This article is intended to help customers who have upgraded from BoltMail 1. We’ll discuss the main differences and point out some new features.
Differences
Campaigns & templates
The main difference between BoltMail 1 and BoltMail 2 is in how campaigns are organised:
In BoltMail 1 campaigns operated like templates, they worked as an email template that you could send again and again.
Statistics for each send out were separate from the campaign and found in the statistics menu.
In BoltMail 2 each campaign that you send is a separate campaign, a campaign can only be sent once. A campaign contains all of the send out information such as the subject line and the contact list it will be sent to. Once sent the statistics for that campaign are contained within the campaign. So a campaign is not a template, it’s the email that was sent including who it was sent to and all of the related statistics. If you need to send the same campaign again you can copy that campaign by clicking the copy button, this will create a duplicate of that campaign, you can then change anything you need to and send it out.
BoltMail 2 has templates that can be re-used in campaigns. Templates can be found at Email Templates > Templates. Templates operate like the campaigns did in BoltMail 1, you can resend a template as many times as you like. To send a template simply click the Create Campaign button to the right of the template. This will create a new campaign using that template. By using templates can continue to use BoltMail 2 in the same way that you did with BoltMail 1.
(BoltMail 1 also had templates but there was really no difference between templates and campaigns)
All of your old BoltMail 1 templates have been imported into the templates section of BoltMail 2.
All of your old campaigns are available from Campaigns > Legacy Campaigns. From here you can import a campaign into your BoltMail templates list or create a new campaign directly from that legacy campaign (ie. use it like a template).
While there is nothing wrong in continuing to use your old campaigns and templates we recommend that you take the time to create new templates because BoltMail 2 contains a powerful drag and drop email design tool that will allow you to create better emails.
Custom fields
Custom fields work much the same way they always have except that you now mange them for each list rather than globally. To manage your custom fields go to Lists > Lists, click on the list name, then click on "Custom fields". The tag format for displaying a custom field in your emails has changed, see below.
Tags
Merge tags in BoltMail 2 now use the format [TAG_NAME] instead of %%tag name%%. This makes tags easier to read and compatible with templates purchased from third party template stores, this is because most of our competitors use this format.
Tags are always UPPERCASE and spaces are replaced with an underscore.
You can now apply filters to tags to change their appearance, for example [FNAME:filter:uppercase] would display the subscriber's first name in uppercase. Click here to learn more
Sending a campaign to multiple lists
Sending a campaign to multiple lists requires a different approach in BoltMail 2. You will need to create a separate copy of the campaign for each list and use a sending group to prevent recipients from receiving the same email twice. Click here to learn more
Forms
Forms operate differently in BoltMail 2. In BoltMail 1 if you wanted to create a subscribe form, update details form, or forward to a friend form, you had to manually create it. In BoltMail 2 these forms are automatically created for each list and you can still customise them if needed. See the following help topics:
- How to add a subscribe or unsubscribe form to your website
- How to allow subscribers to update their details
- Forward to a friend
Customising all of the forms and messages for each list can be done from Lists > Lists, click on the list name, then click on "Pages & messages"
Customising the form fields (custom fields) can be done from Lists > Lists, click on the list name, then click on "Custom fields". For each field you can specify if it should be visible on your forms.
Some new features
Sending domains
In BoltMail 1 we did not provide any method for spam filters to verify the legitimacy of your emails, but in BoltMail 2 you now can. Sending domains are optional but will greatly reduce the amount of email that ends up in spam folders. Click here for more information
Drag and drop email design tool
The new email design tool allows you to easily craft sophisticated emails that are mobile responsive and work effortlessly across all email platforms. You can still choose to create campaigns using the old text editor, just click the "Switch to text editor" button when on the template step of a campaign. (Note that once you save your campaign for the first time you can no-longer switch editors for that particular campaign, this is because campaigns designed in the drag and drop editor are not compatible with the text editor and vice versa)
Free stock image library and image editor
From within the new drag and drop email builder you can access our library of over 1 million high quality images and use them in your templates for free. You can also edit images, such as overlaying text or applying filters.
Import RSS feeds into your campaigns
You can now create email campaigns that are automatically populated with the latest news or blog posts from your website, you can even configure this to be sent on a recurring schedule. To learn how see: Embed RSS feeds into your email campaign
Sub accounts
BoltMail 1 was a single user system. In BoltMail 2 you can now create additional users for your account. This has been one of our most highly requested features.
Email box monitors
Use email box monitors to watch specified email accounts and perform automated actions based on the emails that arrive there. For example you could automatically unsubscribe anyone who sends you an email with the words "unsubscribe me" or copy someone to a new list that has an autoresponder if their email contains a phrase such as "tell me more"
Send in your contact's timezone
When creating a campaign, on the last step where you choose the send date and time, you can enable our new timewarp feature, once enabled each recipient will receive the campaign in their local timezone so that your campaign arrives to every inbox at the right time of day for maximum impact.
Geo opens
When viewing the statistics for a campaign you can see where in the world your subscriber base is located. Use this information to tailer your emails to their local culture. This data is used to power timewarp.
But wait theres more...
There are lots of other new features, have a good look around your new account to familiarise yourself. Keep in mind that just because a feature exists doesn't mean you have to use it, just ignore any features that don't apply to you. If you need assistance with anything please just open a support ticket or give us a call.
