How to Build your First Broadcast in Customer.io

Email marketing is one of the best ways to convert your audience and keep in touch with them. The key is to provide valuable content to support them in their journey or highlight the ways they can save with your brand.

To create your first Broadcast, or one-time email, click on the “Broadcast” tab in the left-hand menu bar. These emails will be focused on announcements or your newsletter and only go out once.

Here you’ll see all your Broadcasts including those previously sent, scheduled, and drafted. Once you’ve sent broadcasts you’ll also be able to see analytics here. Click on the Create Broadcast in the upper right-hand corner to create a new email.

You’ll want to start off by naming this email something that makes sense to your organization. The name of the email will not be shown to the customers, this is for your organization only. Then click on Newsletter under Type of Broadcast and Create Broadcast in the bottom right-hand corner.

You’ll now be able to choose whether this email is meant for a specific segment you’ve already built-in segments or for your entire email list. {Marketing Tip: The more specific an audience is targeted in emails the better they perform.} Once you make your selection hit Save and then Next in the upper right-hand corner.

In the content section of your Broadcast, you’ll want to choose email. Once you select email, a Content box will appear. This is your email. Hover over the box and click to edit your email.

You’ll be taken to an area to choose your template. As you start building out emails, past emails will also show up here so that you can take designs that you’ve already created and reuse them over and over again. Click on the design you'd like to use and either “Preview” it or click “Create Email” to start editing.

Once in the email, you’ll need to update your Subject line to remove any errors you’re receiving. On the right of the subject line, you can add preview text which is the text seen next to the subject line in your inbox.

From here it’s all drag and drop to create the email of your dreams. Use the content elements on the right to add images, text, buttons, and dividers. You can even embed videos or include your social links.

By Clicking on an element of your email you’ll be given more options to update an image, change the color of text, add a link, and adjust the sizing of things.

A key thing to remember when it comes to linking images is that the first URL box in the Content Properties is for the image. (You’ll see the “Change Image” button above it.) When you scroll to the bottom of the properties menu you’ll see a spot to “Link Image”. Add your website link there.

To create columns in a single row that allow for a different number of elements select “Rows” in your content box. Drag and drop the style of the row you’d like into your email.

Before you send out your email, you can click the “Preview” tab in the upper left-hand corner next to “Content”. This gives you a live view of what it will look like both on a desktop and on mobile. Click on your links to ensure they’re going to the right place or choose the “Actions” drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner to send a test to your team.

Once you are satisfied with your email you can click “Save” in the upper right-hand corner and then “Back to Content”. From the content page choose “Next” in the right-hand corner to set your goal.

If you’d like to track conversions from your emails you’ll want to set up a goal here. Goals are defined as a customer entering a specific segment and only 1 goal can be set per broadcast. You’ll select a segment you’ve already created here or choose “Skip Goal” if there is no conversion goal for this email. Conversions are only used as a measurement to see how well your email performed based on what purchases you wanted your customers to make.

{Marketing Tip: In the Segment Tab on your menu you can build segments based on passes, subscriptions, performances and so much more. The more you can track conversions the better you’ll be able to define the success of your emails. Whenever possible, add a conversion goal to your emails}

Once you’ve defined your goal or chosen to skip the goal, you can click “Save” and “Next”.

Now it’s time to review your email before it’s sent out. When you’re happy with the finished product you can send it now or choose to schedule the email at a later time.

And there you have it, you’ve created your first Broadcast.