Creating and Sending Targeted Emails

Follow the instructions below to create and send a new Targeted Email. For an overview of the Targeted Email tool and resources, checkout An Overview of Using Targeted Emails.

1. Click Emails from the left navigation bar, then click Create Email in the upper-right corner of the page.

2. Enter an Email Name. This name is not visible to recipients, but it will be visible to other Career Services users. 

3. Choose a Layout, a Previous Email or a Handshake Template, then click Next. You’ll be able to customize this email in the next step. 

• Layouts contain placeholders for your own content, with all basic building blocks pre-formatted–allowing you to "fill in the blanks". 
• Previous Emails allow you to copy email content from emails either previously sent or drafted. 
• Handshake Templates are ready-to-use content branded for you. Check out our gallery of Handshake Templates.

4. Edit the content of the email. 

• New feature highlight! You can rearrange email content sections via drag and drop.
  • To rearrange email content, hover your mouse pointer over the specific section until the section highlights with a light pink dotted line border, as shown in the example below around the Call to Action button.
  • Click and hold on the section, then drag it up or down as desired. Release the section to place it. 

The different content elements are included below. After customizing the message, you can use Send Test Email in the upper-right corner of the email editor to send yourself a test email to preview.

New in May 2022! Our EDU Product Team has updated the UI for Handshake Content to improve functionality and provide a better user experience!

• Primary Color: this will set the button and Handshake Content icon color in your email
  • Tip: use your school hex code here to create consistency!
• Basic Content
  • Text: use the text to add verbiage to the email
    • Tip: add mail merge fields to the email to make it personal, via the Insert variable drop-down. Preferred Name will use a student's preferred name or first name if they don't have a preferred name set.

• • Heading: enter Header Text for the top of the email or a section. You can adjust Size (Primary/Secondary) and Alignment (Left/Center) as well. 

• •  Image: drag and drop a photo or choose an image to upload. Add alt-text below the upload, select the photo's maximum width, and choose the image alignment. 
    • Tip: use the cropping tool when adding a banner to change the height of the image!

• • Button: enter Text to display on the button, then add the desired URL. 
    • Tip: this feature is great for surveys! 

• • Spacer/Divider: add space between content sections

• Handshake Content
  • Career Fair: select an approved career fair, and Handshake will add the following fields to the email:
    • Fair Name
    • Date
    • Location
    • brief highlight for employers participating

Note: if a fair is included within a targeted email, regardless of whether it's invite-only or hidden, all recipients are invited to the fair automatically. The content option included within the email will allow students and employers to bypass those settings and view/register as if they had the public preview link. If the recipient is a student at another school, and the fair isn't a public or multi school fair, the student will be blocked from receiving the email. 

• • Event: Select an approved event and Handshake will add the following event fields to the email:
    • Name
    • Date
    • Location
    • *Company name of participating employer, if applicable 

Note: if an event is included within a targeted email, regardless of whether it's invite-only, all recipients are invited to the event automatically. The content option included within the email will allow students and employers to bypass those settings and view/register as if they had the public preview link.

• • Job Role: Select a job role and Handshake will add a description of the job role and a link to "Learn more" about that role in Handshake: 
• 
•  
  • Job: Select an approved job and Handshake will add the following job details to the email:
    • Title
    • Employer name
    • Job Type
    • Employment Type
    • Location
    • Expiration Date (apply by)

• • Employer Collection: Select an employer collection and Handshake will add a description for the Employer Collection to the email:

• Attachments: Files that'll be attached to the email, most file types will be accepted, but we recommend that you attach PDFs.

5. When you're ready to proceed, click Next, in the lower-right corner of the screen, then choose your recipients: Student or Contact.

At least one filter must be selected on this page, unless you've pre-selected recipients from another page in Handshake. 

Note: if the targeted email includes 65,000 recipients or more, the recipients information will not be available in Handshake. Click Download Recipients in the center of the page to download and view the recipients list.

Example of selecting 65,000 or fewer Student recipients: 

Example of selecting 65,000 or fewer Contact recipients: 

Tip: to avoid delays in sending the email, we recommend keeping the emails targeted and scoped with 10,000 recipients or fewer. 

6. Click Next to proceed and finalize email details. 

• Subject*
  • Tip: use students or contacts first name to increase open rates! (exact formatting required - refer to About Mail Merge Fields for more details)
• Sender Name*
• Reply To Email*
  • Note: The Sender Name and Reply to Email fields will need to be filled out for each email unless the Targeted Email Configuration is set up in your institution's School Settings. Learn more about this process here: School Settings: Targeted Email Configuration
• Carbon Copy Emails
  • Note: this will only send one copy of the email to CCs listed.
• Campaign Name*
• Send Now or Send Later 
  • If you choose to send later, select a date and time to send the email.
    • Note: unless your recipients are pre-selected based on email address (i.e. the email is created via Contacts or Manage Students), recipients will be identified at the time the email is scheduled to be sent. For example, if you select recipients based on Major, on the scheduled send date/time, the recipients are identified based on the Major selected on their profile at that date/time (which may differ from when the email was originally created).

Note: Any field with an asterisk (*) must be filled out before successfully saving the targeted email on this step.

7. Click Save Details to save your email draft. When you're ready to send the email, click Send (if sending now) or Schedule for DATE (if sending later) to queue the email. 

Once the email is sent, you can review the campaign's Performance Details.