You searched for wysiwyg - Interspire https://www.interspire.com/ Self-hosted Email Marketing Software with no limits, all features, one price. Thu, 14 Dec 2023 14:25:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://www.interspire.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/cropped-favicon-32x32.png You searched for wysiwyg - Interspire https://www.interspire.com/ 32 32 How to Import Email Templates into Interspire https://www.interspire.com/how-to-import-email-templates-into-interspire/ Fri, 22 Jul 2022 02:03:27 +0000 https://www.interspire.com/?p=2889 Interspire Email Marketer has a collection of built-in email templates that can be used for your email campaigns. However, Interspire Email Marketer is a flexible enough system that if you already have email templates or use email editors such as DragIt or Bee, it is easy to integrate those templates into your campaigns. Here is ... Read more

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]]> Interspire Email Marketer has a collection of built-in email templates that can be used for your email campaigns. However, Interspire Email Marketer is a flexible enough system that if you already have email templates or use email editors such as DragIt or Bee, it is easy to integrate those templates into your campaigns. Here is how.

Import Options

Templates can be imported either as a custom template or directly as a campaign. The first way is through the “Templates” link in the toolbar. This method would be used to import a template that will be used over and over again in different campaigns. The second is through the “Email Campaigns” tab in the navigation bar and will usually be used when a template is to be used immediately in a campaign. 

The steps in importing a template through these two options are essentially the same but for a few details. The “Templates” link will let you go through the process of customizing, editing and saving your content and design for future use, while the “Email Campaigns” tab will go through the process of sending out an email campaign.

Importing as a Custom Template

  1. Click on the “Templates” link in the toolbar and select “Create a Custom Template.” 
Toolbar
  1. Enter the template name. 
  2. When choosing the template format, it is recommended to select “HTML and Text”. 
  3. Select the “No Template” option then click the “Next” button.
  1. Choose the “Upload a file from my computer” for your HTML content. 
  2. Click “Choose File”, locate and select the file you want to import, and click “Open”. If the template is referencing external images, they will need to be added separately using the WYSIWYG editor.
  3. Click the “Upload” button to start importing. The imported template will now be displayed inside the WYSIWYG email editor. If necessary, edit its content before moving on to the next step.
  4. Update the text content as appropriate.
  5. Validate your email, and configure the miscellaneous options.
  • Activate Template – tick this box if you want to mark it as active and use it to create email campaigns or autoresponders. 
  • Global Template – tick this box if you want all users to see it when creating an email campaign or autoresponders. 
  1. Click the “Save” or “Save and Exit” button to save your newly created customized email template. Or click “Cancel” to exit without saving. 

The template will now be listed as a Custom Email Templates. You can select it and use it as often as required when creating an email campaign:

Custom Email Template List

Email Campaigns Tab

  1. Click the “Email Campaigns” tab and select “Create an Email Campaign”. 
  1. Enter the email campaign name. 
  2. Select “HTML and Text” for the email campaign format. 
  3. Select the “No Template” option then click the “Next” button to start creating your email content.
  4. Enter the email subject. 
  5. Choose the “Upload a file from my computer” for your HTML content. 
  6. Click “Choose File”, locate and select the file you want to import, and click “Open”. Images will need to be uploaded separately.
  7. Click the “Upload” button to start importing. The imported template will now be displayed inside the WYSIWYG email editor. 
Restobar Wysiwyg
  1. Start editing the content of the template you have imported for your email campaign. 

Before sending to your contact list, validate the email campaign and test it by sending it to your own email account.

Once everything is set and you were able to confirm the readiness of your email campaign, you are now ready to send it.

Importing custom email templates is an essential feature of email marketing automation tools. Interspire Email Marketer is no exception and allows you to easily import templates to be used in your email campaigns.

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]]> Sending Your First Email Campaign https://www.interspire.com/sending-your-first-email-campaign/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 09:32:13 +0000 https://www-1.interspire.com/?p=93 Sending your first email campaign is a simple task but requires some initial setup before we can proceed. Follow the simple steps below and you’ll be sending your first email campaign in no time. Step 1. Create your contact list A contact list is a collection of your contacts details. It includes their email address ... Read more

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]]>

Sending your first email campaign is a simple task but requires some initial setup before we can proceed. Follow the simple steps below and you’ll be sending your first email campaign in no time.

Step 1. Create your contact list

A contact list is a collection of your contacts details. It includes their email address and any optional fields such as Name, Title, Country which you can create. When sending out an email newsletter, you send it to a contact list which means everyone on that list will receive the email.

Create Contact List

To create a contact list, click the “Create a Contact List” option under the “Contact Lists” tab.

Note that your administrator may have already created a contact list for you. To check to see if a contact list already exists, click on the “View Contact Lists” option from the menu options.

Step 2. Create custom fields (optional)

Custom fields allow you to collect extra information about your contacts, such as First Name, Last Name, Mailing Address, etc. You can create as many custom fields as you like and you can use them in the content of your newsletter.

Custom fields need to be created before you create your subscription form as they are included as fields that can be filled in by your web site visitors along with their email address. More on this later.

Agettingstarted 2

To create a custom field, click the “View Custom Fields” option under the “Contact Lists” tab.

Step 3. Add/import contacts

Before you can send a newsletter you need someone to send it to. In step 1 we created a contact list. In this step we will look at 3 different ways you can add contacts to your contact list:

1. Import contacts from a file

If you already have a list of contacts in a file on your computer, you can upload that file into the system and add the contacts to your new contact list. To start, you will need to export your contact list from your other mailing program. You should export your contact list into a CSV (comma separated value) file. A CSV file will contain a list of your contacts details in a line-by-line format, such as:

user1@example.com,Inboxing Expert,Y,20230101
user2@example.com,Segmentation Master,Y,20231014
user3@example.com,Email Emperor,Y,20220706

Move your mouse over the “Contacts” tab and click the “Import Contacts” option, as shown below:

Import Contact

To import contacts from a file, click the “Import Contacts” option under the “Contacts” tab.

This will start the “Import Contacts” wizard. Choose the contact list you want to import contacts to and click the “Next >>” button.

The example import file above includes three records, and each record is separated with a new line. Each record contains four fields, and each field is separated with a comma. The CSV file will typically have a .CSV or .TXT file extension. Start by clicking on the “Browse…” button in the form to select your CSV file from your hard drive:

Agettingstarted 4

To import contacts from a file, click the “Browse…” button to choose the file.

If your import file contains a line of headers like this:

EMAIL,TITLE,EMPLOYED,DATE
user1@example.com,Inboxing Expert,Y,20230101
user2@example.com,Segmentation Master,Y,20231014
user3@example.com,Email Emperor,Y,20220706

Make sure you tick the “Yes, this file contains headers” checkbox. Click the “Next >>” button to proceed to the next step.

You will now be asked to map the fields from the imported file to the fields in the system. Simply click the dropdown box next to each field that was found in the file and match it up to the field in the system. Click the dropdown next to each imported field to map it to the appropriate field in the system.

Click the “Next >>” button when you are done. Finally, click the “Start Import” button. Your contacts will be imported one by one and the popup window that appears will show you how many contacts have been imported and how many remain. You will see a final report when all contacts have been imported:

Agettingstarted 6

The final screen will tell you how many contacts were imported. It will also tell you if your contact file contained bad data.

2. Type in contacts manually

If you only have a handful of contacts to add to your list, you can use the “Add Contact” form to add them in manually. Move your mouse over the “Contacts” tab and click the “Add Contact” menu option:

Import Contact2

To add contacts by typing them in, click the “Add a Contact” option under the “Contacts” menu.

Choose a contact list to add contacts to and click the “Next >>” button. Fill out the form by typing in their email address and values for any custom fields you’ve created for the contact list.

Agettingstarted 8

Complete the form to add a contact to the selected contact list.

When you’re done, click “Save” to save the contact to the contact list and add another contact. Click “Save And Exit” to add the contact and return to the main page of the system.

3. Create a subscription form for your web site

If you want to offer visitors to your web site a way to signup to your contact list, you can create a subscription form in the system to add to your site. You will need to have a little experience with HTML to add the form to your web site.

To get started, click the “Website Forms” link shown in the top right-hand corner of the system. This will take you to the “Manage Website Forms” page. Website forms are special forms that you can create. You can create website forms to accept contacts, for someone to unsubscribe, modify their subscription details or send an email campaign to their friends.

Click the “Create Form” button to create a form. Type in a form name and make sure you choose the “Subscription” option from the “Form Type” dropdown. If you aren’t sure what any of the fields are, just move your mouse over the help icon next to that field:

Agettingstarted 9

Creating a form to accept contacts from your web site is easy.

Click the “Next >>” button. Depending on which form options you chose, you may or may not be required to enter more details. Again, if you are unsure of anything just move your mouse over the help icon next to the field and read the help text.

Once you’ve created your form you’ll be taken back to the “Manage Website Forms” page. Simply click the “Get HTML” link next to your new form and paste that code into your website to add the subscription form to your site.

Step 4. Create your email campaign

The most important part of your campaign is the email you will send to your contact list. Let’s now look at how to create a simple email campaign by choose a professionally pre-designed email template from those included in the system.

Move your mouse over the “Email Campaigns” tab and click the “Create Email Campaign” menu option:

Creare Email Campaign

Creating a simple email campaign in the system.

Complete the “Create Email Campaign form”. Choose “HTML” for the format. In this example we will create a basic HTML-only newsletter with graphics and formatted text. Finally, choose one of the professionally pre-designed email templates from the “Email Template” box. Use the preview link to view all of the templates. Click the “Next >>” button when you’re done.

Agettingstarted 11

Creating an email campaign using one of the many included professionally designed email templates in the system.

When the next page loads, type in a subject line for your email campaign. This is the text contacts will see when they look at the emails in their inbox, so make it short and to the point. Scroll down the page and you will see the email editor. You can type in text content for your email here. In this example we’ll just copy and paste a few paragraphs of text from Microsoft Word using the editor’s “Paste From Word” function:

Agettingstarted 12

Creating the content of your email using the built-in WYSIWYG editor.

Under the email editor you will see two links: Insert Custom Fields and Insert Unsubscribe Link. You should always include an unsubscribe link in your email, and if you don’t the system will warn you when it saves.

To insert the value of a custom field in your newsletter just click the “Insert Custom Fields” link:

Agettingstarted 13

Inserting a custom field into your email campaign’s content.

Choose the custom field you want to add and click the “Insert” button next to it. The custom field will be added to your content and will be represented by a placeholder variable, such as %%Email%% or %%First Name%%. When the email is sent, these values will be replaced with real values from your contact list. For example, %%Email%% might be replaced with user1@somesite.com and %%First Name%% might be replaced with John.

Complete the “Attachments” section of the form if you want to include file attachments with your email campaign. Before clicking the “Save And Exit” button to move on, send a preview of your email using the “Send Preview” section of the form.

Congratulations, you’ve just created your first email campaign! Let’s now move on to send it to your contact list of contacts.

Agettingstarted 14

Congratulations, you’ve just created your first email campaign!

Step 5. Send your email campaign

Sending your email campaign in the system is easy. Let’s look at how to send a campaign straight away using the build in popup window sending system. If your administrator has setup scheduled sending you can also use that too.

To send your campaign click the “Send an Email Campaign” link under the “Email Campaigns” menu:

Send Email

Sending an email campaign using the popup window method

When the page loads choose the contact list you want to send your campaign to. For this example, uncheck the “Yes, show filtering options on the next page” checkbox. That’s an advanced option and isn’t needed when you’re just getting started. Click “Next >>” to continue.

On the next step choose the email campaign you want to send from the dropdown list and leave all pre-selected options as they are and click “Next >>”. The default options of tracking links and notifying the owner by email are fine. You can change any form options if you like.

Agettingstarted 16

Getting ready to send an email campaign using the popup window method

Finally, click the “Start Sending” button to send the email campaign to your contacts.

Agettingstarted 17

Sending an email campaign using the popup window method

When the window closes, the email has been sent to all contacts in the contact list. Check your inbox too, because as the owner of the list you will receive a notification that the campaign has just finished sending.

Congratulations, you’ve just created and sent your first email campaign!

The post Sending Your First Email Campaign appeared first on Interspire.

]]> Custom Fields & Mail Merge https://www.interspire.com/custom-fields-mail-merge/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 09:10:23 +0000 https://www-1.interspire.com/?p=76 What are custom fields and why/how would I use them? Custom Fields or Mail Merge Fields are used by you to personalise your emails to your customers. You can also use these fields to filter your sends so that only particular contacts receive the email depending on the details that they have saved for themselves. ... Read more

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]]> What are custom fields and why/how would I use them?

Custom Fields or Mail Merge Fields are used by you to personalise your emails to your customers. You can also use these fields to filter your sends so that only particular contacts receive the email depending on the details that they have saved for themselves.

How do I create custom fields?

The first step in using custom fields is to have a contact list created. When you have created this contact list you can then go to the menu option ‘Contact List’ and select ‘View Custom Field’ from there.

This will bring you to a page for viewing, editing and creating any custom fields you have already created or are planning on creating. Here you will need to select the ‘Create a Custom Field’ button.

This will start you through the creation process. You will have to select the type of custom field you want and name it so that you can use it in your Email Campaigns and Autoresponders. If you select to make the field ‘Mandatory’ your users will not be able to complete the form without entering these details.

The types of custom fields are:

  • Text Field – Use this to gather small amounts of information about your contacts. This could be their First Name or Last Name etc. You can then use this custom field to personalise your emails by opening with something such as ‘Dear %%First Name%%’.
  • Multiline Text Field – This type of custom field is good for gathering larger amounts of data from your contacts such as having them send you comments on your products or service. (If you set the website form you create to ‘Emulate a contact form’ you will be sent an email with these comments when any user fills out the form).
  • Numbers Only – Using this type of custom field can be good for gathering information such as phone numbers.
  • Dropdown List – This type of custom field allows your user to select only one option from a predefined list of options. You could use this to ask for your users title such as Mr, Mrs or Miss.
  • Check Box – Check boxes allow your users to select multiple options. You could use this to request information on what your users favorite things are such as their favorite style of music. This will then allow you to filter your email sends to only those users that have selected Rock and those that have selected Jazz rather then sending irrelevant information to those users that do not like these genres.
  • Radio Button – You can use this in just the same fashion as the dropdown list but have it set out differently in your form. It will still only allow your contact to select one option from a predefined list.
  • Date Field – Using a date field will allow you to gather information such as Birthdays of your users.

When you have selected your type of custom field and named it you can move onto the next step. This step will have options such as ‘Default Value’, ‘Field Length’, ‘Start Date’ and so on. The most important of these is the Default Value. You can use this so that if your contact does not enter a value but you still wish to use this custom field in your email campaigns you do not have to worry about emails looking strange.

If you send an email that states ‘Dear %%First Name%%,’ and your user has supplied the name John you will send an email that reads ‘Dear John,’. If you have set a Default value of ‘Friend’ and your contact does not save his/her name your email will then read ‘Dear Friend,’ rather then ‘Dear ,’.

Viewing and editing your custom fields.

To view what details are stored in your contacts custom fields you have 2 options. The first is to export your contact list and view the list of contacts as a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. To do this you simply have to select ‘Contacts->Export Contacts to a File’ from the menu. When you do this you will be given the option to select which contact list you wish to export and which custom fields associated with that contact list to include in this export.

The second option is to view the list of contacts through the ‘Contacts->View Contacts’ menu. When you have found the contact that you wish to view/edit the detials of simply select the ‘Edit’ link next to their email address and you will be shown the information that that particular contact has saved on themselves.

If this method of editing contact information is too slow then you can either import the contact list again with updated information, choosing to update the current information to the imported file, or you can send a ‘Modify Details Form’ to your contacts.

Using your Custom Fields in your Email Campaigns and Autoresponders.

When you create your email campaigns and autoresponders you will see an option, in the WYSIWYG editor, below the WYSIWYG editor and below the text box for text based email content, that reads ‘Insert Custom Field’. When you select this option you will be presented with a pop up window that contains a list of all the built in custom fields and then a listing of all the user created custom fields listed by contact list.

When you decide which custom field that you wish to insert into your email campaign, click the insert link and it will be placed where the cursor was located.

This will look similar to %%Custom Field Name%% when you insert this into your email campaign. When you send your email to your contact list any details that they have saved for those custom fields will be inserted into the email in replacement of the %%Custom Field Name%%

Remember that sending a test email campaign will not replace the custom fields. Your emails will still come through with the custom field place holders to show what your email would look like.

Another thing that you should make sure to remember is that custom fields are associated with contact lists. This means that if you send an email to a contact list that the custom fields are not associated with they will not be replaced and your email will not look correct. Be sure to use custom fields for the mailing list that you intend to send it to.

How can I add custom fields to my newsletters or templates created outside of Interspire Email Marketer, eg. in Frontpage or Dreamweaver?

Simply copy the tags used in Interspire Email Marketer into your HTML file to add these custom fields.

So to begin, create a dummy newsletter in Interspire Email Marketer and click on the “Insert Custom Field” option. A new window will pop open with a list of the custom field options you can enter. Simply copy and paste the custom field you would like to use in your newsletter.

eg. %%UNSUBSCRIBE%%

Keep in mind however, that when you preview a newsletter, i.e. Send it to yourself using the preview option, the custom fields will not be parsed, because your preview email address does not contain the custom fields. In order for the custom fields, including unsubscribe to work, you must send the newsletter out to a contact list. If you’d like to test this, simply create a test contact list, add yourself as a contact and send the newsletter to that contact list.

Why do my custom fields not show up when I send a test email or autoresponder?

Your test emails will only display the place holders for your custom fields as there is no contact list or contact linked to the test email for Interspire Email Marketer to draw the information from.

If you wish to see what your email will look like with your custom fields filled in you can add yourself to the contact list that you are sending to and then send yourself an email from there. This will display your own information in place of the place holders.

Using your Custom Fields with Website Forms.

When you create a website form using a contact list that you have created custom fields for you will be shown a list of those custom fields that you can then choose to include in your form.

Adding these fields to your forms will allow your contacts to inform you of their details and modify them via a modify details form.

Do you handle merging of information in order to send personalized e-mails?

Yes. You can create custom fields such as ‘Name’, ‘Address’, ‘Date of Birth’, ‘Phone Number’ or even ‘Preferred Food’ that you could set up as multiple check boxes.

You can set up default details for these custom fields so that they have default values so that your emails never send out blank fields. ie Dear Friend if they do not add their name.

Or you could use the check box fields to send emails to all your contacts that like Roast Meals.

If my contacts don’t enter their first name what happens to their custom fields?

When you create your custom field you can set up a default value for that custom field. If you choose then not to make the field mandatory, then it will be set as the default if the contact does not enter their own details.

By this I mean, if you set up a custom field ‘First Name’ and set the default value as ‘Friend’ then if your contacts do not add their first name it will be saved as ‘Friend’.

When you then create your email campaign and enter ‘Dear %%First Name%%’ then you will always have a name displayed in your email. Either: ‘Dear John’ or ‘Dear Friend’

Can I add custom fields to my Email subject lines?

Yes you can. You simply need to add the correct place holder such as ‘%%First Name%%’ in your subject line and they will be replaced when the email is sent.

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]]> Email Templates https://www.interspire.com/email-templates/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 09:08:53 +0000 https://www-1.interspire.com/?p=72 Email Templates FAQ: What you can do to make full use of your email templates. Creating your email campaigns will never be the same again once you start using the template system to its full effect. This guide is intended to let you know exactly what the template system is capable of helping you do ... Read more

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]]> Email Templates FAQ:

What you can do to make full use of your email templates.

Creating your email campaigns will never be the same again once you start using the template system to its full effect. This guide is intended to let you know exactly what the template system is capable of helping you do to make creating emails easy. It will also let you in on many tips to creating email templates that will be read and enjoyed by more people.

Good ideas for better layouts.

There are many things that you can do to improve the look and functionality of your email campaigns and autoresponders. Here are a few that have been proven to help your email look better and increase repeat opens by your contacts. Remember, even though you are limited by CSS and HTML that you can use and image size that you should send you can still be very creative and develop amazing email templates that will look the same to all your contacts no matter what email application they use.

One of the biggest issues people have when creating email templates is using background images. Microsoft Outlook 2007 and some other email clients do not support this element and as such if you are relying on a background image to make your email then you will loose this for many of your potential contacts.

Remember that many email clients such as Gmail and Hotmail will not render any code before the tag. This means that if you try to add CSS styles to your code by creating classes and defining the CSS rules in the your CSS will not be rendered. To get around this remember to always make use of inline CSS. Add your styles to the individual elements such as tables, table rows, text etc. This may take a lot longer to do but will ensure that your emails look good for everyone that views them.

Make sure that you do not make your email templates wider then 500 – 650 pixels. This will ensure that none of your users should have to scroll horizontally to view the content of your email.

Try not to use 1×1 pixel spacer gifs (to force widths in your table data cells) as this can cause your email to be picked up as spam.

Make sure you make good use of the first 3-4 inches of your email campaign. Many contacts will have a preview pane set up in their email client and this is the first thing that they will see. If you grab their attention here then they will be more likely to open your email and read further.

Make sure that you use correct HTML when creating your email campaigns. Invalid HTML can cause many problems when trying to render in email clients.

Do not add any JavaScript to your email. Whilst this can make websites function well and look amazing, email clients will not understand this and will break your email.

Make sure to add a link to a web version of your email. You can do this by adding the custom field %%webversion%% to your email. This will ensure that if your contact cannot for some reason see the email in their email client they will be able to view it online.

Use the alt element for all images. This does not work for all email clients but will for most. It will also enable those users that do not download or cannot download images to know what the image was intended to be. You can use this like alt=”Company Logo” etc.

Do not try to embed Flash movies or any other type of movie file as most email clients will not render these correctly. Instead you can create a screen shot of these files and include that image as a link to the movie file hosted on your website. This will not only decrease the size of your email campaign, it will also ensure that your contacts can all see what you are sending them.

How to make sure that your emails look the same in all different email clients.

One of the most important things to do with email marketing is to test. You need to make sure that your email will look the same (or at the very least still look good) when viewed in different email clients such as Gmail, Outlook 2007, Thunderbird etc.

To aid in this you can use the built in feature for ‘Email Client Compatibility’. This feature will give you an idea on what your emails will look like in many different email clients. It will show you a display as well as inform you of the reason why the email will be displayed the way it is.

Most email clients will not render your code that you place before the tags so with this in mind you should try to avoid any vital code being placed here. You can still include tags such as title=”My Email Campaign” so that when you display this in the web browser your users will be able to see the title of the document. These tags simply wont render in the email when it is sent.

What this means is that you should avoid adding CSS styles and classes etc. to the section of your emails HTML. Adding this here and applying it to different elements in your HTML will result in no style being added to your emails. Do not have <style><!-- tags. This will render in some clients but not all. Simply make all your CSS styles inline and this will solve this problem.

Some examples of CSS and HTML elements that you should not use are:

Gmail doesn’t like the CSS property background or background color so you should use the HTML tag bgcolor to set the background color.

Hotmail does not render border tags so this can place restrictions on you when you are using border for underlining text or placing a line on top of your tables etc.

If you have a block of paragraphs you should separate them by using:

&amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;gt;

rather than

&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; as some email clients will neglect to add the space between the paragraphs.

Because most email clients strip out your CSS from the tags you should wrap your email in a table and add your CSS to that. This way you can add background colors that will appear in all email clients.

The WYSIWYG editor (Non-breaking space) into your HTML code if there is no text in a table cell you should replace this with to take up the space.

If you are using images as corners to make a rounded corner effect you should make them at least 25px tall to avoid cell padding from showing up.

With the release of Microsoft’s Outlook 2007 email rendering capabilities took a big step backwards. For a full list of the HTML and CSS elements supported by Outlook 2007 please have a look at this MSDN page.

How to include colour themes into your emails.

The application has built into it a theme changer so that you can create one email template that contains certain code snippets and then when creating an email campaign or autoresponder you can change the colour theme of your email with a click of a button. Here is how.

To do this, you will need to add certain tags to your HTML code. When a template is seen by the editor to contain these tags it will display a theme button that you can use to select a colour theme to use for your email.

The theme changer will look through your HTML to find special tags designed to let it know that you want to change the color of that particular element.

Your code should then include something like the following: name=”tid” description=”mediumBgcolor”

This would then set that particular elements background color to the medium variation of the theme you choose.

This would then allow the editor to change the background color of the table element when you change the theme.

The different shade variations you can use are:

  • lightest
  • light
  • medium
  • dark
  • darkest

The different built in elements include:

  • BorderColor
  • BorderBottomColor
  • BackgroundColor
  • Bgcolor
  • Color

The color shades should always be written in lower case and the element selectors should be written as they appear above.

I upgraded to Interspire Email Marketer and now I have multiple copies of the same built in templates. What do I do?

This is because the way that Interspire Email Marketer handles templates was changed in this release. The templates have been ordered into catagories and have been renamed to help you find your desired template faster.

To fix this simply remove all templates that have brackets in their name such as ‘Business (2 column)’. The built in templates are located in the ‘admin/resources/email_templates’ folder in your installation.

This will remove all your duplicate templates.

How do I create a built in template for Interspire Email Marketer?

If you want to create a built in template then you will need to create a folder for the category and then a folder that contains the email template.

Both of these folders should be named as you want them to be named in Interspire Email Marketer .

You will then need to place this folder in the ‘admin/resources/email_templates’ folder.

Make sure that the email campaign that you create is in ‘index.html’ so that Interspire Email Marketer will load this.

You can have a look at the other email campaigns if you are still unsure.

I already have an email template. Can I use this in Interspire Email Marketer?

Yes, if you have an existing email template you’d like to use then you can simply upload it into Interspire Email Marketer using the Create Template option.

If your template is located on your computer you can select the option to ‘Upload a file from my computer’. This will upload your template into Interspire Email Marketer .

Once you have created the template you can then assign the template to different users by editing the users from the ‘User Accounts’ section and selecting this template as one that is available to that user.

How do I install the new template pack that I have just purchased?

To install the template packs that you have purchased you simply need to upload the files and folders into the ‘admin/resources/email_templates’ folder in you Interspire Email Marketer installation directory on your server.

Interspire Email Marketer will load these templates immediately.

How can I modify the built in templates in Interspire Email Marketer?

You can find all the files etc associated with the built in templates in the ‘admin/resources/email_templates’ folder in your Interspire Email Marketer installation directory.

You can then edit these however you wish. Just remember to leave the HTML page as ‘index.html’ and all the files/folders in the same locations as they are.

Where are the HTML files for the email templates located?

The HTML files for all email templates in Interspire Email Marketer are located in the admin/resources/email_templates folder of your Interspire Email Marketer installation. The templates contain HTML and images and are organized first by category (such as Business or Sports) and then by each individual template.

How do custom email templates work?

A custom email template is an email template that is created specifically for your needs and can be used as the foundation of a new email campaign or autoresponder. Using a template as the basis of your email campaigns ensures that they will look the same each time you send a campaign, because they will be based off the same initial design.

If you’ve already created an existing custom email template, then you can add a preview image for your template by creating a 247px x 200px GIF image and placing it in the admin/resources/usertemplatepreviews folder. You will need to call it IDpreview.gif, where ID is the ID of your custom email template, such as 4preview.gif.

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]]> Miscellaneous https://www.interspire.com/miscellaneous/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 07:01:05 +0000 https://www-1.interspire.com/?p=44 Miscellaneous FAQ Can I change the domain name where my product is licensed to? Yes. We allow one license key change per product, as long as your support on the license is current. To change the domain where your product is licensed to, please email support@interspire.com or open a support ticket How do I link to ... Read more

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]]> Miscellaneous FAQ

Can I change the domain name where my product is licensed to?

Yes. We allow one license key change per product, as long as your support on the license is current. To change the domain where your product is licensed to, please email support@interspire.com or open a support ticket

How do I link to an archived version of my email campaigns?

Go to Contact Lists –> View Contact Lists.

Click the “RSS” icon for the relevant list, which will bring you to an RSS feed of all previously sent campaigns. You can either link your users to this page or directly to the campaign in question.

Alternatively, you can paste pre-defined fields into your emails through the WYSIWYG editor for the web version of emails, and also a link to the RSS archive of sent campaigns.

How do I display my newsletter archives on my site?

To display newsletter archives on your web site, copy the iem/archives.php file to your site. This file will read the RSS feed that’s built into Interspire Email Marketer and display your newsletter archives on your website.

You’ll need to edit the archives.php file to change ‘XML_URL’ to point to your Interspire Email Marketer URL. (Instructions are provided inside the archives.php file)

You can also modify the look and feel by editing the archives.php file.

How do I choose which lists my contacts will be added to and which custom fields will appear on the form?

To create a subscription form which you can place on your web site, you need to choose which contact lists you want your subscribers to be added to when they sign up, as well as which custom fields you want to include on your subscription form.

To do this, start by ticking the list(s) you want your subscribers to be added to when they fill out your subscription form. Under each list you will see the custom fields which have been assigned to that list. To include each custom field in your subscription form, simply tick the box next to it. It will then be added to the Sort Custom Fields list below. You can change the order in which custom fields appear on your subscription form simply by dragging and dropping them.

How do I create a custom field drop down that has a list of countries quickly?

To create a dropdown custom field of countries, upload the attached files into your iem/ folder and run the import_countries.php file from your browser.

It will create a new custom field called “Countries” with all of the countries (from the CSV file) imported.

<?php

require('admin/functions/api/customfields_dropdown.php');
$customfields_dropdown = &new CustomFields_Dropdown_API();

$handle = fopen('countries.csv', 'r');

$settings = array('Key' => '', 'Value' => '');

$settings['DefaultValue'] = 'Please select one of the following options';
$settings['FieldName'] = 'Countries';
$settings['FieldRequired'] = '0';

while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
    $settings['Key'][] = current($data);
    $settings['Value'][] = current($data);
}

$customfields_dropdown->Settings = $settings;

$fieldid = $customfields_dropdown->Create();

echo "Custom field createdn";

?>

Countries.csv

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How do I know what version of Interspire Email Marketer I am running?

To determine the version of Interspire Email Marketer you are running go to the Tools menu select System Information. The Product Version will have the version you are running.

How do I create a MySQL database in Plesk?

Step 1. Login and select Databases

  • First, login to your Plesk account. If you don’t have your username and password, you’ll need to contact your web hosting provider.
  • Once you’ve logged in, click on the Databases icon. Keep in mind that your Plesk account may be using a skin or different theme depending on your host, so it will not always look exactly like the screenshot below.

Step 2. Create your Database and User

  • When you reach the next page, you will need to click on the ‘Add New Database’ icon.
  • Type in a name for your new database, make sure type is set to MySQL and click “OK”.
  • On the next screen you should see a database created successfully message.
  • You now need to add a user. So select the “Add New Database User” icon below the success message.
  • Fill in the details on the form with your desired username and password.

You should now have all the details for your database. If you are not given a “host”, try “localhost”. If that does not work, you will need to contact your hosting provider to ask what you MySQL Host is.

How do I create a MySQL database in Cpanel?

Step 1. Login and select MySQL databases

  • First, login to your CPanel account. If you don’t have your username and password, you’ll need to contact your web hosting provider.
  • Once you’ve logged in, select MySQL databases from the list. Keep in mind that your Cpanel account may be using a skin or different theme, so it will not always look exactly like the screenshot below.

Step 2. Create your DB and User

  • Type in a name for your new database and click the “Add DB” button.
  • Then, type in a Username and a Password into the relative fields and click the “Add User” button.

Step 3. Set Permissions and finish

Once your Database and User have been created, you need to give that user permission to use that database. We do this by selecting the username we created from the drop down and the database we created from the drop down, making sure the “All” checkbox is selected and clicking the “Add User to DB” option.

The last thing you will need is the MySQL server hostname. If this hasn’t been supplied to you by your web host, you can get it from this screen in this location:

Note that the Username and Database will be prepended with your Cpanel login name. For example, if you created a database called DB and your cpanel login was mysite then your new database will be mysite_db.

How do I edit the built in templates for individual users?

You can create new Email Templates by going to the Templates Menu and selecting Create a Custom Template. Then follow the simple two-step wizard to create a custom template.

I tried changing the ‘from’ address in the database in the ‘job list’ table but when I resumed the schedule it

The string in the database is a serialized array so just changing the email address will break that so php can’t decode it properly again.

To change this:

a:1:{s:5:"email";s:20:"chris@interspire.com";}

to have your email you need to change the number before the email as well:

a:1:{s:5:"email";s:16:"email@domain.com";}

16 is the length of the email address.

The from address can’t be set if:

  1. php is running in safe-mode (ask your host if this is the case)
  2. your host has disabled changing the from address (it will be hardcoded to a particular value in their configuration files).

How do I get around the message, “This link has been disabled by the Administrator.”?

To enable the different “help” links follow these steps:

  1. Go to User Accounts, click “Edit” for the account experiencing the issue
  2. Scroll down and select the box, “Yes, enable help and knowledge base links”
  3. Save

Can I have custom fields like First name, Last name, Address in my subscription forms?

Yes, Interspire Email Marketer has the capability of allowing you to create unlimited “Custom fields” including names, addresses, dates and more. Simply select the “Manage Custom Fields” option (In the ‘Newsletter’ drop down menu) to create, edit and delete your custom fields.

Once you have created your custom fields, create a new subscription form (or edit your existing form) and select the custom fields you wish to include.

Once you have done that, you’ll need to “Get HTML” for the subscription form and copy the new form HTML to your website.

To insert Custom Fields into your newsletter or autoresponder click on the “Insert Custom Field” link underneath the WYSIWYG HTML editor (HTML emails) or underneath the Text Area (Text emails). A popup window will appear asking you to select which Custom Field you’d like to include.

How do I remove the Email Marketing Tips that are displayed in the control panel?

You can remove the email marketing tips in the control panel by unselecting the “Show Info Tips” option in the “User Settings” tab of that user’s account settings.

Does Interspire Email Marketer use CAPTCHA on subscription forms and other?

Yes, Interspire Email Marketer can generate a CAPTCHA verification that users will be ask to enter in to make sure that a human being is filling in the form. This is to stop automated submissions and ‘SPAM bots’.

To turn on CAPTCHA, simply select the option when creating your forms.

Interspire Email Marketer uses the PHP Graphics library GD to create the CAPTCHA image but can also use an alternative method if it does not detect GD installed on your server.

Can I have a subscription form on my clients web site, and have Interspire Email Marketer installed on my web server?

Yes, Interspire Email Marketer allows you to have seamless integration with your clients websites, so you can have subscribe and unsubscribe forms on your clients web sites, but still have the core Interspire Email Marketer files on your web server.

To create forms you simply need to select Manage Forms from the control panel on the index page of Interspire Email Marketer or from the text links in the top right of the application.

Simply follow the steps for creating a form and when you have completed this copy and paste the HTML into your website where you want it.

Is it possible to have different sender addresses/names on e-mails?

Yes. When you set up a user, a contact list and again when you are sending out an email you are given the opportunity to set any name and email address that you wish for the contacts to receive mail from.

Interspire Email Marketer will then send the email out with the From and Reply-To headers set to your preference.

Each user can set up their own details and even change them for individual sends.

Does Interspire Email Marketer have a subscription management page where the contacts can manage their subscriptions to different lists?

Yes. This can be done by creating a ‘Modify Details’ form and allowing the contact to modify their details.

You can set the form to allow users to modify details for multiple contact lists or just the one.

How do I stop all my users seeing all the contacts and contact lists?

By default, each user in Interspire Email Marketer can only see the contact lists and contacts that belong to them. If they can see each others lists and contacts, it means you’ve accidently given the users the wrong permissions.

In the User Settings options under the section called ‘ Contact List Access Permissions’ you can specify what access to give different users.

Simply set the option to ‘Users own lists plus the following’ and then if you like you can also select additional lists they have access to.

Why would I want to create multiple users?

In Interspire Email Marketer you can create multiple user accounts. Within these accounts you can set different permission levels, grant access to different templates, contact lists etc.

This can be useful if you wish to create accounts so that your employees can have access to their respective departments such as an account that can only design your templates and email layout etc and another account that can then manage the contact lists and send emails to those contact lists.

You can also resell Interspire Email Marketer to other clients, allowing them to login to your application as another user so that they can send out their own personal contact lists.

Can several list managers log on and manage their lists separately?

Of course. This is one of the major features of Interspire Email Marketer.

You can set up many user accounts that have different permissions to limit available features such as different contact lists or having template managers as well as users that can only edit send emails but not set up autoresponders.

The combinations are endless.

Can I setup Interspire Email Marketer with multiple users with their own contact lists and newsletters?

Of course. Interspire Email Marketer is a multi-user application, that allows you to create users that can manage their own contact lists, newsletters and other functionality. Users are created in the ‘users’ section that you can browse to using the link in the top right of your installation.

A user must have sufficient privileges to be able to create and edit users.

By creating users and giving them their own access, you can offer Interspire Email Marketer as a hosted solution to multiple clients, as it does not need to be installed on the clients website, but instead can be installed in a single location (such as your web site) and your clients can login and manage their email marketing from there.

Emails sent from Interspire Email Marketer can be easily configured to come from your clients own email address / domain name. No additional scripts or code are needed to be added to your clients website, all sending, link tracking etc is handled inside Interspire Email Marketer.

Are contacts deleted or are they still tracked in the system when they unsubscribe from a contact list?

When a contact unsubscribes from your contact list their status is changed to inactive.

This way you can still store all your information on the user that you have collected and if they wish to rejoin your contact list they can pick up from where they left off.

I tried to send an Email Campaign and I was told there were no contacts when I know there are. Why?

When you add a contact to a list they will have certain criteria attached to them. Custom fields, email address and the format of email that they wish to receive (HTML, Text or Both)

If you are trying to send to a list that you know has contacts in it and are receiving a notice saying that there are not any contacts, the most likely problem is that you have filtered by a criteria that your users are not.

The most common of this is filtering by HTML when your users are all subscribed as Text or visa versa.

Check your filtering for the send and then check what your contacts are listed as wishing to receive.

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]]> Unsubscribing from contact lists https://www.interspire.com/unsubscribing-from-contact-lists/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 06:56:05 +0000 https://www-1.interspire.com/?p=36 Unsubscribing from contact lists FAQ: How can I make the Unsubscribe shorter and cleaner? To make the unsubscribe link in Interspire Email Marketer shorter and look cleaner: Create your text (for example “Click here to unsubscribe”). Highlight it to create a link. Click the “Link” button in the WYSIWYG editor and put %%unsubscribelink%% as the URL. and ... Read more

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]]> Unsubscribing from contact lists FAQ:

How can I make the Unsubscribe shorter and cleaner?

To make the unsubscribe link in Interspire Email Marketer shorter and look cleaner:

  • Create your text (for example “Click here to unsubscribe”).
  • Highlight it to create a link.
  • Click the “Link” button in the WYSIWYG editor and put %%unsubscribelink%% as the URL.

and you’re done!

The next time you send out that newsletter, a link to unsubscribe will be created with your text.

Can Interspire Email Marketer automatically add an Unsubscribe link if one isn’t included?

Yes, Interspire Email Marketer can be configured to automatically add an unsubscribe link to every email campaign and autoresponder if it detects that one isn’t available. This option is available from the settings page in your control panel.

How are unsubscribes handled in Interspire Email Marketer? Are they deleted or marked as Inactive?

Interspire Email Marketer marks any unsubscribes as inactive, but does not delete them from your database. This way, if you re-import or add the same contact, they are not re-subscribed accidentally.

Can I unsubscribe a user from many contact lists at once?

An unsubscribe form, like a subscription form, can be used to unsubscribe your contacts from multiple lists by filling out the one form. This will allow you to customized your unsubscribe page.

When a contact unsubscribe by using “Unsubscribe Form”, their unsubscribe statistics will not be captured in any of the “Newsletter Statistics”, as the form itself is not associated with any of the newsletter.

If you’d like for the unsubscribe statistics to be captured for a certain campaign, you need to add “Unsubscribe Link” instead. By clicking the link a contact will get unsubscribed from the contact list that the campaign is sending to.

How can I create my own unsubscribe link with my own words, or an unsubscribe image?

Create your text (eg ‘Click here to unsubscribe’). Highlight it (like you would when you create a regular link), click the Link button and put %%unsubscribelink%% as the URL.

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]]> Using the WYSIWYG Editor https://www.interspire.com/using-the-wysiwyg-editor/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 06:54:30 +0000 https://www-1.interspire.com/?p=34 Using the WYSIWYG Editor FAQ: How can I add more font sizes to the WYSIWYG editor? To add more font sizes to the WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE) just follow these steps: Create a back up of the file in case something goes wrong: ~/admin/includes/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/editor_template.js Open editor_template.js and erase all of its contents Open editor_template_src.js from the ... Read more

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]]>

Using the WYSIWYG Editor FAQ:

How can I add more font sizes to the WYSIWYG editor?

To add more font sizes to the WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE) just follow these steps:

  1. Create a back up of the file in case something goes wrong: ~/admin/includes/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/editor_template.js
  2. Open editor_template.js and erase all of its contents
  3. Open editor_template_src.js from the same directory and copy/paste its’ contents into editor_template.js

Note: This will help you to easily read the code in editor_template.js.

Please download this unified diff file which shows how to add a font size to that code.

Unified diff file

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How do I add an anchor to my emails?

To add an anchor to your email, highlight the text that you wish to make the anchor and click the “anchor” button. Name the anchor and click “Save”.

Next, highlight the text that you wish to make the link and click the “Insert/edit link” button. Choose your anchor from the drop down, click “Save”, and you should be done.

What is the Paste from Word option in TinyMCE?

There are 3 paste options with TinyMCE:

  1. Paste – This is just the normal pasting option, it will paste whatever is in the clip-board.
  2. Paste As Plain-Text – This strips all HTML and code from what you’re pasting, and just paste the text that was copied.
  3. Paste From Word – Microsoft word leaves behind some strange code when copying from it and pasting into any other application. The Paste from Word option removes this code so your resulting HTML is clean.

How can I enable the full screen button on the editor?

The TinyMCE full screen button has been disabled by default. To enable it:

  1. Open ~/admin/com/templates/editor.tpl
  2. Around line 20 add “fullscreen” to theme_advanced_buttons3. For example: theme_advanced_buttons3: "fullscreen"

You can change which line the button shows on by putting “fullscreen” in the other advanced button lines. You may need to clear your cache and/or logout of the application for the changes to take effect.

How can I disable XHTML mode in the wysiwyg editor ?

To disable XHTML mode edit the  iem/admin/functions/sendstudio_functions.php file and search for the line

$myDE->SetName($name);

and just after that line add in the line

$myDE->DisableXHTMLFormatting();

and save the file. Now the WYSIWYG should not be saving with xhtml tags. This can help with some email software like Lotus Notes.

Can I create my own email campaigns or do I need to use an email template?

Interspire Email Marketer allows you to create email campaigns in various ways depending on how you work.

While Interspire Email Marketer lets you create emails and email templates using the built in powerful WYSIWYG editor, you can also create them outside of Interspire Email Marketer using a HTML editor such as Dreamweaver, GoLive, FrontPage, etc.and upload it directly into Interspire Email Marketer.

You can also link to a HTML web page anywhere on the web, and Interspire Email Marketer will retrieve that file and use it as your email.

All my emails are getting picked up as spam because they have a script tag in it. How can I fix that ?

If the emails going out all have the following code in them:

<script charset="utf-8" id="injection_graph_func" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/injection_graph_func.js">
</script>

Then that is a result of the skype toolbar mucking up the content that the wysiwyg. The easiest way to work around this is to disable the skype toolbar when using Interspire Email Marketer.

If you are running Internet Explorer 7, you can follow these instructions rather then having to turn off your Skype tool bar:

  • Go to /Settings/Addons Settings page.
  • Locate the add-on named “Skype add-on (mastermind)” (or similar) and click the check symbol under the “Enabled?” column to disable this add-on.
  • Click “Save”, and close all Internet Explorer windows.

To test that this has been successful, locate a “Contact us” page on a website to see if Skype is still highlighting phone numbers.

How do I copy and paste in the wysiwyg in FireFox ?

  1. Type in “about:config” into the URL bar in your FireFox browser and press enter.
  2. Scroll down until you see the following option in the list "signed.applets.codebase_principal_support" Double click that option and it will turn bold, indicating that it is now on.
  3. Go back to your HTML editing control and refresh the screen. A popup security dialog window will appear.
  4. Select the “Remember this decision” option and click “Allow”.
  5. Close all your FireFox browser windows and restart the browser.

You’re HTML control should now have all the options enabled in FireFox.

The WYSIWYG Editor sometimes breaks my tables/columns/divs. Why?

The most common reason for this problem is because you have an invalid HTML code.

Your HTML code cannot contain mismatching tags. The <table>, <tr>, <td>, <div> and other tags have to be opened and closed on the correct positions, as defined by the HTML standards. The HTML standards can be found on the W3C website.

If you are having problems with your HTML, you could try cleaning it up by using this HTML Tidy and then use the resulted cleaned code in your HTML file.

I receive a Service Temporarily Unavailable error. How can I fix this?

This error usually occurs when your server does not allow the use of .htaccess files.

You can solve this problem by removing the “.htaccess” file from the “admin/de” folder.

The post Using the WYSIWYG Editor appeared first on Interspire.

]]> General Users Information https://www.interspire.com/general-users-information/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 04:50:59 +0000 https://www-1.interspire.com/?p=27 General Users Information FAQ: How can I improve the performance of my Email Marketer installation? This guide is intended to assist users with increasing the performance of Email Marketer by optimizing server and application configurations. You should have experience with modifying server configurations already and must have access to do so on your server in ... Read more

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]]> General Users Information FAQ:

How can I improve the performance of my Email Marketer installation?

This guide is intended to assist users with increasing the performance of Email Marketer by optimizing server and application configurations. You should have experience with modifying server configurations already and must have access to do so on your server in addition to restarting various services. If not, you may need to consult with your hosting provider or system administrator

If there’s one thing better than sending an HTML email campaign to 5 million double opted-in contacts, it’s sending it in half the time. Based on the communication we have received from our customers, no matter how fast Email Marketer performs, faster is always better.

Performance is a very complex issue, particularly for web applications. There are a number of factors which can impact the net performance of a tool like Email Marketer. The following guide will walk you through some of the simplest and most effective steps you can take to make sure your application and hosting environment are properly configured for optimal performance.

Hosting Environment.

The first thing to consider is your hosting environment. Is your server dedicated or shared? How much RAM and CPU does it have? Are there any other applications the server? What does the network configuration look like?

If you are running IEM on a shared server, or on a server running applications other than IEM, then IEM will be sharing resources with those other applications. This means that regardless of how much RAM and CPU the server has IEM will only be able to make use of a fraction of it. According to ModWest, one of our top hosting partners, a shared hosting plan should be able to accomodate up to 1000 emails/hour. If you expect to need higher performance than this, you should invest in a dedicated server.

If you are already running IEM on a dedicated server, you will need to evaluate whether that server has enough RAM and CPU power at its disposal. The best way to do this is to observe the server under load. Setup a fairly large test campaign and send it. While the campaign is running, login to your server, and check the CPU and RAM usage.

On a Windows server, you can do this with the Task Manager. The following Microsoft TechNet article will walk you through how to access Task Manager, and interpret the information presented:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc958260.aspx

On a Linux server, you can use vmstat, top, free, or any of several other command line tools to monitor CPU and Memory usage. The following articles provide more detailed instructions:

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-check-memory-usage/

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i-find-out-linux-cpu-utilization.html

If your CPU usage is consistently over 90%, you may have a problem. If your virtual memory usage is over about 20%, you may also have a problem (Virtual memory, also called swap, is hard drive space used to supplement your phyisical system memory for short term needs, most often when the system runs out of system memory.). This is just a very basic rule of thumb. You should check these stats repeatedly at different times, to find patterns and rule out isolated incidents.

If you are consistently running into this hardware limitations, it is possible that you need a hardware upgrade. You might even need to split IEM’s tasks up between multiple servers (one for SMTP, one for MySQL, one for IEM, PHP, and IIS/Apache).

However, before you make any hardware changes, you should try the other performance optimizations recommended in the rest of this article, as they may improve performance enough to reduce your hardware load.

MySQL Configuration/InnoDB Tuning.

The innodb configuration information in this section is mostly borrowed from http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2007/11/01/innodb-performance-optimization-basics/, please see the website for full details. Please take care when modifying the configuration. If you don’t know what you’re doing you can easily take down your MySQL server.

IEM is a database-driven application, which does a large number of reads and writes to the database during most of its normal operations. MySQL configuration is absolutely crucial to IEM’s performance. IEM is designed to use the InnoDB storage engine, not MyISAM, and the database should use the UTF-8 character set, not Latin1, for its encoding. If your database is not configured to use these for every table already, you should modify it accordingly. Otherwise you may experience a large number of errors, which besides failed queries and operations, can also slow the system down with all the error handling overhead.

Tuning your server’s InnoDB configuration can greatly reduce page load times and increase the speed of sending emails. The following variables will directly effect the database’s performance. To modify these variables you will need access to the MySQL configuration file (my.cnf or my.ini). Your server provider will be able to assist you with these changes.

  • innodb_buffer_pool_size. Setting this to 70-80% of memory (server’s RAM) is a safe bet. E.g. 12G on a server with 16GB of ram. You may want more if your running a dedicated server with mostly InnoDB.
  • innodb_log_file_size: This depends on your recovery speed needs, but 256M seems to be a good balance between reasonable recovery time and good performance. If you modify innodb_log_file_size without removing the existing logs, MySQL will fail to restart and InnoDB will complain about the size of the changed log file.

This is the proper way to increase innodblogfile_size:

  • shutdown mysql server
  • make backup of data and log files
  • remove InnoDB log files
  • set new value for innodb_log_file_size in my.cnf
  • start mysqld
  • check error logs to ensure everything went fine.
  • innodb_log_buffer_size: 4M is good for most cases.
  • innodb_lock_wait_timeout: 300 (this is seconds) is good for most cases.

The MySQL server will need to be restarted after any configuration changes. For additional information on general MySQL configuration and optimization, checkout the following links:

Email Marketer Tuning.

This section is intended for users running scheduled sending as opposed to sending with the pop-up window – if you’re using the pop up window, look into setting up a cron job/scheduled task.

There may be some useless data that you can drop from your database to help optimize it. Here are some queries you can use to identify and remove that data: replace -prefix- with your email marketer table prefix. E.g, email_

  • This query will find subscribers that do not belong to an existing contact list Find first SELECT * FROM -prefix-list_subscribers WHERE listid NOT IN ( SELECT listid FROM -prefix-lists) Then delete DELETE FROM -prefix-list_subscribers WHERE listid NOT IN ( SELECT listid FROM -prefix-lists).
  • Use this query to check for subscriber data that doesn’t belong to any existing subscribers (this can take a long time) First find. SELECT subscriberid FROM -prefix-subscribers_data WHERE subscriberid NOT IN ( SELECT subscriberid FROM -prefix-list_subscribers ). Then delete. DELETE FROM -prefix-subscribers_data WHERE subscriberid NOT IN ( SELECT subscriberid FROM -prefix-list_subscribers ) OR just Delete DELETE FROM -prefix-subscribers_data WHERE data = ''
  • Use this query to remove exports (this can take a long time). Make sure no exports are currently running first. Delete (no find needed) DELETE FROM -prefix-queues WHERE queuetype = 'export'

PHP Configuration.

Again, there are two configuration directives that can have a particularly large impact on IEM’s performance. The first is PHP’s memory_limit. We recommend this be set to at least 128M, although higher might be better in some situations. In the current version of PHP, this is the default value. However, in previous versions, the default value was 16M and 8M, neither of which is recommended.

For more information about PHP’s memory limit, see the PHP manual here. In addition, you should check your PHP max execution time setting here

This is the time a PHP script is allowed to run before it times out and stops. If a script times out prematurely, it may have to be called again, which can impact performance, not to mention being a nuisnace for the user. Generally, a maxexecutiontime of 300 (5 minutes) is sufficient. If you are running into time out issues frequently, you might set it higher.

SMTP Configuration.

If your mail server is not configured optimally, or does not have sufficient resources, it can dramatically slow down mail sending performance. To start things off you can do some tests in IEM to see how your MTA is affecting performance.

If you go to Settings -> Application Settings, there is an option labeled “Yes, put the application into test mode”. This option will allow you to simulate sending a campaign, without actually interacting with your SMTP server at all. You can run a test campaign with and without this option enabled. If the “test sending mode” campaign is significantly faster, you can be reasonably certain that your MTA is creating a bottleneck.

If you are having MTA performance problems, you should take a look at your SMTP configuration here

How do I change my password?

You can change the password for your users in the user section of Interspire Email Marketer found in the top right menu links. Simply edit the appropriate user and change the password.

I’ve forgotten my Interspire Email Marketer control panel password and now I can’t login.

Interspire Email Marketer has an option for those users that have forgotten their password.

Simply click the link on the login page and enter your user name. This will send you an email that contains a link that you can follow to reset your password.

I’m having some difficulties with adding a user and limiting their access

If you create a user and wish to restrict their access you will need to edit their permissions in the user settings page located at the top of the screen.

There are certain predefined user types that you can select from or you can use your own:

  • System administrators: Has all access to every part of the system including templates and contact lists.
  • List administrator: Has permissions related to managing lists.
  • Email Campaign administrator: Has permissions related to managing email campaigns.
  • Template administrator: Has permissions related to managing templates.
  • User administrator: Has permissions related to managing users.
  • Custom: This is where you can be more specific in granting permissions to your users.

All users will be given access to any templates that have been made global. If you wish to restrict this then you will need to not make the templates global and select what templates that that user can view in the user settings.

User Interface is broken after upgrading

If your application User Interface is broken after you upgrade, you might want to clear your browser’s cache, as most likely your browser is still using the “old” JavaScript that were cached.

Error that might be cause by the browser cache are:

  • JavaScript error
  • WYSIWYG editor not displaying
  • Chart (in the statistic page) not displaying

If I have a accounts already set up and then change the Max Hourly Rate in the main admin settings, will it take effect for all existing accounts or just new accounts that get created?

It will take effect on all accounts unless you have specifically set this up for your individual users.

How do I allow different users access to specific email templates?

If you only want particular users to see particular templates you will need to set what templates they have access to.

To do this you will need to go into the ‘Edit User’ section and change ‘Template Access Permissions’ from ‘All Templates’ to ‘Let Me Choose’ and then select what templates you wish that user to have access to.

You must be logged in as a ‘System Administrator’ or a ‘User Administrator’.

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