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Email campaigns & drip

Koolay's email system has three modes: newsletters (one-time blast), drips (multi-email sequences), and transactional (system emails like donation receipts). This page covers the first two.

Newsletters

Subscribers

The Newsletters → Subscribers view lists everyone signed up for your email list. Each row shows email, name, status, source (where they signed up), tags, signup date.

Subscribers come from:

  • Footer signup on your public site.
  • Donation form (opt-in checkbox).
  • Event RSVP (opt-in checkbox).
  • Newsletter widget embedded on landing pages.
  • Manual add by admin.
  • CSV import for migrating from another system.

Status

  • Active — currently subscribed.
  • Unsubscribed — clicked unsubscribe; never gets emails again.
  • Bounced — email bounced repeatedly; auto-removed.
  • Complained — marked your email as spam; auto-removed and flagged.

Newsletter campaigns

Send a one-time email to a list segment:

  1. New campaign → name + subject + sender.
  2. Audience — pick a tag, segment, or full list.
  3. Content — drag-and-drop email builder with text, image, button, divider blocks.
  4. Preview — see how it renders in major email clients.
  5. Test send — to yourself first, always.
  6. Schedule — send now or pick a date/time.

After sending, you'll see opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces.

Drip sequences

Drips are automated multi-email sequences triggered by an event. Common drips:

  • Welcome series — 3 emails over 14 days for new newsletter subscribers.
  • Donor onboarding — 5 emails over 30 days after first donation.
  • Lapsed donor reactivation — 3 emails to donors who haven't given in 12+ months.
  • Member renewal — 3 reminders before annual renewal date.

Set up in Email Drips:

  1. Trigger — what event starts the sequence (newsletter signup, first donation, etc.).
  2. Steps — add emails with delays (e.g. "Day 0", "Day 3", "Day 14").
  3. Audience filter — only people matching X criteria.
  4. Activate.

Drips run in the background; subscribers progress through them automatically.

Email templates

Save reusable templates in Email Templates to avoid rebuilding from scratch. Useful for:

  • Branded headers/footers consistent across all emails.
  • Common layouts (text-only newsletter, image-heavy announcement, donation appeal).

Deliverability

Koolay uses authenticated sending domains (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) so your emails land in inboxes, not spam.

If you have a custom domain (yourorg.org), set up email auth in Settings → Domain → Email. Without this, emails come from noreply@koolay.com instead of your domain — works, but less professional.

Compliance

  • CAN-SPAM — every email automatically includes an unsubscribe link and your physical address (set in Organization Profile).
  • Unsubscribes are honored — once unsubscribed, a person cannot be re-added without their explicit re-opt-in.
  • GDPR — for EU subscribers, consent records are stored per subscriber.

Common patterns

  • Send Tuesday morning — 10–11am local time generally has best open rates.
  • Subject line is 80% of opens — A/B test subjects when you can.
  • Don't email more than weekly — even if you have content, fatigue kicks in fast.
  • Segment your list — donors, members, and newsletter-only subscribers want different things.