You may have seen the recent change Google made that has impacted your emails: Gmail is stripping CSS from background images. This has thrown marketers and email developers for a loop – and Dyspatch has the workaround, and a solution for you. Google may eventually resolve this issue given its widespread impact, but this will patch you through until then.

Gmail is stripping CSS from background-images

So what’s happening? Gmail is the most commonly used email provider for many of our customers’ recipients, which makes this issue pesky and a high priority to resolve. Here’s what the issue looks like, in practice:

See the example below: on the left the image is behaving as expected, but on the right it’s being squished together!

Google is regularly rolling out updates to Gmail and this is likely part of a larger improvement that will eventually get resolved. We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, here’s what you can do to guarantee that your styles don’t get stripped and your emails look perfect every time.

The workaround:

Since Gmail is specifically targeting background-images set by CSS, we can use the background attribute on a table to sneak past its radar. Even though we aren’t using CSS to set the background image, we are still able to control its properties using CSS with the style attribute on our td like in the example posted below.

Sample

Code simplified for demonstration purposes

The solution: Try Dyspatch

Dyspatch customers benefit from the failsafe of DML – the Dyspatch Markup Language – which validates the code before you preview. 

The Dyspatch email builder ensures that folks who aren’t email HTML coding pros, or marketers who code on the side, can get the workaround. Want to know more? Connect with us for a custom demo today. 

What’s next?

As of posting this article, Google has not yet released a patch or fix, which they may, given the wide impact of this issue. That said, we’re keeping an eye out to ensure we keep you up to date. If you have any questions or would like to chat with our Dyspatch Email Heroes about options to get a perfect email every time, contact us at hello@dyspatch.io.

Update as of 2:18PM PST
Breaking news! As we published this post today, we learned that Google is planning to roll out a phased fix for this issue. Stay tuned for more…

The post Gmail is stripping CSS from background images appeared first on Dyspatch.

Current AI in Email Trends

There are many ways in which AI is currently being used to enhance email marketing campaigns. Here are some of the most notable trends:

1. Personalization: AI algorithms can analyze a subscriber’s behavior and preferences to create personalized email content that is tailored to their interests. This can include product recommendations, content suggestions, and even subject line customization. AI companies like Persado and Phrasee specialize in creating personalized subject lines and email copy that resonate with subscribers.
2. Automated segmentation: AI can help automate the process of segmenting email lists based on various criteria, such as demographics, interests, and behavior. This allows marketers to deliver targeted messages to specific groups of subscribers, resulting in higher engagement and conversions. Companies like Segment and ClearBrain provide AI-powered segmentation solutions that can help optimize email campaigns.
3. A/B testing: AI-powered A/B testing can help marketers determine the most effective subject lines, email content, and CTAs. By testing different versions of emails on a subset of subscribers, AI can quickly identify which versions perform best and optimize the campaign accordingly. Companies like Litmus and Phrasee offer AI-powered A/B testing solutions that can help increase email engagement and conversions.
4. Predictive analytics: AI algorithms can analyze data from past campaigns and subscriber behavior to predict future outcomes. This can help marketers anticipate which subscribers are most likely to make a purchase, which emails will perform best, and how to optimize future campaigns. AI companies like Canva and Fixie.ai specialize in predictive analytics solutions that can help optimize email campaigns and drive better results.

What Comes Next for AI in Email

While AI has already made significant strides in email marketing, there is still much potential for growth and innovation. Here are some of the ways we can expect to see AI continue to shape email marketing in the future:

1. Hyper-personalization: As AI becomes even more sophisticated, we can expect to see even more personalized email content that is tailored to each subscriber’s unique preferences and behaviors. This could include customized product recommendations, personalized images and videos, and even real-time dynamic content that updates based on the subscriber’s current location or browsing history. AI companies like Reflektion and AgilOne are leading the charge in hyper-personalization solutions for email marketing.
2. Voice integration: As voice assistants like Siri and Alexa become more ubiquitous, we can expect to see more email campaigns that are optimized for voice search. This could include audio versions of emails, voice-enabled CTAs, and even AI-powered voice assistants that can read and respond to emails on the subscriber’s behalf. AI companies like Cerence and Pindrop are already exploring the potential of voice-enabled email marketing.
3. Chatbots and conversational email: AI-powered chatbots are already being used to automate customer service interactions, and we can expect to see more of this technology integrated into email campaigns. This could include conversational emails that allow subscribers to interact with the brand directly within the email, as well as chatbots that can provide personalized recommendations and assistance. AI companies like Intercom and Drift are leading the way in conversational email and chatbot solutions.
4. Predictive personalization: In the future, AI algorithms may be able to anticipate a subscriber’s needs and preferences before they even express them. This could include predictive product recommendations, customized offers and promotions, and even real-time content that changes based

AI is already revolutionizing the way we approach email marketing, and there is no doubt that it will continue to play a significant role in the years to come. From hyper-personalization to voice integration, the possibilities for AI in email are virtually limitless. As marketers, it’s essential that we stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies so that we can continue to deliver effective and engaging email campaigns that resonate with our subscribers.

Thank you to ChatGPT for their assistance in authoring this blog post.

The post Chatbots, Conversational Email, and More: AI’s Impact on the Future of Email Marketing appeared first on Dyspatch.

For some of you, 2022 was a great year. For many of us around the world, however, it was a tough one. But despite all the challenges we’ve faced this year, the human race has stayed positive, we’ve been kind to each other, worked hard, and constantly tried to grow through our experiences.

To all of you out there reading this, we wanted to say: You are doing awesome. You are strong, unwavering in the face of adversity, and laser focused! You rocked 2022, and all of us here at Dyspatch can’t wait to see what you’re going to get up to in 2023.

Now let’s wrap this year up in classic tech startup style, with a ‘year in review’. Whaddya say?

Oh and before we dive in:

A look at our holiday hours and closures

Dyspatch will be closed from Friday December 23rd – Monday January 2nd. We will re-open for business on Tuesday January 3rd. The majority of our teams will be off, but our support and services teams will be available to help customers during normal business hours. So feel free to reach out and we’ll get back to you! 

How we improved Dyspatch for our customers this year

The Big One: Block Designer!

One of the most powerful facets of the Dyspatch email creation platform is the ability to drag-and-drop blocks to design your email. This functionality makes building an email without coding experience a breeze. 

But while we were—for the most part—a codeless experience, there was always one aspect of Dyspatch that required some email coding knowledge: building custom blocks.

That is, we’re very proud to say, no longer the case.

Introducing: Block Designer, which empowers you to 🔨 design your own custom blocks 🔨 in Dyspatch through the visual editor! 

But wait, there’s more!

Email Sending Platform Integrations:

In 2022 we added SEVEN new one-click integrations which empower Dyspatch customers to sync their created emails to various ESPs for sending! These integrations include:  

• HubSpot
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• GetResponse
• Klaviyo
• Pardot
• Customer.io
• Sendwithus
• See a full list of our ESP integrations

Other Integrations: 

Apart from our ESP integrations, we also added a couple of other powerful integrations, which enable you to streamline localization, and pipe your AMP email data to any tool in your tech stack! Those integrations are:

• Phrase for localizations
• Zapier for AMP data integration

Apps in Email:

One of the most popular features of Dyspatch is the ability to build and ship AMP-powered interactive inbox experiences. Imagine an app and an email had a baby. Well in 2022 we released six new AMP Apps in Email, including: 

• Poll in Email: New interactive poll directly in email
• SimplyBook.me: Interactive AMP-powered calendar booking app
• NPS in Email: Interactive NPS surveys in the inbox
• EasyPost: Interactive and live parcel tracking for email
• Review in Email: Collect product reviews and feedback through email
• Survey Builder: Build interactive surveys and forms directly into emails
• See a full list of our Apps in Email

Other Stuff:

Aside from all the great releases mentioned above, we also shipped a veritable TON of product enhancements and new features this year! Things like:

• New role-based permissions (+ custom roles for Enterprise customers)
• Easily target mobile or desktop resolutions with DML
• More design flexibility with editable style elements
• Ability to assign blocks to different themes
• Button styling on the theme level
• Downloadable PO files for localization
• Download email in PDF format
• Autocomplete variables in the rich text editor (just type /)
• Ability to copy/paste from docs and keep your links and formatting
• Tons of DML enhancements, like:
  • DML Documentation
  • Dys-row background colors
  • Dys-style in blocks
  • Dys-buttons letter spacing
  • Dys-img enhancements
  • Much more!
• For a full list of releases in 2022, check out our release notes

Aside from product enhancements, Dyspatch had a busy and exciting year. Let’s take a look at…

What else we got up to in 2022

Webinars

As we ramp up efforts to champion thought leadership around email marketing, we partnered with some top brands to host a number of educational webinars, including:

• 5 Ways to Skyrocket Email Engagement in 2022 — Zero Bounce
• Scale Your Email Marketing Strategy for Maximum ROI — Oracle & Really Good Emails
• 3 Interactive Apps to Win at Email in Healthcare
• The Importance of Multilingual Email Marketing & Localization — Smartling
• 10 Next Level Email Techniques to Increase Engagement
• How to Create Interactive Emails and Land Them to the Inboxes — Folderly

Email Templates

For those of you who aren’t using Dyspatch to build incredible emails yet, we still want you to have access to powerful email templates. That’s why we launched two new email template bundles that you can download and import into your ESP. These bundles each contain 3 complete sets of templates that speak to a variety of brands and use-cases. 

• Modern Mailer Bundle
• Clean & Classic Bundle

Blogs

From interviews with leading experts, to forward-thinking trends, to unique AMP projects, our blog covered a lot of ground in 2022. Here’s a sampling of our top articles of the year:

• Expert Email Marketing Advice from Chad S. White
• AMP for Email: Making a Blackjack Game for the Inbox
• 5 Biggest 2023 Email Marketing Trends to Start Right Now
• How to Animate your Gmail / Google Workspace Profile Picture
• Device Testing for Emails: How To Do it Right!
• What is Email Localization?

Product Shorts

Have you heard of our product shorts? They’re short videos that showcase functionality within Dyspatch, be it new features or best practices for existing features, our product shorts cover a lot of ground. Here are a few of the popular ones we released in 2022: 

• How To Use The Smartling Integration in Dyspatch
• Top 5 Email Clients You Should Preview and Why
• What is AMP (for email?)
• Localizing Emails with Dyspatch
• Dyspatch Block Designer

What’s to come in 2023?

Another big important aspect of 2022 at Dyspatch was our new “Product Jam” session. Product Jam is a weekly, company-wide meeting at Dyspatch, where engineering teams gather to learn about customer pain points, and prioritize feature requests to get built out. 

While we’ve only had one quarter with Product Jam thus far, it has created a tremendous amount of momentum with respect to supercharging the Dyspatch platform. That momentum is not going to stop! We already have a number of exciting updates on the roadmap for product Jam 2023, including (but not limited to): 

• A ton of DML updates
• New localization partners
• Approval workflow enhancements
• Upgrades to role-based permissions
• New starter themes

And lots more! It’s safe to say that there was no shortage of product enhancements in 2022, and we’re projecting far more releases in 2023. It’s a very good time to be a Dyspatch customer. 

We’ll also be kicking off the new year with an awesome new ebook — co-authored by us and our friends at Smartling — that deep dives into how you can localize and translate all of your marketing materials, from emails to websites to video subtitles and more. 

That’s going to be a juicy piece of content, so keep an eye out!

Not already familiar with how Dyspatch works and how it can improve your email marketing workflows? Why not schedule a quick demo with our sales team? 

—

From all of us at Dyspatch, we wanted to thank you for all of your support and patronage over the years. We are eternally grateful to you, and we wish you a very happy holiday season, and a wonderful start to your new year. 

Onwards and upwards, email geeks!

The post 2022: A Year in Review (and our Holiday Hours) appeared first on Dyspatch.

Annotated comments help get your templates to customers faster

Leaving a comment directly on any element, section, or feature of a template reduces back-and-forth communication during the template’s creation, and makes the approval process a cinch. Now, you can peg your comment directly on a CTA button to suggest new copy, below a hero image to assign a new placement for it, or on any of the template’s modules. 

Streamlining email notifications

The annotated comments also make it easier to manage your workflow in Dyspatch. Now, you can subscribe or unsubscribe to any comment thread within a template. This ensures that you only get the email annotations that are most meaningful to you in your email inbox.

Creating an annotated comment

You can add an annotated comment simply by entering comment mode in the Dyspatch visual editor and clicking anywhere in your template. A blue dot will appear and your comment will be visually appended to the element for added context. 

You can use Dyspatch’s rich text editor to add context and clarity to your comment. Type your comment, then click “Post”. With the comment in your email collaboration has never been easier.

All users in Dyspatch can create and reply to comments, regardless of their permission levels.

Save time, reduce errors

Reduce your review time and have more focused discussions with your stakeholders by writing in context comments!

Now that your comments in Dyspatch are more contextual to the contents, you’ll save time during the creation process.

Your team will also save time during approvals, as it’s quicker to see what’s changed and provide specific, actionable feedback. 

It’s one more way that we’re making it easy to streamline your workflow and keep everything in Dyspatch! No more following up with stakeholders over Slack or email to make sure a button has the right CTA or a footer has the latest social icon. 

Let us show you how annotated comments can help your team work better together in Dyspatch! 

The post Collaborate like a Pro with Annotated Comments — Now Live in Dyspatch appeared first on Dyspatch.

As always, we’d love to hear from you about the features you love and the features you want to see in the future. 

Not using Dyspatch yet? If your team needs a tool to take control of interactive email experiences, get in touch! We’re now offering free trial access or a custom demo, whichever you prefer.  

Or Contact Us for a customized demo

New in Dyspatch: Template Themes

We are excited to release Dyspatch Themes. Themes will guarantee:

• Faster email creation
• Better collaboration
• Fewer errors
• Block that are designed to be used in emails together, stay together!

Themes can be applied to any group of templates to guarantee that they’re all using the correct background colors, header, footer, and all match your design requirements.  

Try themes now with a free Dyspatch trial!

Seamlessly export your templates

We built Dyspatch to be outside the critical path of sending emails. This gives you a lot of flexibility to safely experiment without touching critical user data. 

Once your template is approved and tested, it’s easier than ever to get the template to your ESP and out to your customers.

One change to rule them all!

Apply a change in one module to impact all your templates

Maybe you’ve been there: one of your shared elements such as your legal footer has a broken link. To fix it will require updating every template currently using that footer module. You’ll have to spend hours updating and testing every template.

Not any more! Dyspatch now offers a way to globally apply the changes to a module in all templates that use it. The fix is a few quick clicks away, not hours of work. 

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Upcoming Webinar

Meet the team and stay informed about the latest email trends in the Intro to Modular Email Design Webinar

Have you been wondering about how you can level-up your emails using modular design? Modular design will empower you to triple engagement from your customers, and with Dyspatch you can leverage new email techniques in your modules, like carousels and video, without having to write any code. 

Register now and discover how to benefit from using modular design for email creation. 

We’ll also cover how the Dyspatch drag and drop Visual Editor makes it easy to use advanced email techniques without having to write a single line of code. 

Join the Dyspatch email experts this September and learn the skills you need to get started. 

Reserve your spot! 10:00am PST Thursday September 26, 2019.

The post What’s New in Dyspatch – September 2019 appeared first on Dyspatch.

Recent research found that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize and remember them well enough to provide relevant offers and recommendations. If your business has a loyalty program, you have the data that will allow you to provide exactly that, to the nth degree.

Read the full post to learn more about:

Connecting loyalty data and purchase history:

Connected data will allow you to tailor loyalty offers to each individual customer’s purchase patterns — no matter how loyal a customer might be, there’s simply no point in offering them a deal on something they’ll never buy.

When you customize your loyalty offers based on purchase history, your customers are far more likely to both appreciate and take advantage of them.

Surfacing loyalty status online and in-app:

If you connect your loyalty program to your app (if you have one) and/or your website, and encourage your customers to sign in before browsing, you will be able to present loyalty offers while the customer is shopping.

Connecting your loyalty program with your website/app experience will also allow you to surface program benefits available to a user while they’re actively making a purchase decision.

Tying it all together in emails:

Tie your integrated data together to personalize loyalty emails, marketing emails, and transactional emails.

Your transactional emails are the perfect place to encourage sign-ups for your loyalty program.

Once your loyalty program data is sufficiently integrated, you’ll also be able to go a step further to personalize the content and offers presented in digital receipts and shipping confirmations based on both the customer’s purchase history and their loyalty status.

You might be thinking you already do all this. But loyalty emails are almost never personalized based on purchase history, just as transactional and marketing emails are rarely personalized based on loyalty status.

Personalizing both types of emails, based on all sources of data, can put you that much closer to true, one-to-one personalization.

Read the full post to learn how, including examples.

The post How to Fuel Personalization with Loyalty Data appeared first on Dyspatch.

Update: Sendwithus Trial is now called Sendwithus Basic and Sendwithus Enterprise is now known as Sendwithus Premium. 

Our goal has always been simple pricing that grows with our customers and we’re continuing that tradition with our first pricing change since January, 2017.

Sendwithus Lite remains a usage-based plan, starting at $150 per month for up to 1,000 recipients/month. We will continue to offer a free Trial plan for users who send less than 1,000 emails per month, to up to 100 recipients. (For more details, see our FAQ below)

I’m a current customer, what does this mean for me?

Current Sendwithus Lite customers are unaffected. You will continue at your current pricing, however, should you change plans in the future, you will not be able to return to the discontinued plan.

Current Trial plan customers who exceed the new Trial plan email and recipient thresholds (1000 and 100, respectively) will need to upgrade to the Sendwithus Lite Plan. Current Trial Plan customers who send less than 1,000 emails per month, to fewer than 100 recipients, will see no change.

I’m a current customer on a Legacy Plan – what does this mean for me?

Legacy Business and Growth plan customers are also unaffected. You will continue at your current pricing.

All other plans are being discontinued effective November 30, 2018. All customers currently on the discontinued plans will be migrated to the new Sendwithus Lite plan effective December 1, 2018.

FAQ

What is Sendwithus Lite?

Sendwithus Lite is a complete package to handle your transactional and lifecycle email needs. It’s designed to scale affordably with your usage.

Why the changes?

This pricing increase, our first in almost two years, reflects increasing costs associated with doing business.

Can I still use Live Chat?

Live Chat will still be available within the app for all paid plans, including Sendwithus Lite, Enterprise, and Legacy Business and Growth Plans. Sendwithus Trial accounts (free), will continue to have access to our support team via email.

Are recipients unique over the month? E.g. If we email x@y.com 100 times a month, is that considered 1 recipient?

In this example, 100 emails to the same address are considered 1 recipient. However, if you sent the same number of emails (100) to each of 11 recipients (for a total of 1,100 emails), you would not exceed the recipient threshold, but you would exceed the Trial Plan maximum of 1,000 emails per month. In that scenario, it would be necessary to upgrade to Sendwithus Lite.

What do I need to do to be ready for the change?

If you are on a discontinued legacy plan, your plan will be automatically switched to the new plan on November 30, 2018.

How do I apply the coupon?

1. Sign in to your Sendwithus account.
2. From the drop-down menu at the top right, select ‘Billing’.
3. Click the Update Credit Card button.
4. Re-enter your credit card details.
5. Enter your code in the Coupon Code field at the bottom of the screen (image below). 
6. Click the Save Credit Card Info button.

Note: You must re-enter your card details in order for the coupon code to be saved and applied.

The post Announcing Sendwithus Pricing Updates appeared first on Dyspatch.

First, we’ve simplified user roles and permissions for everyone on your team, streamlining your Dyspatch workflows to achieve approval faster.

And second, we’ve established a new way for your team to collaborate on templates and snippets, called Workspaces. Workspaces make accessing, editing, reviewing, and approving templates quick, accurate, and safe for everyone on the team.

With these two changes, you’ll be able to reduce the turnaround time for getting your templates approved, published, and out to customers. You’ll also have a better overview of who in your organization has ownership of each of the steps involved.

How Workspaces streamline your team’s workflow:

• Quick and easy — With clearly defined roles, and permission levels ranging from read-only to full administrator privileges, it’s quicker and easier for teams to manage new user onboarding, team workflows, and template creation, management, and approval processes.
• Secure — WIth Workspace-specific permissions, your team members have access only to the templates they need, making it easier for you to grant or restrict access to critical emails.
• Designed for scale — Dyspatch helps improve efficiency, drive quality, and free up team members to stay focused on continuous improvement. An additional benefit is the ability to effectively manage consistency, in both branding and messaging, across teams.

How updated permissions help your organization get more out of Dyspatch:

• Built for teams — The Organization Administrator can easily onboard new team members, as well as edit, review, and approve templates. We’ve also created the role of Workspace Owner, to make it easier to manage cross-team collaboration without the need to create an excessive number of Org Admins.  
• Flexibility and performance — Our platform allows large organizations to securely manage users, assets, and templates across all teams. Dyspatch empowers users to make and see content edits in real time, as well as push those edits into production in real time upon approval/publishing.

Workspaces:

An organization can have a maximum of 20 Workspaces, plus one snippet folder. Snippets are accessible across the organization.

Organization Administrators have full access, with full permissions, to all Workspaces within the organization. Only Organization Administrators can create Workspaces.

Workspace Owners, Editors, and Viewers can access only Workspaces to which they have been added.

Each Workspace can have a maximum of 20 template folders.

Each Workspace can have a total number of folders and templates (combined) of up to 1000 items.

Permissions are Workspace-specific and apply to all templates and folders within that Workspace.

Roles and Permission Levels:

Permissions are Workspace-specific, with the exception of Organization Administrators, who have full access to all Workspaces within the Organization.

Organization Administrators and Workspace Owners can add or remove Workspace collaborators, as well as update permissions for existing collaborators.

Organization Administrators and Workspace Owners can also approve email templates.

“We want to allow even non-engineers the ability to edit emails but we don’t want them to be able to break our production system… Dyspatch is a good balance between giving people privileges to customize emails while safeguarding our production system against anyone making mistakes.”

 – Dave G., Chief Architect & Head of Growth at Urbandoor

If you’d like to know more about Dyspatch, please contact us@dyspatch.io.

The post Dyspatch Product Update – Introducing Workspaces appeared first on Dyspatch.

Dyspatch is an email production platform that allows Enterprise organizations to create compelling email experiences on a massive scale. Designed to help companies realize the full potential of their transactional emails while reducing complexity, Dyspatch’s powerful API, visual editor, and built-in device testing allow for cutting-edge email strategy and execution, all while maintaining brand consistency and legal compliance across distributed digital messaging teams. Enterprise users of Dyspatch were able to reduce the time to create or revise transactional email from weeks to hours, allowing them to efficiently and continuously optimize content.

“When we set out to create Dyspatch, we were looking to deliver a solution that would address real pain points around production time, developer dependency, and brand compliance faced by Enterprises when creating transactional emails,” said Matt Harris, co-founder and CEO of Sendwithus, the company behind Dyspatch. “This recognition demonstrates that Dyspatch is a unique, meaningful addition to the Enterprise marketing stack, one that puts the power of triggered and transactional email into the hands of product, marketing, and customer experience teams, allowing them to create and change email faster.”

The mission of the MarTech Breakthrough Awards is to honor excellence and recognize the innovation, hard work, and success in a range of marketing, sales, and advertising technology related categories, including marketing automation, market research, customer experience, AdTech, SalesTech, marketing analytics, content and social marketing, mobile marketing, and many more. This year’s program attracted more than 2,000 nominations from over 12 different countries throughout the world.

Dyspatch is joined in the winner’s circle by industry leaders, including Adobe Creative Cloud, Salesforce, Marketo, and HubSpot.

The post Dyspatch Wins 2018 MarTech Breakthrough Award for Best Email Marketing Solution for Enterprise appeared first on Dyspatch.