Validating Via Single Sender Verification

This is the easiest option, but it requires you to verify every from the address you wish to use and you may not see your email address properly in the from address since the emails will be sent based on SendGrid’s domains. (Users will see “via Sendgrid” next to your from address).

To get started with the validation process from your Sendgrid dashboard, select “Sender Authentication” from the side menu options.

Next, select the “Get Started” button to start the Single Sender Validation process.

On the next screen, enter the from email address you would like to use for your emails. You will also be required to enter your business address in order to comply with the CAN-SPAM act. After the changes are saved, you should receive a confirmation link to the email address you just connected to finalize the changes.

Verifying Via DNS

This option requires you add 3 CNAME DNS records, but has the benefit of covering all of the emails on your domain and will allow the from address to be properly displayed (This option removes the “via Sendgrid” in the from address). Long term, we would expect this to have the best deliverability as well. To get started, select the “Sender Authentication” from your Sendgrid dashboard.

Next, select “Authenticate Domain.”

On the next screen, select your DNS host from the drop-down menu and proceed to the next step.

Enter the domain that you would like to connect (the portion after the @ symbol in your email address).

Sendgrid will now generate 3 unique CNAME records for you to copy and paste into your DNS settings where your domain is being managed. Once the records are in place, click to “verify” the records. If the records were properly added, Sendgrid will display a message that everything is verified and ready to use. Otherwise, Sendgrid will display a specific error as to what needs your attention.

Have questions? Feel free to reach out to our support team at support@kickofflabs.com and we’d be happy to help!

The post Verifying Custom Email Domains in Sendgrid appeared first on KickoffLabs.

To do this simply click the link button, click the magnifying glass to find a page, and select the page you want to link to.

We’ll automatically add the users social ID to the links added this way so you don’t need to worry about that.

The post Link to Landing Pages in Automated Emails appeared first on KickoffLabs.

• Quality of email subject line and body
• Safety of links in email
• Presence or absence of images
• Ratio of images to text and links to text
• Relationship with subscriber

If you or your customers notice KickoffLabs emails ending up in the spam folder, here are some tips to help prevent that from happening.

Use your own custom domain email address.

You should always be sending email from your own custom domain email address. If you use a personal email address such as john@gmail.com or paul@aol.com, services like Yahoo will block your email. Why? Google and AOL tell them to.

Click here for more info on why & how to setup a custom domain email address.

Link your email to a trusted email provider.

In some cases, linking your email to a trusted email provider, like the ones included in our email domain best practices guide can improve the deliverability of emails. These usually have good sender reputations.

Try using a real ‘From Name’.

In some cases, using a From Name such as ‘MyBusiness.com’ can increase the chances of being filtered for spam. Reason being is the ‘.com’, which can be considered spammy text.

We recommend using a more personable From Name, such as ‘Josh at KickoffLabs’ or ‘KickoffLabs Team’. It’s a proven strategy to help increase open rates.

Watch your image to text ratio.

Using too many images in comparison to text can trigger a spam filter. You can still use images, but if you see any issue with emails ending up in the spam folder… try removing some images from your email.

Keep in mind that lots of email clients block images by default, so don’t rely heavily on these. If there’s any important information within images, be sure to place it as email body text as well.

Keep your email short and to the point.

In certain cases, more so when using our Advanced Fraud Prevention Confirmation Email, you may want to limit the amount of content within the email body.

Not only is this to limit the amount of potential spammy text, but to focus the reader on the primary conversion goal of the email.

Avoid unnecessary special characters & punctuation.

Spam filters automatically detect junk formatting, you should always avoid doing things like:

• WRITING IN ALL CAPS.
• using words like ‘free’, ‘cash’ or even just including dollar signs ($).
• using excessive punctuation!!!???, especially in your subject line.
• d0ing w3ird th1ngs with letters and numbers.
• using too many different font colors.
• using large font sizes (anything greater than 10pt or 12pt).

Include the correct required email information.

In compliance with the CAN-SPAM act, your emails must include 2 things: your physical address and a way for recipients to opt-out of future emails.

By default, KickoffLabs requires the postal address be set under your campaign’s Email Settings. The unsubscribe message is automatically included in all emails, you may edit this but do not attempt to hide the unsubscribe.

Ask signups to check their spam folder.

Consider using your viral thank you page to ask leads check their spam folder. Try adding a disclaimer text to the page copy saying something like:

“Be sure to check your inbox! If you do not receive an email within a few minutes, please check your Spam folder. If so, select the confirmation message and mark it Not Spam, which should allow future messages get through.”.

Ask signups to click the ‘Not Spam’ button.

If leads contact you about emails ending up in their spam folder, respond politely asking them to click the ‘Not Spam’ button within their email client.

Major ESP’s (Email Service Providers) will see this behavior and whitelist your emails. This can help build your long-term email reputation, especially if you’re a new business.

If you have any further questions on avoiding the spam folder, please email support@kickofflabs.com

The post What to do if KickoffLabs emails end up in the Spam folder? appeared first on KickoffLabs.

Customer Entered Form Information

These tokens are based on questions you asked on your lead capture form. Any custom fields you entered on your pages will appear here as tokens you can then use in your mailings.

Customer Social Links & Referral Data

These tokens are generated automatically for each customer to provide social share links & report on their influence. The unique referral ID will already be included for you, so there’s nothing you need to besides add the token to your page!

Here’s an example of how the Email message will look when you’re setting it up:

And when it’s sent your subscribers will see:

You can include a full row of share buttons (picture above – cannot be edited) or create your own row of custom share links/icons. Learn how HERE. If you’re running a campaign based around referrals, you can also insert and customize a progress checking link. More on that HERE.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, let us know at support@kickofflabs.com

The post KickoffLabs Email Tokens appeared first on KickoffLabs.

Link to Any Landing Page

Here we’ll demonstrate linking to a secondary thank you have used to host a leaderboard. This is useful if you have one page focussed on getting people to share and another on showing progress.

Link to Your Default Thank You Page

We also have a way to always link to your campaigns default thank you page. This is useful if you are testing different thank you pages and may delete one from time to time.

The general token for this link is {% thankyou_link %}

This will produce the raw link for that subscribers personal Thank You page (ex. https://www.yourthankyoupage.com/?kolid=123AB ), which, when clicked, will return them to their personal Thank You page to check their progress!

You can also personalize the token with text {% thankyou_link Check your status %} which will appear as Check your status in your mailing.

Learn more about what you can do with Email tokens at KickoffLabs!
Our full list of Email Tokens
Adding and Customizing Social Sharing Links

The post Inserting a Check Status or Progress Link in KickoffLabs Emails appeared first on KickoffLabs.

To include the full social sharing URL –

Add the following token to your Email wherever you want the link to appear – {% page_link %}

You can also include social media sharing icons in your KickoffLabs Emails. 

For a complete row of social media icons (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Email) use the {% share_buttons %} token. The icons in this token cannot be altered or removed, so if you’re looking for a more customized set of icons, read on!

To create custom share link tags:

{% share_twitter_link %} – Custom twitter share link.
{% share_facebook_link %} –  Custom Facebook share link.
{% share_googleplus_link %} –  Custom Google+ share link.
{% share_linkedin_link %} – Custom LinkedIn share link.
{% share_email_link %} –  Custom Email share link.

The above tokens can also be further customized with text or image buttons (for custom icons). If you’re going to use custom icon images, you’ll want to be sure they are all the same size. 24×24 or 32×32 is typically a good size for these icons.

You can view a full list of all of our Email tokens HERE or on the Auto-Reply and Reward Level Email Settings pages. Just scroll down!

• Many of the social media sites share Facebook’s open graph tags, which pull the share data directly from the URL being shared (usually your signup page). Learn how to update your Facebook share information.
• The Twitter and Email share text for auto-reply Emails must be updated separately. Learn how to update Twitter and Email text for auto-reply Emails here.
• Sharing a non-KickoffLabs page? Find our guide on updating your third-party open graph tags here.

For more assistance contact us at support@kickofflabs.com

The post Inserting & customizing social sharing links in KickoffLabs Emails appeared first on KickoffLabs.