HighRoad Solution

HTML Template Rendering

jenny — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:06:36 +0000

Tags Outside the Body

Don’t rely on , , , and tags for rendering elements of your design and leave them out of the markup you deliver.

Use Inline CSS Styles with Table Layout!

You can attach inline styles to , ,
,
, , , , etc. tags.

CSS padding only works if placed inline with cell directly (not in
,
, , etc.)

Use HTML width (not CSS width) when applied to cells.

Align all cells top, left, center, bottom, etc. so they align properly.

Define font styles in all table cells through inline styles and don’t rely on the style of the parent table cell (nested tables and cells need to have the fonts defined as well)

Assigning Link Colors

For link colors to be applied correctly in most browsers, define your link colors in the body tag as well as in a stylesheet reference inside body (without comment tags).
FIX:

Gmail renders all link colors as a dark blue unless applied directly to the link as in the below examples:

To force all links to be a color (when not working in some eMail clients using the method above), one must manually add in a span inline style or font color inside the tags so that the text is forced to take on that color no matter what.
FIX 1: link text
FIX 2: link text

CSS & HTML Backgrounds

CSS & HTML backgrounds do not always work (Outlook 2007 fails both tests)
FIX: Use HTML background (which repeats by default) with bgcolor as backup for readability purposes, and make sure no important content is in background or render as an image instead.

Avoid Rowspan & Colspan

If creating multiple rows in left side column and one row on the right using rowspan, the left side may try to compensate for the length of the right and pull down the table cells, regardless of height specified. Lotus Notes does not support the colspan/rowspan attributes at all.
FIX: Place multiple rows inside of a table for your left hand column so there is one column on left and one column on right with a table inside the left column that is aligned top. In other words, nest your tables.

Table Borders

Sometimes using CSS to create borders on table cells simply don’t work correctly (Have seen this in Outlook 2007 and 2010).
FIX: Force the border by creating a 1px wide/high table cell using a spacer.gif and then fill with a background color that you wish for the border color like so:

HTML bordercolor does not render in multiple clients.
FIX: Use CSS borders like so:

Background Color for Entire Template

Body background colors only work in Outlook 2003 and AOL, no other eMail clients, even if in the CSS styles or body tag itself;
FIX: Move layout inside a table with 100% width and apply bgcolor to it.

List Styles

List-style-image doesn’t always work.
FIX: Use a table with two columns to align your images and content.

Image Maps

Image maps don’t display links in Outlook 2007 and sometimes other eMail clients.
FIX: Place the image map code directly after the code for the image it is connected to. Make sure they are contained within the same table cell.

Image maps don’t work in Gmail with safari browser.*
FIX: Slice images into multiple parts and assign links to each part.

CSS Margins with Images

CSS margins applied to the tag do not work. (hspace/vspace don’t work either in Outlook)
FIX: Place image inside a table with padding applied to the td, or add padding to the image itself.

CSS Long style vs. Short style

Short styles sometimes don’t seem to work in some clients (ie. font: 11px/17px Arial, Helvetica, Times; color:#333;)
FIX: font-size: 11px; line-height:17px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Times; color:#333333;

Unwanted Spacing Around Images

Hotmail when using Firefox browser creates a vertical space between images separated by a
in the same . Gmail creates unwanted vertical space around lone images inside an otherwise empty .
FIX: Add style=“display:block;line-height:0px;” to the image directly. You can also use line-height=0px with the assuming there is no text in the that would be affected.

Most Common Problems why Templates Break

Long urls

Too-large images

Too-large tables

Table cell widths not defined by spacer.gifs

FIX: link words to a url instead of the url itself, fix table and image widths to fit the cell they are inside of. Use a row of 1px high spacer gifs in each table and give each gif the precise width it needs in order to add up to the table width total.

Outlook 2007 Problems

line-height does not work

image hspace and vspace do not work

animated gifs only show first frame, so
FIX: make sure all relevant info is in first frame

CSS positioning and CSS width tags do not work
FIX: use table widths instead

Two adjacent cells with different padding values set in the style cause the tops of each cell to not line up properly, due to inheriting the padding value of adjacent (sibling) cells.
FIX: Make sure all adjacent cells share the same padding value or nest them inside different tables with different padding values.

Make sure to specify background color for all nested tables. Nested tables don’t often inherit the background color of the parent table or cell.

Place image map code directly next to the image it is referencing as explained above.

CSS borders sometimes do not work correctly; use spacer gifs if needed as explained above.

CSS Attributes with Limited Support

float tag has limited support
FIX: Use align=left

clear, position, display, overflow, visible have limited support
FIX: Use nested tables to support your layout

Telephone or VOIP for your Webinar?

jenny — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:40:18 +0000

By Jeff Baker

There may be a small debate brewing around about this, but in my opinion…there is no debate, or a clear cut answer that will apply to everyone. The only correct answer is “whatever works best for you and your participants.” For the majority of Educational Webinars, the telephone is a must ( at least for the presenters) to ensure the highest audio quality possible. You can then take that phone quality audio and stream it out over the Web so that the participants can choose to listen via their computer speakers or dial into the phone number.

For smaller collaborative meetings, 2 way VOIP can be a great way to communicate and help keep costs down. I always recommend to test it all out first, and to have a back up number…just in case. Utilizing VOIP for any size meetings is a great way to save money, but you also want to make sure that it doesn’t restrict the participants ability to participate in the event. One last tidbit on this topic…if your members/guests are paying good money for these events, then stick to the high touch services like operator assisted audio to provide them the highest level of service.

Socialize Your eMail Content!

HRSNews — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:34:55 +0000

By Jenny Lassi

Linking to your presence on social media platforms in an eMail is a start. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to let your eMail recipients share your content with their contacts and friends further extending your reach.

When people are trying to keep up with the Jones’ in the social media arena, ask yourself “Self, what are we getting out of this and is it worth the time?” Many marketers struggle to understand the ROI for social media.

The beautiful thing about Shoutlet social media sharing technology integrated to your HighRoad Solution Campaign eMail account is that once set up, your eMails use the system tag %%SHARE%%, you can set it and forget it. Creating an automatic way to share your content beyond your eMail subscriber base is just another way HighRoad helps socialize your brand and extend your reach.

Another great benefit of sharing is that you can track how many times your content has been shared, who is sharing it and what social media platforms they are sharing to, so you can know who to reward and where your social media team should spend extra time.

How to Start

Once your Shoutlet account is set up and integrated to your HighRoad Solution Campaign eMail account, you can begin to use the integrated share features in any email you would like your eMail recipients to share with any social media platform of their choice.

If you want your eMail recipients to be able to share a message, you can link either text or an image to the Share features. Some standard templates already have this built-in and you can use those or if using a custom template you created, you can simply type “Share This Email” somewhere in your message.

Once you typed out what you want your Share link to say or inserted a Share button graphic to your message then:

Highlight the text or graphic by left clicking on your mouse over that area.

Hit the link Share icon inside the editor and select either text link or image link in the Insert Share to Social Link pop-up box.

Note: If your art/graphics department creates your HTML messages offline in an HTML editor like Dreamweaver, they can add the links to Share features for you by linking to the system tag %%SHARE%%.

Once you’ve successfully created the Share Link inside your message, you will see in the “configure” stage of the message creation process for either a standard test or a live message, an area to enter a title, description and link to either a hosted version of this eMail or to a URL on your website that has the content on it you would like to drive people to.

You can deploy your eMail as usual. When your eMail recipient receives the email and clicks on the link, a Shoutlet pop-up box will appear and prompt the recipient to choose the social media platform they would like to Share the eMail on.

They will choose the social media platform and the system will guide them through the process of logging into the platform they chose and once they do, they can add a note if they choose and post to their social media wall. This allows their friends, contacts or followers to interact with your content further extending the reach of your brand.

After the message is sent and recipients of your email have shared your message, you can view the reporting detail in the “message details” and click on the “View Report” link by Share to Social Activity.

Once you click on the link to view the report, the Shoutlet report will display for you the information about how many times your eMail was shared and what social media platforms your content is getting shared to.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Support.

Mobile Surveys

HRSNews — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:28:52 +0000

By Erika Beshore

HighRoad Solution’s eSurvey powered by KeySurvey is aggressively tracking the space to ensure its surveys are compatible with most popular devices (Android, iOS, and despite all efforts by RIM to the contrary – even BlackBerry). Understanding that we can’t predict when users will open a survey on a mobile device, our eSurvey tool now offers the ability to detect the users’ browser type and adjust the style sheets accordingly. Also, we have available a beta version of the native Android application will allow for offline data collection on phones and tablets.

Whatever your needs are, HighRoad Solution’s eSurvey offers to help you do business smarter and faster with the diverse set of out-of-the box and custom solutions.

Custom Development

Professional Services

Integration with AMS

Branding

Plug-ins

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Buying Experience Surveys

Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Product Evaluation Surveys

Assessment Forms

When it comes to collecting, sharing and leveraging of data, one size doesn’t fit all. That’s why you need a customizable data collection and deployment solution built to fit seamlessly into your existing workflow and infrastructure.

Data Integration

Real-time Results

Drill-down to Details

Business Intelligence Dashboards

From simple reports to complex business intelligence dashboards, HighRoad Solution’s eSurvey provides you with accurate data to support the decision-making process.

Seamlessly integrate HighRoad Solution’s eSurvey into your AMS core functionality. Contact your Account Manager today for more information.

HighRoad Solution’s eSurvey powered by KeySurvey is aggressively tracking the space to ensure its surveys are compatible with most popular devices (Android, iOS, and despite all efforts by RIM to the contrary – even BlackBerry). Understanding that we can’t predict when users will open a survey on a mobile device, our eSurvey tool now offers the ability to detect the users’ browser type and adjust the style sheets accordingly. Also, we have available a beta version of the native Android application will allow for offline data collection on phones and tablets.

January 2012 – Release 12.01

jenny — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:16:19 +0000

New Features

Subscriber Quick Search
Marketers now have a quick and easy way to search for subscribers from any page of the application.

Product Enhancements

Outlook 2010 eMail Client Screenshots Added to Message Rendering Reports
We have modified the Message Rendering Reports to include Outlook 2010.

Export Scheduler
Marketers now have the ability to specify file name and format as well as define their audience for export via the updated Export Scheduler.

Authorized API User Access
Marketers can limit API access for specific users and third parties, minimizing eMS system exposure.

Release Training

Register for training Thursday Jan. 19 at 4 pm ET
Register for training Friday Jan. 20 at 12 pm ET

General Options

jenny — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:15:01 +0000

Understanding eMail Message Statistics/Reporting: General Options

Need help? Answers for many of the more common questions can be found by clicking the “Help” button in the upper right corner of your screen when viewing the report for a sent message. As always, if you need help and are unable to find the answers under the help menu, you can always eMail or call the HighRoad Solution Support team or 1-703-297-8886.

Know exactly what segment(s) were included/excluded for your sent message and when it was sent by viewing the message details. You can click on the plus sign to view your message’s detail.

Need a quick report? When you need to supply your team with reporting statistics of one of your sent eMail messages, you can export the statistics in CSV, XML, PDF or XLS format quickly and easily by selecting one of the available icons in the upper right corner.

Any metric with a blue arrow allows you to drill down further into the subscriber level detail by clicking on the arrow. This will pull all eMail subscribers that meet that criteria into our Search Result page to allow you to do any bulk search action like export your results or preview individual subscriber results.

Delivery Reports

jenny — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:10:22 +0000

Understanding eMail Message Statistics/Reporting: Delivery Tab

When viewing the sent message report from one of your sent messages, the delivery tab will display first by default.

The Delivery Performance Summary shows you how many messages were sent, delivered and bounced. You can also see both a numerical and graphical representation of the list build process, delivered as well as bounce types.

The bounce log gives your organization insight into feedback from ISPs and any possible deliverability issues.

The bounce log will have the eMail address that bounced, the bounce type and the bounce reason. The bounce log is generated from feedback our sending servers receive from the incoming mail server of the ISP you’re trying to send a message to.

The List Build Process shows you the number of eMail subscribers that are in the included segment(s) and will subtract any exclusions and/or eMail addresses the system has already determined to be invalid. This not only helps your sending reputation and list hygiene, but also saves you money.

Bounce Types show you what type of bounces your eMail deployment encountered when attempting to send to your segment/list. This helps you visually see if there are any troubled areas like spam blocks or spam content bounces that could be affecting your eMail message deliverability and negatively impacting your sending reputation.

Activity Reports

jenny — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:05:27 +0000

Understanding eMail Message Statistics/Reporting: Activity Tab

Under the Activity tab of your eMail message statistics, it highlights key engagement metrics like Opened, Clicked and Opt Outs resulting from that particular sent message.

You will see both a numeric and also graphical representation of the reporting data. You can filter this view to show Activity By Time for a specific day, before or after a specific day, 7-day range as well as between two dates.

This functionality gives you insight into when your eMail recipients are engaging with your eMail. You can learn a lot about this activity like when it would make sense to send messages in the future, if a particular time of day gets the better engagement results or what days get the better engagement results.

Click Tracking Reports

jenny — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:00:38 +0000

Understanding eMail Message Statistics/Reporting: Click Tracking Tab

Click Tracking is one of the easiest ways to not only understand your eMail recipient’s engagement with your eMail content, but also can allow you to segment your audience even further by visually seeing what links your eMail subscribers are clicking through to.

You can customize or filter your click through statistics to understand when your eMail recipients are engaging or clicking through to links from inside your eMail. Simply choose from the available filter criteria from the drop down menu.

Once you deploy an eMail, if you need to change a link post deployment, you can do so by clicking on “Edit the properties of your link.” This will allow you to paste in the correct URL/link over the old URL, hit save and the correct link will be served moving forward.

SureSend Reports

jenny — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:55:01 +0000

SureSend Reports: Options, Fees & How They Can Work for You!

SureSend reports are fee-based reports that you can enable easily in the message creation process depending on the message type used. If enabled, an additional fee of $25 applies. There are 2-reports you can enable:

SureSend Message Rendering Report – When doing a basic or standard test message, this report shows you how your HTML message will look in eMail clients your eMail recipients are using to open your eMail.

SureSend Domain Delivery Report – When doing a live message, this report will show you the top ISPs and if your eMails are being routed to the In-Box, Bulk-Box or going Missing.

Please Note: Alert HighRoad Support when you enable either report. This will prompt us to review your results so we can better assist you.

SureSend Message Rendering Report

When you are doing a basic or standard test message, you can enable the SureSend Message Rendering Report when you want to see how your HTML message renders in the top 19-eMail clients. If you do not see SureSend report options, please reach out to the support team to have them enabled on your HighRoad account.

To enable, simply click the checkbox in the message creation process.

The eMail clients included on this report as of January 2012 are:

AOL.com (Firefox)

AOL.com (IE)

Android 2.2 Froyo (320×480)

Apple iPad

Apple iPhone

BlackBerry BES HTML

BlackBerry BES HTML Images

Gmail (Firefox)

Hotmail/WLM (Firefox)

Hotmail/WLM (IE)

Lotus Notes 7

MobileMe – Safari [Firefox]

Outlook 2003

Outlook 2007

Outlook Express 6

Windows Mobile 6 Pro (240×320)

Windows Mobile 6 Pro (320×240)

Yahoo! Mail (Firefox)

Yahoo! Mail (IE)

Once you enable the report and send your test message, the report will process and once it’s complete, you can access the results by going to Reports>Rendering. Please Note: Depending on the complexity of your HTML message, this report can take up to 24-hours to become available.

SureSend Domain Delivery Report

When you are doing a live message, you can enable the SureSend Message Rendering Report when you want to see where the top ISPs are routing your eMail message sent to their clients. Your HighRoad account gives you the sent, delivered and bounced metrics in your eMail’s reporting, but once an eMail is delivered to the incoming eMail server of your recipient, you don’t have insight into if your message is going to the In-Box or Bulk-Box.

To enable, simply click the checkbox in the message creation process.

Once you’ve enabled the report and sent your live message, you can see the results in the reporting for that message. When viewing the reporting, you will notice an additional tab called Domain Delivery along with Delivery, Activity and Click Tracking.

Click on the Domain Delivery tab and you will see the ISP, percentage delivered to in-boxes, percentage delivered to bulk-boxes and percentage missing. If any of your messages are considered “Missing,” we recommend you bring this to our attention as soon as possible so we can recommend any corrective actions that could be taken to improve In-Box deliverability.

We at HighRoad are committed to your eMail marketing success. If you have any questions, please reach out to HighRoad Support.