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faq
Thursday, December 26, 2024

Creating e-mails

    Locating materials
  1. You'll receive a tracker in your Outlook inbox.
  2. Go to tracker on the network, find the tracker and read the information carefully, especially the portion pertaining to creative.
  3. Locate the materials on the network drive (usually G:\ Adv_Production\# thru #\<AdvName> <AdvNumber>\Pushmail\yyyy.mm.dd)
  4. Make sure all the materials are in there and that the images are showing up correctly. If they aren't, contact the account manager or the production coordinator listed in the tracker.
    5. Creating a new "Site" in Dreamweaver
  5. If you don't have a site created already for this advertiser, you'll need to make one.
    Go to: Site > New Site...
  6. Create a folder named ~ADVERTISERURL~A<AdvNumber> in your directory that will hold all the images and supporting materials (css, js, etc.)
  7. Select the files that are needed for the e-mail (HTML and graphics) and drag them over into your directory.
  8. Create (or rename) the e-mail page as yyyy.mm.dd-<adv>-<initials>.<htm|asp>.
  9. Move all the supporting files from the image folder into the ~ADVERTISERURL~A<AdvNumber> directory and when Dreamweaver asks if you want to update links, select Update.
    10. Start optimizing creative
  10. Remove all of the following tags: HTML, HEAD, TITLE, BODY and make sure to look for tracking pixels.
  11. Update the different links in the e-mail as #link1, #link2, #link3, ... (e-mail generator will replace these) or replace the links with the ones provided in the text document.
  12. Keep the weight of the HTML and graphics as low as possible, preferably less than 30 KB. Oftentimes, some e-mails will get up to 100 KB easily, usually making for a slow horrid experience for members.
  13. Check the quality of the HTML by using the HTML preview tool. If the images don't appear, you'll need to replicate them out to the servers.
    14. Create the e-mail
  14. Start creating the e-mail using the e-mail generator. Copy the HTML into the textbox, type in the advertiser name, fill in all the required information and submit the information and a new window should open up with the processed e-mail almost ready to go. You'll have to make some touch-ups here. You can also go back to the form page and change the outer width of the table (usually 50px wider than the internal HTML).
  15. Copy and paste the new HTML into your document that was created earlier. All the images should be dark gray and the server they're coming from should be http://img10.coolsavings.com. No images should be coming from a third-party source unless they are tracking pixels.
  16. Place only the finished file (no images) in your preview folder to make sure everything is done correctly. Check the URL http://info.coolsavings.com/preview/<YourFolder>/<YourFile>.htm
  17. Check your work in Internet Explorer by using the TAB key and reviewing all the URL's that are in the document. Check your work in Netscape 4 by looking over the layout and view the source using CTRL+U.
  18. If everything is correct, add a note to the tracker and change the ownership back to the production coordinator who assigned it to you originally.
  19. Move the tracker e-mail notification to a folder to keep track of what projects you have worked on.