This Doc uses the Gmail Pack and has the basic layout and style for a one column HTML email.
You can add Titles, Images, and Content just by adding rows to the Email Builder table. The rows also take HTML code so you can style your content however you wish. Click and drag the rows of content to get the order you want in your email.
There is also a “Send To…” table where you can keep names and email addresses, then just check the boxes for the people you want to send to. In this same column you can choose how it will be sent to each person; To, CC, or BCC.
I marked the columns with code to “hidden” just for layout purposes, but all the code is there and editable if you want to customize it to your liking.
I wanted to show how this could be expanded and used in some different ways, so I created a second document that operates more like an email list with personalized input variables.
I simplified the bottom of the email by consolidating all closing tags into the “Footer” element.
I added a column for a Send Email button to the [Send To…] table. Then I changed the Send Email button to a “Push Button” that pushes all the column buttons if they are active. This allows for the personalization on a per email and customer basis.
You’ll also see “tags” or “placeholders” for these personalized variables. You can use the placeholders however you want in your email content and RegexReplace() will swap them with the relevant variables from your table.
There are some other small changes from the original template that to make the sending of individualized emails easier and to allow this to be built on and customized later.
You can add things like Categories or Groups to the [Send To…] table if you want to create separate or filtered email lists. That’s just one idea of how this can be expanded.
Give it a try and let me know if this helps for personalization.
I spent some time cleaning up a few things and added a good bit more to this template. Coda has posted a more full featured version in their gallery if you want to check it out…
“Double Check” check-boxes to avoid clicking the send button accidentally. These are also automatically reset after sending an email.
Subscriber List improvements including an “Unsubscribe” option (manually by admin)
Content management and planning area for logging ideas and clicking and dragging to order the email content.
Sent Email logging by both time and list as well as content sent
“Send a Test” feature with a separate Send To List so you can make sure everything looks the way you want.
Any content under the “Next Email” status is automatically updated after the email is officially sent. This wipes the slate clean so you can start building your next email from the content marked as “Ideas”. The content that was previously sent is logged so you can always copy/paste if you need to re-use anything on your next email. The “Send a Test” is excluded from this so you can test as much as you want.
I am really glad to be in the community. Coda is amazing and I still cannot believe the endless opportunities of customization it has.
Recently, we wanted to automate emails with the data we already have in our data base. That is how I stumbled upon this topic. I played with the published docs and it took me some time to really understand them. The more I used them, the more I liked them. I am writing this post just to summarise my experience using the docs and to share some ways we use them to automate emails.
How to make your own variables
To make our own variables we need to use RegexReplace formula. What the RegexReplace does is finding the specified expression and replacing it with with the data from certain table row. This makes is extremely powerful, because it could use that we already have in the data base. There are two places, where the RegexReplace formula is used:
in the button, which sends the email - I believe it is hidden by default
in the full email code - just go to the bottom of the code and right click. The formula will pop up.
To add variable in the email, all you need to do is make some placeholder like for example ^RANDOM^ and use it in the email builder. Next you need to add the RegexReplace formula in the send button. First, you need to add a new column, which will contain the information. In this case let’s say we make a column “Random”. The formula is really simple and looks like this:
.RegexReplace("^RANDOM^",[Column Random]).
That is it! You can use it as many times as you would like. It’s amazing how easy and yet powerful this is!
Difference between the formula in the send button and in the full html code
There is an important difference whether we use the RegexReplace formula in the Full email code or in the Send to table. In the first case we get all the rows data and in the second just the data from the said row. This may be obvious for most of you, but for non experienced users like me it takes some time to get.
Thank you so much for checking this out and for replying with some better instruction on RegexReplace! This will make it easier for other users to find and use as well!
Have you experienced an issue with sending emails from Coda which often end up in spam?
We are planning a campaign and the email we use regularly usually sends information from our TMS but when it goes out from Coda often goes in Spam even when emailed to our own domain.
I haven’t had any issues with emails going to spam. My first guess is it might be a link or content that is causing it to be marked that way, but it’s tough to say.
There are some Gmail limits for sending as well, over 500 emails per day I think for free accounts. Are you sending hundreds at a time? I’ve sent about 50 at a time, but haven’t tested in the hundreds.
As to the content, I used the pre-set in the template for the test so the only thing that seemed to be not tested was the fact that it is somehow goes out of Coda.
I like to get to the bottom of things and did a bit of testing with various elements. One of the thing that sends an email to spam is a hyperlink for the logo which comes from a third-party website.
Another thing that sends an email to spam is using some maybe suspicious words like “Test” in the subject line.
So far, I managed to make so that emails get through without an issue after a bit more care on the content.
Hi @benblee, just a heads up on your amazing template: the image link on Email Builder section is being reported as phishing by google. Trying to open it gives me this screen
Hi, I am extremely new to this so I am hoping you can bear with me and give me some advice.
When I use your HTML template, the emails go through beautifully. However, I seem to be unable to include any hyperlinks/links in the Content.
I am creating the “Content” in the “Email Builder” using text and the /link function to make it a clickable link,
It does appear as links in the Email builder, and here they can be selected and successfully go to whatever link page I set up, but once I receive the email, all links are gone and it only appears as text.
What am I doing wrong? Is this a coda setting or gmail setting?
Email Newsletter Planning-Sending-Logging [TEMPLATE]
