Email formatting in Ontraport

How to format an email in Ontraport

1. 
   

   Go to the ‘Contacts’ -> ‘Messages’ and click on this:

   
   
   


2. 
   

    Select already existing email (which is similar) and make a copy:

   
   

3. 
   

   Make sure to update these fields:

   
   

1. 
   Email title on top (this is visible only for us in OP)
   

2. 
   ‘Send from name’ is always ‘Custom’
   


3. 
   ‘From name’ depends on the signature in the email. If we use:
   

• General signature - most of the times (like Better Trader Academy Team, or Tomas & Andrew) - in this case, the field ‘From name’ will be just ‘Better Trader Academy’
  


• Only ‘Andrew’, the field ‘From name’ will be ‘Andrew Swanscott (BTA)’
  


• Only ‘Tomas’, the field ‘From name’ will be ‘Tomas Nesnidal (BTA)’
  

1. 
   ‘Reply to email’ - support@bettertraderacademy.com (always)


2. 
   ‘Send from email’ - info@bettertraderacademy.com (always)
   


3. 
   ‘Send email to’ - ‘Email’ (always)
   


4. 
   ‘Email subject’ - actual email subject in the document
   


5. 
   ‘Edit HTML header’ - click the arrow to see the HTML header and update the part between <title></title> according to the actual email subject in point g.
   

6. 
   Edit email preview - click ‘Source’ to see the HTML version of the email:
   

The email preview is the first line:

Update the ‘text’ part between these brackets:
<span class="preheader" style="color: transparent; display: none; height: 0; max-height: 0; max-width: 0; opacity: 0; overflow: hidden; mso-hide: all; visibility: hidden; width: 0;">TEXT</span>

IMPORTANT NOTE: The preview must have 90+ characters.

4. Now, we’re going to work on the body of the email, so click again ‘Source’ to get back to the visual editor.


5. Delete the original text
   IMPORTANT NOTE: If the email is about promotion (like newsletter), always keep this part at the end: ‘To make sure you keep getting these emails, please add us to your address book or whitelist us. If you don't want to receive our newsletters, click here to unsubscribe.’
   
   


6. Copy the actual text from the document into the Ontraport editor and I always clear all formatting because OP editor is very sensitive - it’s very difficult to fix formatting, and it’s easier to format it from scratch
   

NOTE: If you leave the original formatting from the document, it might look good in the editor but it looks messy in other browsers / email clients (I keep checking this in a tool called Litmus), that’s why we need to be careful.

7. Adjust spaces between paragraphs using shift+enter (not just enter, the cursor should NOT fit between the paragraphs):

8. Select the text and format:

1. 
   Font - Arial (always)
   


2. 
   Size - 16 (always)
   


3. Font colour is dark grey #333333 (it should be set automatically if you followed the instructions above)

9. Another formatting (it depends on the actual email whether this formatting is needed):

1. Add bold / underline / italics according to the actual text in the document
   

2. Add links
   


3. Add bullet points:
   

1. Select the text which should be formatted as bullet points and click this icon
   
   


2. Add spaces between the bullet points, so it doesn’t look squished - you need to do it in the HTML version, so click ‘source’, find bullet points and add </ul> at the end of each bullet point and <ul> at the beginning of each bullet point.
   
   This is the result:
   

4. Add images - image’s width should be max 600px (that’s the width of all our emails). If the image is bigger,
   

1. Resize it to 600px width


2. Compress the size of the image using free online tool https://compresspng.com/ or https://compressjpeg.com/
   


3. Upload to OP using this icon
   
   


4. Then click ‘Select hosted image’ -> ‘Upload image’ -> once it’s uploaded, click ‘Insert’
   

5. 
   ‘Merge Fields’ - This must be ‘merge field’, not copied from the document like <name>:
   

1. Click the arrow next to ‘Insert Merge Field’ and choose option (usually it’s ‘First Name’)

10. Update the plain version of the email

1. Click ‘Copy From HTML’ (popup window - link tracking - YES)
   
   


2. Delete the preview text from the first line, so it isn’t there twice
   
   


3. Minimise the indent at the beginning of each paragraph:

4. For bullet points, you can add dashes:
   
   

11. Save the email
    
    


12. Send yourself a test email and proofread the text (you can even use a tool called Grammarly):
    
    

1.  Send Petra screenshots of what you corrected, even if it’s just a comma.
   


2. The style of emails is informal, so not all grammatically incorrect things are mistakes.


3. Usually we prefer American English.


4. Check for double spaces, typos or sentences which doesn’t make sense (word might be missing, etc.)

HTML code for a numbered list:

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="padding-bottom:10px;padding-left:15px" valign="top" width="20"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1.</span></span></td>
<td style="padding-bottom:10px" valign="top"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">text</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="padding-bottom:10px;padding-left:15px" valign="top" width="20"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2.</span></span></td>
<td style="padding-bottom:10px" valign="top"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">text</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="padding-bottom:10px;padding-left:15px" valign="top" width="20"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3.</span></span></td>
<td style="padding-bottom:10px" valign="top"><span style="font-size:16px;"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">text</span></span></td>
</tr>

</tbody>
</table>