Otto’s email campaigns offer personalized communication, allowing for targeted marketing and ensuring messages resonate with specific pet owners. Follow the guided instructions below or scroll to the bottom for a  full 'how to' video walkthrough. 

 

How does your clinic benefit from using email campaigns?

Implementing an email campaign tool for your clinic provides an additional outreach tool to facilitate client engagement and help clinic success. Email campaigns can be used for brand building, sharing clinic news, event notifications, enabling the sharing of health tips, promotional offers, and more! If your clinic is not already utilizing this feature, get started by reaching out to Otto's support team today to begin the set up process.

Creating a New Campaign

To get started, click on Email Campaigns from the left menu.

 

 

1. Click on Create New to get started with a new campaign template.

After clicking Create New, a prompt requiring a campaign name before proceeding with the campaign's setup will pop up. The campaign can always be renamed later on.

2. Choose a Template

Otto offers many templates to get started:

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• • Blank template - Create your own! 

    • By default, new/blank templates will always have a stand footer section that can’t be removed.

  • Otto Announcement Email (Recommended for clinics brand new to Otto Flow): Pre-built Template which announces the clinic's use of Otto and gives instructions to pet parents on the Otto App. It highlights features that pet parents can utilize to communicate with the clinic. This can be customized to meet clinic needs.

  •  Care Launch (Only for Clinics on Otto Care): Pre-Built template that promotes Care Memberships for the clinic.

  • Holiday Templates: Pre-built templates to inform clients of clinic hour changes or closures for holidays. Can be customized to meet clinic needs. The templates available are for Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.
  • Care Upcoming Appointment (Only for Clinics on Otto Care): Pre-Built Template to send to clients with upcoming email appointments to remind them the option to sign up for Care Memberships to take advantage of discounts and free options for their pet.
  • Lapsed Pet Parents: Pre-built template designed to help you reconnect with clients who haven't visited your clinic in a while, encouraging them to schedule an appointment and stay engaged with your services. 
  • Direct Booking - This pre-built template is designed to notify your pet parents that Direct Booking is now available through your website widget, allowing your pet parents easily book appointments at a time that’s most convenient for them, improving their overall experience with your clinic.
    * Note: This template is exclusively available to clinics with the Direct Booking feature enabled.

3. Edit Email Content

Whether you’re using a pre-built template or building a brand new one, the following editing tools will always be available. 

• Content

  • Edit the content of the message by choosing to add images, text, dividers, etc!
  • To use each functionality, drag the desired option to the email body on the left
  • 💡 Use AI suggestions to enhance the quality of your writing and images in the sections where the green symbol is shown

 

• Body
  • Edit the body of the email campaign by choosing the font, text color, background color, and more!

  • The body section allows you to edit the complete email at once without going into each individual content section.

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    Customize the preheater text to provide a short summary text that follows the subject line when viewing an email from the inbox.

 

 

Saving and Editing Created Campaigns

When editing an email campaign, there will be the option to save a draft and continue to edit before sending the email campaign to Pet Parents. Click on the toggle next to Save & Continue to make changes, save the draft, or exit without saving.

 

Review Campaign Summary

Click the ‘Save & Continue’ button at the top right corner of the email’s editing view to preview the campaign.

 

A. Subject - This is the Subject Line recipients will see in their inbox. There's a 50 character limit to ensure the subject is short, sweet and straight to the point (which improves the likelihood of opens).

B. Recipients - There are various ways that you can segment emails to your clients. If you do not set segments, or upload a custom list, then we will email active clients which is anyone who has had an appointment in the last 18 months or who has scheduled an appointment in the next 18 months. The total number of active clients shown in this section is the count once ‘clients with invalid email addresses’ and ‘clients unsubscribed from previous email campaigns’ are removed.

💡 The number of active clients will vary by day since it is based on past and future appointments around the present day.

Click "Filter Recipients” to begin segmenting your email list. To add additional filters beyond Appointment Date, click +Add Condition

The following filters exist in Otto: 

• With/without an appointment filter: This filter allows you to segment lapsed clients by selecting "With" or "Without an appointment" and specifying the appointment date range. By default, the range is set to the last 18 months and the next 18 months from the current date. However, you can customize this to target specific client segments, with options to go as far back as 3 years from when you started using Flow, and up to 3 into the future.
  
  
  
  
• Patient Species: Clinics have the ability via a checklist to select which species they would like their email campaign to target.

• Patient Age: Clinics have the option to target specific age groups of their patients by selecting either Older or Younger and typing a number of Months or Years.

 

• Appointment Type:Clinics have the ability to create a segment by appointment type, allowing them to either include or exclude certain types of appointments for their campaign.

 

Click Save to save your filters. Once you have hit Save, you will see the number of recipients update and which segments you have applied in the Recipients section. 

 

C. From - All emails campaigns sent will be coming from the no-reply@ottomail.vet domain but will feature the clinics name as the sender.

💡 Clinics will not be allowed to set up their own ‘no reply’ address for email campaigns. Otto will solely handle the domain’s reputation and deliverability to avoid campaigns being marked as spam.

D. Edit Content - Drives the user back to the email editing page.

E. Preview - Pops up a preview of the latest email state.

F. Finish Later - Drives the user to the “All Campaigns” page.

G. Send Now - Delivers the email campaign to all recipients.

H. Send Test Email - This feature allows you to send a test email to yourself or any recipient of your choice before launching your campaign.



It's a great way to:

• Catch errors early
• Preview the design and layout
• Ensure that links and buttons function properly
• Check personalization elements like recipient names and clinic logos
• Test subject lines

💡 By default, your clinic’s email address will be pre-populated, but you can easily edit this to any recipient. You can also send unlimited test emails, and these will not appear in the Email Campaign Report.

 

All Campaigns View

As email campaigns are created and sent - a historical view of all campaigns and current status are shown. Draft campaigns can be edited or deleted by clicking on the three dot menu. Campaigns cannot be edited or deleted once sent.

Email Campaigns Video Walkthrough

Reporting

Once a campaign is sent, a report is generated for review by clicking View Report in the campaign summary page.

The reporting tool offers insights into:

• Campaign Recipients: This number is the same as the Active Clients segment the user sees when setting up the campaign.
• Sent: Number of emails sent from our platform.
• Delivered: Number of emails successfully delivered to their recipients.
• Open: Number of emails opened by their recipients.
• Clicks: Number of clicks in an email by its recipient.
• Unsubscribed: Number of recipients who unsubscribed from future campaigns.

To learn more about reporting and what they mean for sent email campaigns, click here. 

Email Deliverability

When an email campaign is sent from Otto, it is first sent to an incoming mail server, which analyzes the email’s content through spam filters and processes it before it is delivered to the recipient’s inbox. This process can delay or prevent emails from being delivered. As a result, email deliverability is the ability to successfully deliver emails to your recipients’ inboxes.

While Otto follows industry guidelines and takes measures to prevent clinics’ email campaigns from being marked as spam, there are also some best practices clinics can implement to improve or maintain a healthy deliverability.

What is Otto doing to manage email campaign deliverability?

• Sender’s domain - Otto manages reputation and deliverability of no-reply@ottomail.vet to avoid having your email campaigns marked as spam
• Quality of email lists - By managing your client segments, Otto removes outdated, invalid, or emails from inactive clients from your segment's lists
• Unsubscribes - Honoring email unsubscribe requests helps improve our IP’s reputation
• Spam management - Once a recipient marks an email campaign as spam, Otto will remove that recipient from your email list for future email campaigns to avoid negative impact to our IP’s reputation

Best practices for Clinics to manage deliverability 

• Relevancy - Ensure you send out communications your clients care about. Irrelevant communications will have a higher likelihood to be marked as spam
• Amount of campaigns - Avoid sending too many campaigns back-to-back as it can also increase the chances of being marked as spam. A maximum of two or three campaigns per week is ideal
• Date and time - Send email campaigns when the likelihood of your clients interacting with the communication increases. Weekdays during 9am-3pm tend to be exposed to more interaction than during off hours

What do the Bounce reasons mean?

• Reputation: The reputation classification groups rejections that indicate the mailbox provider rejects your message due to the reputation of the sending domain or sending IP address. Mailbox providers establish your sender reputation using complex algorithms that use hundreds or even thousands of signals to determine your trustworthiness as a sender. Otto has a reputation score of 98% overall. 
• Technical: The technical failure classification groups rejections caused by a technical problem. It’s important to note that rejections with this classification can indicate a technical problem on the sender side or the mailbox provider’s side. Unfortunately, in most cases, it’s difficult or impossible to determine where the problem lies. Here are some common causes for technical failure rejections.
  • The sender is missing important domain name system or DNS records
  • The sender is failing authentication
• Content: The content classification groups rejections that indicate the mailbox provider believes the content of your messages is potentially spammy, malicious, or otherwise untrustworthy. Mailbox providers can reject messages for a number of content-related reasons. Here are some common ones.Links or URLs within the content are suspicious
  • Messages are too lengthy
  • Attachments are too large/not allowed
  • Text to image ratio is off
  • Content appears spammy or malicious
• Deferred: While most email campaigns are successfully delivered within a 60 minute time period, there are minor edge cases where a campaign can take up to 72 hours to deliver. This is due to deferrals from email services that are out of Otto’s control. If after 72 hours, an email campaign has yet to be delivered and it’s been confirmed as not marked as spam, please reach out to our Support team (support@otto.vet) for further investigation.

FAQ

Q. Looking at "Active Clients", how is the recipient list determined, before filters are added?

• • "Active Clients" are determined by whether the Pet Parent:
    • Had an appointment in the past 18 months or in the future 
    • Is marked Active in their PIMS or Flow account
    • Has a valid email address 
    • Has at least one pet who is marked as Active in the PIMS or Flow and is not deceased

Q. Looking at the "Most Recent Appointment" date range filter, how is the recipient list determined before any additional filters are applied?

• • "Most Recent Appointment" recipients are determined by whether the Pet Parent:
    
    • Is marked Active in their PIMS or Flow account
    • Has a valid email address 
    • Has at least one pet who is marked as Active in the PIMS or Flow and is not deceased
    • Had their most recent appointment within the date range selected 
      • If the Pet Parent had an even more recent appointment, outside of the date range you selected, they will not be eligible to receive that campaign. Example: Pet Parent has had two appointments total with your clinic - one on June 20, 2022 and the other on June 20, 2024. If your appointment date range is set to January 1, 2022 - December 31, 2022, Alice will not receive that email as her most recent appointment was on June 20, 2024. 

Q. If a Pet Parent unsubscribes from marketing emails sent from Email Campaigns, will it unsubscribe them from all email notifications?

• • No, if a Pet Parent unsubscribes from a marketing email sent via our email campaigns tool, the pet parent will only be unsubscribed from future marketing emails sent via our email campaigns tool. Additionally, if a Pet Parent unsubscribes from from a marketing email, that does not remove them from receiving future appointment reminders or messages from your clinic sent through a Flow conversation. Should your Pet Parent also want to remove their email notifications, they can do so in their Pet Portal or you can do this for them by unchecking the Email box within their Flow client profile. 

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Q. If a Pet Parent has multiple pets, will they receive the same email multiple times or just one email?

• • If the Pet Parent's multiple pet's qualified for the same email, they would only receive it one time. 

Q. As a clinic user, can I create a new pre-existing template for future use?

• • No, but you can copy a previous campaign and leverage its email template for a new campaign. 

Q. Is it possible to share email lists between Clinics from the same corporate group?

• • Campaign and list setups are currently on a clinic level and not shared across corporate groups.

Q. Is video format supported in Email Campaigns?

• • With the HTML editing tool, the user is able to copy and paste an embed link (e.g from YouTube, Vimeo) for the video to appear on your campaign.

Q. Can the segments be saved?

• • Not necessarily saved, but you can create a draft of your campaign, select the filters you want, and then save the campaign draft as a whole. Leaving and returning to the draft will save the filters previously applied.

Q. If your clinic saves a draft of a campaign and leaves it for a couple of weeks, will it update the recipient list to account for appointments added to the calendar in the meantime?

• • A. The answer is yes, with exception of the "Most Recent Appointment" date range filter, which will honor the previously selected date range when returning to a draft of your campaign. But if your campaign was set to send to "Active Clients" or it's filtered to target a specific Pet Species and/or Pet Age, saving and returning to the campaign will update to reflect the latest appointments. 

Q. Do wildcards work for Email Campaigns?

• • Yes, you can use the {{clientName}} wildcard only in the body of the email. This will show both the client's first and last name when delivered to them! Currently that is the only wildcard we support. Do not use in the subject line of your email, as that will not work. 

Q. Do emojis work for Email Campaigns?

• • Yes, you can add emojis to both the subject line and the body of the email!

Q. I sent a campaign but it is still not in some of my client's inboxes. What should I do?

• • While most email campaigns are successfully delivered within a 60 minute time period, there are minor edge cases where a campaign can take up to 72 hours to deliver. This is due to deferrals from email services that are out of Otto's control. If after 72 hours, an email campaign has yet to be delivered and it's been confirmed as not marked as spam, please reach out to our Support team (support@otto.vet) for further investigation.