Automated email campaigns keep your virtual event participants engaged throughout their journey with milestone celebrations, progress updates, and charity impact notifications.
Setting Up Email Provider
Before sending automated emails, you must connect your own email service provider:
- Go to Organizer Settings > Email Provider Settings
- Choose your provider (SendGrid, Resend, or Mailgun)
- Enter your API key (stored encrypted)
- Configure your From Email and From Name
- Set daily and monthly sending limits
- Click Save Configuration
- Send a test email to verify setup
Supported Email Providers
- SendGrid: Industry-leading email delivery (recommended)
- Resend: Developer-friendly with great deliverability
- Mailgun: Powerful API with detailed analytics
Visit each provider's website to create an account and generate API keys. Your API keys are encrypted and stored securely in our vault.
Email Campaign Types
Configure which automated emails to send for your virtual event:
- Milestone Unlock Emails: Sent automatically when participants unlock postcards/milestones
- Weekly Progress Summaries: Sent every week with distance covered, leaderboard position, and next milestone
- Charity Impact Updates: Sent when donation milestones are reached, showing total impact
Configuring Email Campaigns
- Navigate to Manage Virtual Event > Email Campaigns tab
- Toggle each email type on/off based on your preferences
- For weekly summaries, select the day and time (UTC) to send
- View email statistics including sent count and delivery rate
- Click Save Email Settings to apply changes
Email Preferences for Participants
Participants can control which emails they receive:
- Participants access Email Preferences from their dashboard
- They can opt in/out of milestone emails, weekly summaries, and charity updates
- Preferences are saved per registration
- Unsubscribe links are included in all automated emails
Email Statistics & Monitoring
Track the performance of your email campaigns:
- Total emails sent across all types
- Delivery rate (% successfully delivered)
- Breakdown by email type (milestone, weekly, charity)
- Failed deliveries and bounce tracking
Best Practices
- Always send test emails before launching your event
- Keep email content positive and encouraging
- Include clear next steps and calls-to-action
- Respect participant preferences and opt-outs
- Monitor delivery rates and address issues promptly
- Use verified sender domains for better deliverability
- Keep weekly summaries consistent (same day/time)
Troubleshooting
- Low delivery rate: Verify your sender domain with your email provider
- Emails not sending: Check API key is correct and account limits
- Test emails failing: Ensure From Email matches verified domain
- Weekly summaries not arriving: Check cron job is enabled and timezone settings
- High bounce rate: Clean your participant list and use double opt-in
Email Provider Limits
Be aware of sending limits:
- Free tiers typically allow 100-500 emails per day
- Paid plans scale from 10,000 to millions per month
- Set appropriate daily/monthly limits in your configuration
- The system respects your limits and queues emails accordingly
- Monitor usage in your email provider dashboard