Send an Email

TicketSignup offers free, next-generation Email Marketing for ticket events and organizations. Send unlimited emails, upload unlimited contacts, personalize email with custom and event replacement tags, and design beautiful emails with our email builder.

Note: This guide is a reference for the next-gen email platform that we released in early 2022, currently labeled Email V2 in the race dashboard and Email in the ticket event dashboard. To learn the functions of our legacy email marketing system for races, go here.

Email Setup

To begin using Email Marketing, navigate to the Email tab in your Event Dashboard. Before sending emails, you must confirm your email settings. Prior to doing so, you will see an Email Setup Required message when attempting to send an email: 

Click the orange Set up Email button to be directed to the email settings.

Review and make any changes to the From and Reply To fields for Transactional and Marketing Emails:

Click Save Settings to confirm.

Note: You will not be able to make changes to the From Email Addresses. These will always be noreply@ticketsignup.io, noreply@givesignup.org, or noreply@runsignup.com, depending on the preferred domain you have selected. 

For more information on these Email Settings, you can view our help guide here.

Send An Email

We make it free and easy to send unlimited emails from TicketSignup. Our powerful contact lists let you send emails to contacts in TicketSignup and import unlimited contacts as custom lists. Our Email Builder makes it fun and easy to build beautiful emails in minutes!

To begin sending an email, navigate to Email >> Send Email in your Event Dashboard.

Select Recipients

The first step of sending an email is to select recipients. There are two major list types:

1. Default TicketSignup lists: By default, TicketSignup generates lists of purchasers, ticket holders, and donors. Each time a new supporter purchases a ticket or makes a donation, they will be automatically added to the corresponding lists.
2. Custom lists: The event director can add multiple lists of contacts that they would like to email through their Event Dashboard. For more information, view our Custom Email Lists help guide here.

You can sort and select your recipient list using the dropdown at the top, the search bar, or by scrolling down the page and finding the list you'd like to use:

Note: We continuously add default system lists to this as the email system gets developed.

Select the recipient lists that you would like to include/exclude in the email. The email will only be sent to recipients in the email lists that you have selected to Include. When you Exclude an email list, all email addresses in the Excluded list that are also in the Included list will be removed from the email recipient list. 

For example, if you uploaded a custom list of past participants and you wanted to encourage them to sign up for your current event, you may want to exclude your current ticket purchasers (ie. All Ticket Purchasers). This would prevent the email from being to sent to supporters who already purchased tickets to your current event under that email.

Deduplication Options

During the recipient selection, you can change the Deduplication Options. There are 3 deduplications options to choose from: 

• Email, Name, and Placeholders: Emails will send to every contact with a unique email, name and placeholders. This is the default deduplication setting for ticket events. This option is relevant for events that collect each ticket holder's contact and want to send personalized information. For example, if you send out a pre-event email for an event that includes placeholders such as QR code, ticket number, etc., each person will receive an email even if they have the same email address.
• Email Only: Emails will only send to unique email addresses.
• Email and Name: Emails will send to each unique name and email combination on the list.

For more information on these options, you can view our blog post here. 

Subject

Once you have selected which recipients you would like to include/exclude, you can add your email Subject:

Now it’s time to create your email! Select Create Email to move into the email builder.

Building Your Email

In the Email Builder, you can create or choose a design. Within the first tab, System Templates, you will choose between three options for creating your email:

• Start from Scratch
• Basic Template
• Use Your HTML

Note: There are two tabs on this screen: System Templates contains the three options above for creating an email. See below for additional details on System Templates. Your Saved Templates include all of the templates that you have created, under Email >> Templates, and saved for this event.

Start From Scratch

You will be taken to our Email Builder where you can add sections and content. By default, you will have your logo, event name, a Sign Up button, and a Donate button (if donations are enabled) in your email header and your logo, event name, and an unsubscribe link in your email footer:

You can customize your email header and footer by clicking the gear in the upper right corner of each section. 

Email Header Settings

You can hide the default header at the top of the email by checking the Disable Header checkbox. When checked, the top the email will start with the first content section you have created. 

There are two Header Layout Options to choose from: 

1. Horizontal: This is the default option that includes your logo, event name, a Sign Up button, and a Donate button (if donations are enabled) in your email header. 
2. Vertical: This option will center the event name and logo, and it will hide the Sign Up and Donate buttons:

Lastly, you can choose a different Organization Name, by inputting the preferred name in the text box, and/or Organization Logo, by uploading a different logo, for your email header. For example, while we default to your event’s logo and name, your organization may want to use your company or nonprofit logo/name instead.

Once you are finished updating your Email Header Sections, click Update.

Email Footer Settings

You can choose a different Organization Name, by inputting the preferred name in the text box, and/or Organization Logo, by uploading a different logo, for your email footer:

Theme Color

On the righthand side of the Email builder you can select your Theme Color. By default, your email template pulls in the primary theme color from your website (Color 1 under Website >> Event Theme>> Color Scheme) so that there is consistency between your website and email communications. You can update this by clicking into the color and choosing a new option:

Add Content

Between the header and footer is where you can start adding sections to display your content. To begin adding content sections, click the +Add Section to Email in between the header and footer or on the right hand side of the email builder. 

When you click +Add Section to Email, you are give the option to add a One Column or Two Column section:

One Column: 

Two Column:

Next, click the + button within a section to Add Content:

Then, choose your content type from the options provided:

• Text
• Feature 1 (text + button, dark background)
• Feature 2 (text + button, white background)
• Image, text, button
• Button
• Image
• Divider (a line that can create spacing between sections)
• Image Group

Note: All content types can be utilized with a single or double-column section

You can also click on the type of content you want for the section from the Content Blocks sidebar on the right hand side of your screen:

You can add multiple content blocks per section. For example, add text, then add a button. Click on the + symbol within the section to bring up the “Add Content” pop-up or click on the content blocks on the right hand side of the screen. 

You’ll notice that the section you are adding content to is framed for easy identification:

Use data replacement tags to personalize your emails and show your understanding and appreciation of your attendee's relationship with your event and organization. You can choose from the dropdown menu or just start typing a % and the full list will automatically appear – as you continue to type, the list of tags will narrow down to the one you are looking for:

For more information on email replacement tags, you can view our help guide here. 

Edit or Delete Sections

Each content section will have a gear icon in the top corner of the section where you can edit the content settings, Headings, Call to Action buttons in the section (when you have a section heading), and Images or change the content alignment: 

To edit the additional content in certain sections, such as text, buttons or image groups sections, click directly into the content.

You can remove entire sections or content by clicking on the trash can icon. 

Basic Template

We currently offer a basic template option to help you get started building your email. This is quite similar to starting from scratch, but gives you a default section already added to your email to begin your design:

Use Your HTML

If you have designed an email template using another tool, you can export the HTML code and use it to build your template in Email Builder. In the Email Builder design board, you have two places where you can input your HTML:

Once you have finished building your email, click Continue. 

You will return to the Send Email page where you can make changes the the recipients and subject and view a Desktop and Mobile preview of your email content. If you need to make any additional changes to the content, click the edit icon in the top right corner of the content section: 

Review and Send

The last step before sending the email will be to review the email. Once you have finished making changes to your recipients, subject and content, click the blue Review Email button at the bottom of the Send Email page: 

This will take you to the Confirm Email page where you can view your Email Summary: 

What kind of email is this?

In the top left corner of the page, you can select whether the email is a Marketing or Transactional email from the drop down. Transactional emails are emails you send because of a specific action a person did. For example, you could send a pre-event email for check in to all ticket purchasers. Marketing/Promotional emails are used for promotion and engagement with your customers. For example, you could send emails to past attendees to encourage them to sign up for your upcoming events.

Recipient Lists

In the top right corner of the page, you can view the Recipients Lists you have selected to include/exclude and an estimated recipient count based these lists. 

Sending Time

Select when you would like to send the email. You can choose to Send Immediately or Schedule a Send Date & Time: Note: Send times are approximate. It can take several minutes for the email to actually send to recipients, even if you select to send the email immediately.

Email Preview

Lastly, you can, once again, view a Desktop and Mobile preview of your email content:

You can also send a test email by clicking the gray Send Test Email button under the Email Preview:

Note: Test emails will NOT include attachments or use replacement tags.

If you need to change anything about the email, you can do so by clicking the Edit Email button to return to the Send Email page.

When you are ready to send your email, click the blue Send Email Now button (if you have chosen to Send Immediately) OR Send Email Later button (if you have scheduled the email to be sent at a later date & time). You will receive a pop up to confirm that you are ready to send the email with a reminder of the estimated number of recipients: 

When you click Send Email Now/Send Email Later, the email will be scheduled for delivery: 

If you made a mistake, you can choose to cancel the email before it has processed to send by clicking the red Cancel button. 

Sent Emails

Once you have sent the email, it will show under Email >> Sent Emails: 

Note: This table will show emails that have already been sent to recipients AND emails that have been scheduled for delivery. You can click into the ID to view more information about the email and cancel the email if it has not yet been sent.

Once the email has been sent, you are finished! See below for some great examples of emails:

Example 1:

Example 2: 

Example 3: