campaign.
    1. On the left-hand side, under Custom Profile Fields (VARS), select Field: Exists, Contains, Isimage.png
    2. Under field, type and select campaign_ids
    3. Keep is
    4. Type in your campaign ID or IDs in quotes, separated by pipes if you are using more than one. Make sure the final campaign ID ends in a quote, not a pipe.image.png
    5. Select DONE
    6. In the bottom right-hand corner, select SAVE AS SMART LIST
    7. Name the Smart List following the naming conventions guide: AffiliateCode Description. Affiliate lists MUST begin with their code and contain spaces, not dashes between each of the descriptors. See the naming convention guide.
    8. For lists created with a campaign ID, the Description will be the campaign name. For example: FL AnnualLeadershipDayEvent

4 Signatures

You can call pre-populated signatures that load the name and title, as well as the image and pronouns if we have that information. All templates have the ED as a signer.

You can call the signatures by using one of these variables:

  1. ed
  2. advo
  3. comms
  4. dev
  5. legal
  6. custom1
  7. custom2
  8. custom3

Example:

If you want to just use your affiliate name, remove the {signature = 'ed'} code.

5 Analytics

For a guide to analytics, review this document.

6 Litmus

For a guide to Litmus QA platform, review this document. This has not been rolled out to all DIY affiliates yet. Will be doing so in December 2021.

7 Questions

For questions regarding affiliate emails, reach out to cansupport@aclu.org.

For questions regarding fundraising emails, reach out to Sarah Bleviss sbleviss@aclu.org.

For questions or comments regarding this document, email Pavel Sanchez at psanchez@aclu.org.

8 Sailthru Variables

affiliation_name = ["affiliation_name"]

facebook_url = ["facebook_url"]

instagram_url = ["instagram_url"]

logo_url = ["logo_url"]

logo_width = ["logo_width"]

twitter_url = ["twitter_url"]

website_url = ["website_url"]

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