About Clique_Marketing

Folks, Many times this is an email client rendering issue an not a CC one. First question to all of you is, are you creating your work as custom HTML or using the CC templates? If you're using HTML do you test the output in a variety of email clients such as Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, etc? If so do they look malformed in all or just a subset of them? Regards, Tony ... View more

Steve, when I try to upload a PDF to My Library I get "PDF format is not supported. Supported formats are: .gif, .jpg, .jpeg and .png. Please change the format of your image." Is that the expected response? Regards, Tony ... View more

I think you can only upload "images" to your library. In order to add the PDF file you do in in your email editor using the insert > document option. I haven't used that option yet but from a brief flyby you don't seem to have any control of it at that point. Regards, Tony ... View more

Hi Dave, Constant Contact won't interface from your blog. Should I guess your using WordPress? I suggest you consider RSS for that. Just a thought. You might just wish to include a portion of your blog (lead in teaser....) in your newsletter and just point to your blog page from there. Regards, Tony ... View more

Sandra, The standard practice would be to create a link in your newsletter that would point to that file stored somewhere. Normally you would host the file on your website or some other file sharing environment. I would caution you on your choice of file format. Its not a safe bet to assume that everyone has Excel. A more conservative approach would be to convert the Excel file into a PDF file which is a more widely supported file format. Regards, Tony ... View more

Maribeth, You may be experiencing an issue with a specific email client. Because of your business can I assume you are mainly dealing with Outlook or would that be wrong? Have you tested the "production" email in a variety of mail clients, such as OutLook, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc? Or are you targeting only one particular email client? Lesson learned, always sent a test copy to yourself in as many of the available email clients that your list will be viewing it in. Regards, Tony ... View more

Yvonne, Adobe does offer a PDF to HTML converter although I've never used it my self. Regards, Tony ... View more

Wish I could edit my posts. 😞 ... View more

Tom, Many don't see that side of it because they don't use OPT-IN. If that's not used perhaps this user becomes of the many of emails that don't get opened that we're always worrying about. Its is a popular domain the user is on? Regards, Tony ... View more

Tom, What happens if he signs up again? Does it let him or does it reject him saying his sign up is pending or something? I've never done any testing in this area. I'm not sure if the opt-in circuit has a time out. Regards, Tony ... View more

Alison, I guess by now you have figured that this can't be done. I think we've all gone through this. I bet you'll be triple proofing from here out. Regards, Tony ... View more

Sean, Have you inspected the code and looked closely for those green colors? I suspect there is still a reference to them somewhere. Regards, Tony ... View more

Embedding Video in an email isn't available in most if not all email clients. I'm kind of surprised it worked in CC actually, but that's more of a web page at the time of review than it is an email. Standard practice is to include a snapshot of a frame (including the standard click here arrow) and create a link to the hosted video. ... View more

Are you using inline CSS? ... View more

I believe image display is off unless you add the address to your safe list. I'm not aware of a global setting. If there is can someone let me know? Assume outlook users will never see your images without them taking an action. There are some tricks using Alt Tags etc to help a bit. Its hard to make a guess without seeing it. ... View more

Excellent question. At this time there is no standard for calendar links. The one that CTCT uses for their event marketing is iCalendar (.ICS) which is the closest to an Internet standard as there is and as far as I know only works with Outlook. What is possible is for you to create the event in Google , Yahoo, etc and then use the URL for the events from those calendars and import those links into your newsletter. You would end up with multiple links though but they would cover Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo etc..... Tony Clique Marketing & Consulting 2009 Constant Contact All Star ... View more

Do you mean one that when clicked on will actually make an entry into a contacts calendar? ... View more

p.s. A cute, although limited trick is to use an animated GIF (no sound though) ... View more

At the current time virtually no email clients support embedded video. Its more of an issue with the mail clients than it is CTCT. A common practice is to provide a screen grab and then link that to the source of the video, i.e. YouTube, landing page, etc. Tony Clique Marketing & Consulting 2009 Constant Contact All Star ... View more

You didn't mention where the image is stored? If its stored on the CTCT image library perhaps you might wish to delete the image and re-upload it and use the new URL in your email OR try hosting it on your website and relink it to that location. ... View more

p.s. if it doesn't work please report that to CTCT as they need to tweak that template so it works with a major email client like OL200X. ... View more

I couldn't pick up anything from the web link. I do have Outlook 2003 as well as 2007 in case you want some help the next time around. Regards, Tony ... View more

I'd run that by CTCT support before I bailed. That's a template that needs some tweaking then. OR just pick another one of the many templates. You can pretty much break the templates down to nothing and add blocks back from scratch. Which template was it? ... View more

Did you use the CTCT templates or your own design? Are you using CSS for positioning? Bad in Outlook. Try using tables for positioning and stay away from CSS. Take a peek here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx ... View more

Its a CTCT BUG. I have the same issues. You have to go into the code and remove the "SPAN" for the bolded text. Call the CTCT hotline and have them do it if you don't know how and also report it as a bug to them. I reported that a while back. ... View more

I use a program called ScreenHunter for my basic tasks. It's free and can be DL'd at http://wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm You queue up the video but don't start it. You can use the first frame of the video or something more compelling. Then use SH to square off the video screen, select capture and it will save a GIF file of the screen. Then use that graphic (GIF) in your newsletter and make a hot link to your actual video. Another message board that we use that gives us more flexibility than this one does in posting. (http://forum.eblastforum.com/viewforum.php?f=2) For an example of a newsletter I did for a client follow that link and look for my post on "Example of inserting a video reference". Hope that helps. If not shoot me an email and I'll get you going in a hurry. Regards, Tony ... View more

I use a screen capture of the video that is a hotlink to the file itself. I have seen increases in click through rates in the area of 30% when including a video. ... View more

Take a screen capture of the cover, scale it to fit in your newsletters and add some text that says "Click here to download our Christmas catalog". ... View more