Creating a Newsletter | Apsis Pro Help Center

Create your newsletters with module based templates. Fill the template with your different modules with various layouts for images, text, and links. Using module based templates enables you to build professional and effective newsletters in no time without any knowledge of HTML. The templates and their modules are easy to use, flexible, and display well in various e-mail clients.

Create a newsletter
1. Create a new newsletter by clicking the New icon in the Content section of the main menu.
2. In the first popup window, select Newsletter.

3. In the second popup, select the newsletter template you want to use.
4. Then click the Create from template button.

You will now enter the HTML tab of your newsletter editor where you will see the newsletter template with (if any) preset modules.
As you can see, the newsletter name (internal name) will by default be the name of your template. The subject line (shown to the recipient of the newsletter), will by default bethe same as your newsletter name. Un-check this setting to enter a different subject line for your newsletter.

In the Add tab of the left-hand menu you will find all your available modules that you can drag and drop into your template. Each module can be inserted as many times as you like.

Add a module to the newsletter

Add a module to the template by dragging the module from the Add tab of the left-hand menu and dropping it into the template in the HTML tab.
Each module can be inserted as many times as you like. You can change the position of the modules by moving them around in the template.

Placeholders

The template consists of different placeholder with different widths for the different modules that you have. Each placeholder can withhold as many modules as you like. If a placeholder is completely empty a placeholder image will indicate this:

You do not have to place module in all placeholders, go to the Preview tab of the editor to preview what your finished newsletter will look like.

Note! If a module of a certain width is placed in a placeholder of another width, you will immediately see that the newsletter “looks out of shape” meaning that the module has been placed in the wrong placeholder. Simply drag and drop the module to the right placeholder.

Edit the settings of a module

Once you have inserted a module into your template, click on any content inside the module that you wish to edit. The Edit tab on the left-hand menu will be displayed where you can make your changes.
You are able to edit text, images and links, provided that this has been prepared when the module was created. All changes will continuously be auto-saved by the system.

Module settings

You can also create a copy of the module, apply a filter or lock the module for all your light-accounts:

Copy - Create a copy of the module. The copy will be placed right below the original module in the newsletter.
Delete - Delete the module from the newsletter.
Lock - Lock the module in order to disable editing on light-accounts.
Filter - Apply a filter on the module. When the newsletter is sent to a mailing list, the module will only be displayed for the recipients matching the filter.

Edit text

1. Click the text you would like to edit. A text editor will be displayed in the Edit tab.
2. Enter your text in the text box.

Text editing tools

Use the tools above the text area in the Edit tab to add formatting to your text. Change the default font, size and font color of your text or make any part of the text bold, italic, underlined or linked. Mark the text you want to affect then hit the tool you want to use.
The text formatting change you choose to use will be applied in a HTML tag (a start and end tag) surrounding the selected text. If multiple formatting changes are added to the selected text (e.g. font, size, and link), all changes will be included in the same HTML tag.

Remove formatting

To remove the formatting you have added to your text, mark the text and hit the Remove formatting button. To remove all formatting for the entire text, mark all text or simply hit the Remove formatting button without marking anything. All HTML formatting tags will then be removed.

Note! All types of formatting (HTML tags) will be removed from the selected text: font styles and link formatting.

Dynamic content

Hit the Dynamic content button to add dynamic content to your text such as demographic data or other standard parameters on your account.

Example:

If the newsletter is sent to John; "Hi ##SubscriberName##!" will be exchanged to the subscriber’s real name when the newsletter is sent, and it will look like this in the subscriber’s newsletter: "Hi John!" provided that this subscriber data has been saved on your account. If no subscriber data has been saved, it will look like this; “Hi !”.

Edit links

1. Click the link you would like to edit. A link editor will be displayed in the Edit tab.

2. Enter a link URL and a link text:

Link destination URL. This is where you enter the web address for the link. For example: http://www.apsis.com (http://www.apsis.com)

Tip: If you have the Pages or Survey add-ons activated on your APSIS Pro account you can link to one of your pages or surveys by selecting one of them from the drop down list
above the link destination URL.

Link text - The link text is the text that is clickable. For example: Read more...

Edit images

1. Click the image you want to edit. An image editor will be displayed in the Edit tab.

2. Click the Image gallery button to select an image from your image gallery, or type in the image URL directly into the Image hosting URL text field.

Image hosting URL - The web address of the image. In other words, the image needs to be uploaded on the web. If you don’t have the Image gallery add-on activated on your account, you need to have access to a webserver where you can upload images on the web.

Image destination URL - Make the image clickable by adding a link to a web address. For example http://www.apsis.com (http://www.apsis.com)

Width - The width of the image (in pixels).

Height - The height of the image (in pixels).
Align - The alignment of the image inside the module’s image placeholder tag. If the image is smaller than the placeholder inside the module, you can justify the alignment (Left, Center or Right).
Image text - Use the image text to name/describe your image. If a subscriber has not yet chosen to download the images of the newsletter, the image texts will be displayed instead.

Widgets

If you have the add-on Widgets activated on the account you can turn the image to a widget. There are many different widgets available in the newsletter editor that allows you to add RSS feeds, weather reports, the latest posts on different social media networks and more.

Text version

To facilitate the deliverability of your newsletter and decrease the risk of the newsletter getting stuck in the recipients spam filter, it is important to have a text version of the newsletter. Therefore, there is always a default text version, with a link to the web version of the email (in HTML) and an unsubscribe link.

The text version will be displayed to those subscribers who have email clients that do not support HTML based emails, email clients set to only display emails in plain text, or subscribers who have their delivery format set to TEXT and not HTML.

Edit the newsletter text version

1. Open the Text version tab to edit your text version.
2. Edit your text version in the text area or create an auto-generated text version (based on the content in your newsletter) by hitting the Auto-generate button.

Note! The text version cannot be filtered. Only one version will be used for the subscribers, no matter filters used on modules in the newsletter.

3. Remove any “strange characters” from your text version such as: Em dashes (─), copyright symbols (©), trademark symbols (™) etc.
4. Then hit the Save button.

Preview the newsletter and simulate subscribers

In the Preview tab you will be able to preview the entire newsletter. If you have included dynamic content and/or filters on your modules, you will be able to simulate what the newsletter will look like for specific subscribers.

Note! Some email clients may interpret the letter's HTML code according to their own standards. In order to preview what the newsletter will look like in different email clients, you can carry out a preview / spam report. By doing so, you will also run a spam test on your newsletter showing the deliverability of the newsletter – if it has met the requirement of the different email clients and passed the spam filters, or if the newsletter has ended up in the junk mail.

Options in the Preview tab:

Show all - Show the entire newsletter with all modules included (no matter filters).
Use filter - If you have applied filters on any of the modules in the newsletter, you can simulate what the newsletter will look like (which modules of the newsletter will be included) for a subscriber matching the selected filter.
Simulate subscriber - If you have included any demographic data parameters in the newsletter, you can simulate what the newsletter will look like for a specific subscriber when the dynamic parameters have been replaced by real subscriber data.

Show HTML - Show the HTML code of the newsletter.
Permalink - The permalink is a public link to a preview version of the newsletter. You can send the permalink to a colleague who doesn’t have access to your APSIS Pro account. If you make any changes in the newsletter your colleague will be able to see the changes by updating the browser where he/she has opened the permalink.

Note! Do not use the permalink to publish the newsletter to a website or social network. If you want to get a public link to the newsletter you should use the link you get when creating a newsletter archive.

Preview modes by device. In the upper right corner of the Preview tab you can preview what your newsletter will look like depending on if it’s being opened on a desktop, a tablet or a mobile with our new preview feature allowing you to switch between preview modes:
- PC (Desktop)
- Tablet
- Mobile

In the Settings tab you will be able to edit the general settings for the newsletter, create filtered subject lines, copy the newsletter, and send test send-outs of your newsletter to a single recipient or proofreading list.

Make a test sending of the newsletter

Send out a test sending of your newsletter to a proofreading list on your account or a single recipient.

Note! Test send-outs made to single recipients will not generate any reports. However, when making a test sending to a proofreading list, a report will be generated.

Test sending to a proofreading list:
1. Go to the Test sending section of the Settings tab in the editor.
2. Tick the option Proofreading list.
3. Select a proofreading list on your account that you want to send to. The default sender name and email will be fetched from the list settings of your proofreading list.
4. Hit the Send button.

Test sending to a single recipient
1. Go to the Test sending section of the Settings tab in the editor.
2. Tick the option Single recipient.
3. Enter the email address of your recipient.
The default sender name and email will be fetched from the account name and account email found in the General configurations settings on the account.
4. Hit the Send button.