Gradual's Email Sending feature allows you to build and send emails directly from your community. This feature lives within the Communications tab and includes tools for creating emails, managing global headers and footers, and defining subscription types.
This feature must be enabled by the Gradual team. Please contact [email protected] to discuss getting this enabled for your community.
Accessing Email Settings
Navigate to Communications in your admin dashboard. This section expands into three areas:
Emails
Headers & Footers
Subscription Types
Each section controls a different part of the email experience and is outlined below.
Emails
The Emails section is where you create, customize, and send emails to your community members.
From this page, you’ll see a list of any existing emails. To create a new one, click Add Email in the top-right corner.
Creating an Email
When creating a new email, you can either select a template or start from scratch. Additional templates will be added over time.
On the left-hand side of the editor, you can edit the email’s basic information, including the subject line, sender email, and sending time. Emails can be sent immediately or scheduled for a later date.
You’ll also define who should and should not receive the email:
Sent to allows you to select up to 10 segments to receive the email
Don’t send to allows you to exclude specific segments
Scheduling and Finalizing Recipients
When you save and schedule an email, you’ll be prompted to finalize the segment list. You can choose to:
Automatically update the list as members are added to segments, or
Lock the list so it never changes
This ensures the email is sent to the intended audience.
Editing and Managing Emails
In the top-right corner of the email editor, the Actions dropdown allows you to preview the email, send a test email, or duplicate/copy it for reuse. Click the edit design button below it to edit the email body.
Inside the editor, clicking any existing element opens its settings on the right-hand side. From there, you can adjust content, padding, button actions, and more.
On the left-hand side of the editor, you’ll find draggable elements such as text, buttons, and images, along with dividers and containers for layout. Containers allow you to place elements side by side instead of stacking everything vertically.
You can revert to the default template at any time, preview your email, or send a test email to see how it looks from the recipient’s perspective. Be sure to click Save to preserve any changes.
Headers & Footers
Headers and footers are applied globally to all emails sent from your community.
From the Headers & Footers section, click Edit next to either the header or footer to open the editor. The same drag-and-drop elements used in email creation are available here, including text, buttons, images, containers, and dividers.
Due to legal requirements, a physical address is required in your settings before you can design headers and footers. The address and unsubscribe link must remain in the footer and cannot be removed.
Subscription Types
Subscription Types allow you to categorize the different kinds of emails you send, such as newsletters, product updates, promotions, or weekly updates.
Members can choose to subscribe to one or multiple email types. You can view how many people are unsubscribed from each type by clicking the number shown on the right.
These communication preferences are also reflected in each user’s profile settings, allowing members to manage subscriptions outside of individual emails. Once a subscription type has been used/sent, it cannot be removed from the list.
Email Statistics
After an email has been sent, performance metrics are available through the Actions dropdown. You can view statistics such as opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes to understand how your email performed.
If you have questions about Gradual's email sending tool or want to get this enabled for your community, reach out to [email protected]!