Email Campaigns — Complete Guide

Email campaigns are the backbone of event marketing communication. FuriosaCRM provides a complete email campaign system powered by Amazon SES for reliable, high-volume delivery. From the drag-and-drop Unlayer editor to detailed delivery reports with open and click tracking, this guide covers everything you need to know to create, send, and analyse email campaigns.

Overview

FuriosaCRM's email campaign system is built on top of Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), one of the most reliable email delivery platforms in the world. Your emails are sent through dedicated infrastructure with proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC), ensuring maximum deliverability and inbox placement.

The campaign workflow is straightforward: verify your sending domain, create a campaign, design your email, select your audience, and send or schedule. Behind the scenes, FuriosaCRM handles batching, rate limiting, bounce processing, complaint handling, and delivery tracking automatically. Our worker infrastructure processes large campaigns efficiently using fair scheduling to ensure all users get equitable access to sending resources.

Every email sent through FuriosaCRM includes tracking for delivery, opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints. These metrics are updated in real time as recipients interact with your emails, giving you immediate insight into campaign performance.

Setting Up Your Sending Domain

Before you can send email campaigns, you need to verify a sending domain. This proves to email providers that you have permission to send from that domain and improves your deliverability. Navigate to Channels > Email in the sidebar to manage your email settings.

To verify a domain, click Add Domain and enter your domain name (e.g., yourbrand.com). FuriosaCRM will display the DNS records you need to add at your domain registrar. These typically include:

• SPF Record — A TXT record that authorises Amazon SES to send email on behalf of your domain.
• DKIM Records — Three CNAME records that add a cryptographic signature to your outgoing emails, proving they have not been tampered with.
• DMARC Record — A TXT record that tells receiving mail servers how to handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks. We recommend starting with p=none for monitoring.

After adding the DNS records, click Verify. Verification typically completes within minutes but can take up to 72 hours for DNS propagation. Once verified, you will see green checkmarks next to each record.

After verifying your domain, add one or more sending addresses. These are the "From" addresses your recipients will see, such as events@yourbrand.com or hello@yourbrand.com. You can add as many sending addresses as you need under your verified domain.

Creating a Campaign

To create a new email campaign, navigate to Campaigns in the sidebar, click Create Campaign, and select Email as your channel. Enter a campaign name that is meaningful to you and your team — this is for internal use and is not visible to recipients.

Next, select your target audience. You can send to an entire audience or narrow your send to a specific group within that audience. Choose your sending address from your verified addresses, enter a compelling subject line, and optionally add preheader text (the preview text that appears alongside the subject line in inbox views).

The campaign setup page shows a live count of how many contacts will receive the email based on your audience and group selection. This count excludes contacts without a valid email address and any contacts who have previously bounced or complained.

The Email Builder

FuriosaCRM includes the Unlayer drag-and-drop email builder, a professional-grade editor that makes it easy to create beautiful, responsive emails without any HTML knowledge. The builder uses a block-based approach where you drag content blocks onto a canvas and configure them visually.

Available content blocks include:

• Text — Rich text blocks with full formatting controls (bold, italic, links, alignment, colours).
• Image — Upload images or paste URLs. Images are automatically optimised for email.
• Button — Call-to-action buttons with customisable text, URL, colours, and border radius.
• Divider — Horizontal lines to separate content sections.
• Social — Social media icon links for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, and more.
• HTML — Raw HTML blocks for advanced customisation when the visual editor is not enough.

The builder renders a live preview as you work, and you can toggle between desktop and mobile previews to ensure your email looks great on all devices. All emails built with Unlayer are automatically responsive.

HTML Code Mode

For users who prefer full control over their email markup, FuriosaCRM provides an HTML code mode alongside the visual builder. Switch to HTML mode by clicking the Code tab in the campaign editor. You will see a Quill WYSIWYG editor that lets you write or paste raw HTML.

HTML mode is ideal for importing templates from other email tools, using complex layouts that go beyond what the drag-and-drop builder supports, or for developers who prefer writing markup directly. You can switch between the visual builder and HTML mode at any time, though be aware that switching from HTML back to the visual builder may normalise some custom markup.

When using HTML mode, make sure your templates are responsive and well-tested across email clients. We recommend using inline CSS styles, table-based layouts for maximum compatibility, and testing with tools like Litmus or Email on Acid before sending to your full list.

Using Templates

FuriosaCRM's template system lets you save email designs for reuse across multiple campaigns. After designing an email in the builder, click Save as Template to store it in your template library. Give the template a descriptive name and it will be available for all future campaigns.

When creating a new campaign, you can start from scratch or select a saved template from the Template Library. Templates include all content blocks, styling, and layout, but not campaign-specific details like subject line or audience selection. This makes it easy to maintain consistent branding across all your email communications.

Templates also support thumbnail previews so you can visually browse your library and quickly find the right template. You can create templates for different purposes: event announcements, presale reminders, post-event follow-ups, newsletters, and more.

Scheduling Campaigns

FuriosaCRM supports both immediate and scheduled sending. When your campaign is ready, you have two options on the send page:

• Send Now — The campaign begins processing immediately. Emails are sent in batches through our worker infrastructure, with large campaigns completing within minutes.
• Schedule — Choose a specific date and time for your campaign to be sent. Scheduled campaigns are stored with a scheduled_at timestamp and automatically dispatched by our campaign scheduler cron, which runs every minute.

Scheduling is particularly useful for time-sensitive event marketing, such as sending a presale link at exactly 10:00 AM when tickets go live, or sending a reminder email the evening before an event. You can also cancel or reschedule a scheduled campaign at any time before its send time.

Sending a Test Email

Before sending to your full audience, always send yourself a test email. In the campaign editor, click Send Test and enter one or more email addresses. The test email is sent with the exact same content, formatting, and tracking as the live campaign, giving you a true preview of what recipients will see.

Use the test email to check subject line rendering, preheader text appearance, image loading, link functionality, merge tag substitution (e.g., {{first_name}}), and overall design across different email clients. Open the test email on both desktop and mobile to verify responsive rendering.

Test emails do not count towards your sending quotas and are not included in campaign reports. Send as many tests as you need to get the campaign perfect before going live.

Campaign Reports

After sending a campaign, the report page provides comprehensive delivery metrics that update in real time. You can access reports from the campaign list by clicking on any sent campaign. The report includes the following key metrics:

• Sent — Total number of emails dispatched.
• Delivered — Emails successfully accepted by the recipient's mail server.
• Opened — Unique contacts who opened the email (tracked via a transparent pixel).
• Clicked — Unique contacts who clicked at least one link in the email.
• Bounced — Emails that could not be delivered (hard bounces and soft bounces).
• Complained — Contacts who marked your email as spam.

Bounce & Complaint Handling

FuriosaCRM automatically processes bounces and complaints through our SES/SNS webhook integration. When Amazon SES reports a bounce or complaint, the event is delivered to our webhook endpoint in real time and processed immediately.

Hard bounces (permanent delivery failures, such as invalid email addresses) are flagged on the contact record. Contacts with hard bounces are automatically excluded from future campaign sends to protect your sender reputation. You can view bounced contacts in the campaign report.

Soft bounces (temporary delivery failures, such as a full mailbox) are tracked but do not immediately exclude the contact. If a contact soft-bounces repeatedly across multiple campaigns, they may be flagged for review. Soft bounces can resolve on their own when the temporary issue is fixed.

Complaints (spam reports) are treated seriously. When a recipient marks your email as spam, the complaint is recorded and the contact is automatically suppressed from future sends. High complaint rates can impact your sender reputation, so monitoring this metric is important.

Best Practices

Follow these best practices to maximise your email campaign performance:

• Subject lines — Keep them under 50 characters, create urgency, and personalise when possible. Test different approaches with small groups before sending to your full list.
• Preheader text — Always set preheader text. If left blank, email clients will pull the first line of your email body, which often looks unprofessional.
• Mobile optimisation — Over 60% of emails are opened on mobile devices. Use the Unlayer builder's responsive templates and always preview on mobile before sending.
• Send timing — For event marketing, Tuesday through Thursday mornings tend to perform best. However, time-sensitive announcements (like on-sale links) should be sent at the exact time tickets go live.
• Personalisation — Use merge tags like {{first_name}} to personalise your emails. Personalised subject lines can increase open rates by 20-30%.
• Clean lists — Regularly remove bounced and unengaged contacts. A smaller, engaged list will outperform a larger, stale list every time.
• Unsubscribe link — FuriosaCRM automatically includes an unsubscribe link in every email to comply with anti-spam regulations. Do not try to hide or remove it.