This article contains the following topics (click on them to jump to the corresponding place):
- General Hints
- Design emails in the Drag & Drop Editor
- Email Settings
- Testing the Emails
- Imprint in the emails
- Use sent emails again
General Hints
The new Drag & Drop Editor makes things much easier and more intuitive for you. You can now easily design your newsletters by dragging and dropping text and/or image blocks into your newsletter. This way, using graphical templates finally becomes child's play.
Nevertheless, there are a few things to keep in mind.
How to activate the drag & drop editor
In the future, you'll always have the option to switch between the classic editor and the Drag & Drop Editor.
- Log into your Quentn system.
- Go to Emails → Editor
- Select the Drag & Drop Editor
Now you can try out the new editor to your heart's content.
Please note: The Drag & Drop Editor will be activated for future emails. If you also want to edit the emails you created with the classic editor, you'll have to recreate these emails and copy & paste the content.
ATTENTION: The placeholders in the Drag & Drop Editor are in the format {{...}} and not, as in the classic editor, in [...]. You may need to adjust the placeholders.
Best workflow in full screen
The best way to work with the Drag & Drop Editor is to activate the full screen mode. This way, everything is actually displayed and you have an overview of your newsletter. To activate the full screen mode, please click on the blue button on the left-hand side above the template, called "Full screen".
Legal notice
According to section 5 of the German Telemedia Act (TMG), it is obligatory for commercial internet sites and commercial emails to have an email legal notice in the email signature - a link to the legal notice is not sufficient.
In order to provide you with legally compliant email marketing, you cannot send emails with a legal notice. This is generated as usual via the placeholders, which obtain information from the data you have stored.
Deviating display in preview
Every e-mail client has its own rules regarding the display of e-mails. Thus, it can quickly happen that e-mails are displayed differently to your recipients than they are to you. To avoid an aesthetic disaster, we recommend that you do not send e-mails that are too "well-designed".
If you do not want to do without pictures, please note that they should be reduced in size beforehand and the small file should be used for the e-mail. Otherwise, for the reasons just explained, some recipients may see a huge picture and the whole layout will not fit.
Quentn Branding
In the Quentn Lite version, your emails receive branding from Quentn: the Quentn logo and the note "powered by Quentn" are under the unsubscribe link. In the higher versions, this banding is omitted.
Design emails in the Drag & Drop Editor
Video coming soon
Download free templates
Quentn provides you with 50 free email templates, all of which you can edit as you wish. For this reason, you should choose the template not because of its content, but because of its design and the arrangement of the text and images. Everything can be changed and customised at any time!
- Click on the menu item Email and templates.
- First of all, you will see your saved templates. To choose ready-made templates, click on the Quentn Templates tab.
- Choose a template. You can enter search items to get a pre-selection. For example, if you search for "black", you will be shown templates with a dark design.
- To use the desired template, hover over the template with the mouse. A green button "Create new template" will appear. Please click on it.
Create new template
It goes without saying that you can also create your own template from scratch.
- Click on the menu item Email and Templates.
- You will land directly on "My templates". Click on "Add new template".
General orientation
As soon as you open a template, please enter a title.
At the top of the template you will see three blue buttons:
- Press "Full screen" to switch to full screen mode (recommended).
- By clicking "Show structure", you will see the borders of the individual blocks, rows and columns.
- Under "Preview", you can see what your newsletter looks like on the PC and on mobiles.
- You will return to the normal view as soon as you click the respective button again.
- To undo one of your design steps, you will find three icons in the bottom left-hand corner: a round arrow with a clock, an arrow to the left and an arrow to the right.
- By clicking on the clock symbol, the last working steps are displayed. This allows you to return to a specific point in the editing process. The layout will then be restored exactly as it looked at the selected point in time.
- The arrow to the left undoes the previous action.
- The arrow to the right brings you one step forward again.
Design: Content
To the right of the template you'll find "Workbench". Under the menu item you will see the individual building blocks that you can add to your email. Select the desired type (text, image, button, separator, social media button, icon or GIFs via the provider Giphy) and drag it to the desired position in your email while holding down the left mouse button. You can then change the position as desired.
In your email, click on the block you want to edit. On the right-hand side, you'll see advanced properties and options. This allows you to adjust text and link colours, set line spacing, define margins, and make other edits to all the other blocks as well.
Images
Upload images
To include your own images in your email, select the "Image" type on the right-hand side and drag the element to the desired location in the email. Then click on "Search".
You are now in the File manager. Here you can upload the desired image and then insert it into your email.
Please make sure that your image files are not too large. A width of 600 pixels (+/-) should be sufficient.
Choose from 500,000 royalty-free images
You also have access to a database of over 500,000 royalty-free images that you can use in your emails. Click "Search for royalty-free photos" in the File manager. Then enter a search term to select a suitable image. Click "Import" to load the desired image into your file manager, and then click "Insert" to paste the image into your email.
Edit images
You can even edit your images in the editor. To do this, click on the image and then on "Edit image" on the right-hand side.
You now have the following options:
- Use filter
- Change size
- Cut
- Transform
- Draw
- Add text
- Add shapes
- Add sticker
- Use frame
- Round off corners (use png-file for that!)
Video
Of course, you can also "embed" videos in your emails. The preview image of your video will be displayed, which is linked. As soon as the recipient clicks on the video, they will be taken to YouTube or Vimeo.
To do this, drag the "Video" block to the desired position in your email and click on the gray "Add video URL" button.
On the right-hand side you now have three options under "Video URL":
- Thumbnail: Only one of the video's images is shown and linked to a URL to the video.
- Embedded: Enter the link to the video on the relevant platform (NOT the embedded link, but the normal link) and the video will be embedded on your landing page so that it can be played.
- Own video: Enter the link to your own video (e.g. in Dropbox, etc.). Note that you can also share the video with the public and not just with certain users.
ATTENTION: For Vimeo videos that are embedded, "Properties" must be activated on the right in the editor. Otherwise only the preview image is displayed and not the video is played.
Use emojis
Of course, you can also use emojis in your emails. Just use the emoji picker of your operating system.
For Apple users, this is the key combination Command+Control+Space.
For Windows users, this is the key combination Windows+. (dot)
Now select the emoji you want with one click.
To use an emoji in the subject, you must first paste it in a content block like "Paragraph", then copy or cut it, and then you can paste it in the subject.
Add social networks
Drag the "Social" element to the desired location in your email.
After that, click on the contents of the row. On the right-hand side, you will have the option to add more social media services and remove the default one. You can also store the corresponding URL to your page for each service.
Design: Row
Under this menu item you will find a variety of different row layouts that you can drag into your layout.
When you click on an area outside the email content on the left-hand side of your layout, you're selecting a row. You can move this anywhere in the content by clicking the cross on the left side with the mouse, holding down the mouse button and then moving the element.
Likewise, you can save, delete or copy a row by clicking either the disk, recycle bin or copy icon in the right margin.
If a row is selected, an area appears on the right side under the menu item → Row, in which you can set the row and column properties. You can define the background colour of the row and the content separately, set background images for the row, set individual columns and much more.
Dynamic content through tag-based lines
You even have the option of sending different content to contacts with a single email - depending on which tags they have (or don't have).
To do this, first create the desired content in the line. On the right in the menu under the item Line you will find the button "Add condition".
Click on it and give the condition a title and note down a description if necessary. You do not have to fill in the fields "Before" and "After".
Now click on the second button Row Display Conditions. Determine whether the contacts who should see this row should have a certain tag or not have a certain tag. Then define the corresponding tags and click on save.
Now write the next line with the contents for "the other" contacts and proceed in the same way: Set conditions and save.
Save lines
You can save individual lines and reload them in other e-mails. This means that you do not have to rewrite recurring texts again and again or insert them awkwardly via copy & paste, but can access the contents directly with just a few clicks.
To do this, select the line so that it is outlined in blue. Click on the diskette symbol at the top right of the blue border (for younger people: the symbol to the left of the rubbish bin).
You can find the saved lines, for viewing, under Emails -> Templates and then under the tab "My rows".
Load rows
To load the saved row in another e-mail, click on the menu item Line. Under "custom rows", select the one you now want to insert and drag and drop it to the desired position in the email.
Different designs for desktop and mobile
You have the option to display your emails differently on desktop and mobile devices. For example, you can hide images for the mobile version so that the reader on the phone can grasp the content faster (just as an example).
To do this, click on the row you want to hide for desktop or mobile. On the right-hand side, in our "Workbench", click on the "Content" menu item and go down until you find the item "not visible on...". Now click where you don't want the row to be visible and save your changes.
Design: Settings
Under this menu item you set general settings: width of the layout, the default font, various background colours, link colours and so on.
Customize preview text:
To add a so-called “pre-header”, i.e. a short preview text of the email, click on “Pre-header” under “Settings” and enter it. You have a maximum of 130 characters available.
Please note: Not every mail program can display these preview texts! In addition, different numbers of characters are displayed.
Email on Acid has a great article that lists the support of email clients for preheaders as well as the typical character limits for these clients.
Insert links and placeholders
With placeholders, you can dynamically apply certain information from the contact data. You want to personalise your email? Contact fields such as name, salutation, address or even your own contact fields are inserted into the email individually for each contact using the placeholders.
You can insert placeholders in every text module of the editor. To do this, click on the place where you want to insert the placeholder. A small toolbar appears with all the options for the text (font and size, numbering and bullet characters etc.). Click on "More" and "Insert placeholder".
Now insert the placeholder by clicking on the blue "Insert" button.
To insert links, please select the text you want to link. Then click on the chain symbol in the toolbar. A window with the option to "Insert link" will now open. Determine the link type and enter the URL. Click on "OK".
By the way: All links are tracked. So if you link images, words, etc., you can then respond to all link clicks in the campaign.
To make this possible, you cannot insert links in plain text! You can find out the reason here.
Special links
Under the special links you will find placeholders for trackable links that are generated by the system. If you insert these in your mail, clicks on URLs such as to the website, WordPress accesses or import campaigns can be tracked.
Auto-Save
If you accidentally leave the editor without saving first, luckily your work is not lost, because every 30 seconds your changes are saved.
- Open your mail again.
- Click on "Load template" and on the "Drafts" tab.
Here you will find the drafts of your mail. Click on "Load" to load the draft into the editor and all changes are there again.
Here is what you have to keep in mind:
- The drafts will be deleted after 30 days.
- As soon as you save, the drafts are also deleted.
- You will only see the drafts of this element.
E-mail settings
You can define several things in the e-mail settings:
- Privacy settings
- Unsubscribe text
- CC recipient (from Basic)
Privacy Settings
Here you can set whether you want to track openings, clicks and/or unsubscribes. If you have a Business account or higher, you can also anonymize tracking.
Activated: Tracking data is collected both for the email statistics and for the individual contact.
Anonymized: Tracking data is only collected for the email statistics and not for the individual contact.
Deactivated: Tracking data is not collected.
Please note: If you deactivate the tracking of opens or clicks, the event elements “Mail opened” and “Link clicked” will of course no longer work for these emails.
The current setting is always referred to in the email overview. If you have deactivated tracking for an email, you will not be able to find out anything about user behavior in the details of the email.
If unsubscribes are anonymized, it is no longer possible to identify which emails a particular contact has unsubscribed from.
Unsubscribe text
Here you can specify whether the unsubscribe text should be displayed in German or English. Once you have made this setting, it is automatically applied to all newly created emails.
The unsubscribe link at the end of each email cannot be deleted or edited. In this way, we guarantee legally compliant email marketing. You will see it in the email templates as {{unsubscribe_message}}.
Creating your own versions is only possible on request and from a Pro account.
Design change
If you do not like the design of this block because it does not match the rest of your newsletter, please contact us (support@quentn.com) and we will adapt the area for you.
CC and BCC recipients
You can enter up to three CC and BCC recipients from a Basic account. The limit for receiving copy emails is 10 emails per recipient per 24 hours. The daily limit can be increased on request.
Testing the Emails
To make sure that everything looks the way you want it to, you have the option of sending yourself a test e-mail. Under the editor you will find the item "Test the e-mail". As soon as you click on it, a menu item opens. Please enter an e-mail address here to which the test e-mail should be sent.
Please note: Placeholders are not replaced in test Emails
Imprint in the emails
According to § 5 of the German Telemedia Act (TMG), it is mandatory for commercial websites and commercial e-mails to have an e-mail imprint in the e-mail signature - a link to the imprint is not sufficient.
To enable legally compliant e-mail marketing, you cannot send e-mails without an imprint. This is generated as usual via the placeholders, which obtain the information from the data you have stored.
Unsubscribe from the newsletter
Article 7 (3) sentence 4 of the GDPR regulates the unsubscribe options from the newsletter: "The withdrawal of consent must be as simple as the granting of consent. This means that in every newsletter there must be a link with a clear designation, e.g. in the footer, which can be used to unsubscribe from the newsletter. A more complicated unsubscribe option, for example with a compulsory login to the customer account or similar, is not permitted. Quentn has automatically integrated this link in the emails, so you do not need to do anything else here. You cannot edit this link. This is the only way we can guarantee legally compliant email marketing.
You can now choose between You and You as the address in the unsubscribe text. Below each email, you now no longer only have the option to send yourself a test email, but also another field in which you can select the text for the unsubscribe. Currently there is only a choice between the you/you version, in the future there will be more texts.
Creating your own versions is only possible on request and with a Pro account or higher.
Quentn Branding
In the Quentn Lite version, your emails receive branding from Quentn: the Quentn logo and the note "powered by Quentn" are under the unsubscribe link. In the higher versions, this banding is omitted.
Use sent emails again
There are always situations in which you want to resend e-mails that have already been sent - without having to do it all over again, of course.
To use an already sent e-mail again, proceed as follows:
- Go to the menu item Emails and Templates.
- Click on the tab "My e-mails".
- Select the e-mail you want to resend and move the mouse over it.
- Click on the green button "Create new".
- The e-mail will now be loaded. Make any final adjustments and save the template.
- Now go into the campaign or write a newsletter.
- Load the template you have just created.