Create and send a newsletter

From template to draft

1. 1Open Newsletters and click New newsletterStart from a template or a blank canvas. Every template card shows a live preview of the design, so you can see what you are picking before you pick it.
2. 2Design in the visual editorDrag blocks from the Blocks panel onto the canvas, or click one to add it. Rearrange blocks by their drag handle, and use the plus button between blocks to insert one exactly where you want it. What you see is what subscribers get.
3. 3Name it clearlyThe name is how you will find it on the Newsletters page and in its performance stats later.

Not ready to send? Save draft keeps your work, and the newsletter waits on the Newsletters list as a Draft. Click its name to open it, or Edit draft (on the list row or on its page) to pick up where you left off in the editor. Creating and editing newsletters needs a desktop browser; on a phone you can still review drafts, view reports and send a finished draft.

Save and reuse your own templates

When a design is worth keeping, click Save as template on the Content step and give it a name. It joins the Your templates section of the Template step, live preview included, and is shared with everyone in your workspace; selecting it starts the next newsletter from that design. Delete a template from its card when it has outlived its usefulness. Newsletters already created from it keep their content. A workspace can hold up to 50 saved templates.

Choose the audience

Audiences are built from your lists and refined with tags. Include the tags you want, exclude the ones you do not (exclude always wins). The estimated recipient count updates as you adjust, so you know the reach before you send, not after.

Send now or schedule for later

Send now, or pick Schedule for later with a date and time; a scheduled newsletter goes out within a few minutes of that time. Until then it shows as Scheduled on the Newsletters list, where Cancel schedule moves it back to drafts; opening it also offers Send now. If something blocks a scheduled send when its time comes (a failed deliverability check, a sending pause), it returns to drafts and you are notified with the reason. A finished draft can also go out straight from the list. Its Send… button asks you to confirm before anything leaves, and stays disabled (with the reason shown on hover) until the draft has an audience, a subject and content, and your organization’s mailing address is set (it appears in the compliance footer). Sending identity — a verified domain, or your workspace’s pplCRM address — is checked at send time; see the sender rules below. While a send is running, a progress indicator appears in the top bar. You can keep working anywhere in the app; sending happens in the background.

Resend to non-openers

A sent newsletter’s page offers Resend to non-openers: one follow-up, only to the people who received it but never opened or clicked it, with a new subject line (required; a fresh angle beats a tweak). Wait two to three days after the original so slow readers have had their chance, and know that each newsletter can be resent only once. Anyone who engages with the original before the resend goes out is dropped automatically. One caveat: Apple Mail marks many emails as opened on its own, so some quiet readers look like openers and will not receive the resend.

After the send, the Newsletters page shows each campaign’s status, audience and open/click rates, with all-time totals (sent campaigns, deliveries, average engagement and bounces) summarized at the top. View report opens the full engagement report (it appears once a send is underway, since an unsent campaign has nothing to report), and each recipient’s profile lists the send under their Newsletters tab.

The deliverability check

The Review & send step scores your email 0–100 for deliverability. 80 or higher means you are good to go; 50–79 lists items worth fixing before you send; below 50, sending is disabled until the flagged items are fixed. Every finding shows the points it costs and how to fix it. A quick check runs as you edit; Run full check (also next to *Send test email* on the Content step) adds a spam-filter score and an AI review of the copy. See Get your newsletters delivered for what the checks look for and why.

Read the engagement report

The report opens with delivered, open rate, click rate, replies and bounces, then breaks the send down: a delivery funnel (sent → delivered → opened → clicked), every bounced address with the provider’s reason and a hard/soft label plus a CSV export, an hour-by-hour chart of the first 48 hours, the top links clicked, and a comparison of the last five sends in the campaign. Bounced addresses that match a person in the CRM link straight to their profile.

The What to do next panel turns the numbers into actions: Create list of N clickers snapshots everyone who clicked into a static list for the follow-up send, replies link to the Inbox, and the most engaged readers are listed by name. The side panels show the audience composition at send, unsubscribe and spam-report rates, and the exact content that went out. Duplicate newsletter starts the next send from a copy of this one.

The footer and opt-in rules

• Every newsletter goes out with a compliance footer — your organization’s name and mailing address, your footer disclaimer, an unsubscribe link and a small “powered by pplCRM” line — added automatically at send time. The design editor previews it beneath your blocks; it is not an editable block and cannot be removed. Anti-spam laws require the mailing address, so sending stays disabled until an administrator sets it under Workspace → Organization; the disclaimer text lives under Workspace → Communications.
• The default from-name and from-address also live there. Each newsletter can send from a different address — the one you choose in the composer is what the real send uses, not just the test — but only an address on a domain your workspace has verified, or your workspace’s own pplCRM address, can be chosen; that protects your deliverability, since bulk mail from an address on a domain we cannot authenticate is filtered or rejected. Clicking the verification link for an address does not, by itself, make it sendable — a personal Gmail or Outlook address you click-verify still gets refused at send time, because its domain is not one you have authenticated. If your workspace has no address that qualifies yet, the composer shows no From picker at all — leave the sender fields as they are and every send goes out from the workspace default address instead.
• With double opt-in enabled, people who subscribe through a web form must confirm by email before they receive newsletters.

Before your first send you will also complete a couple of one-time verifications, and new Free workspaces ramp up gradually — see Sending protections and verification.