What a newsletter is
A newsletter is an email (and, if you choose, an in-app message) that you write once and the portal sends to many clients in your book: news, trip ideas or a special offer. You find it under Marketing → Newsletters in the advisor portal's left sidebar, or by pressing Ctrl K (Cmd K on a Mac) and typing "newsletters".
Three rules hold for every newsletter:
- Only clients who agreed to hear from us receive it. Whatever your filters say, a client is left out if they never opted in, unsubscribed, said no to marketing on their profile, or have no email address.
- An admin approves it before it goes. You write and submit; an admin reads it and either approves it or sends it back with a note.
- You can take it back while it waits. Until sending starts, Withdraw to edit returns it to a draft.
Advisors write to their own clients. Admins see every advisor's newsletters, approve them, and can also write to the whole agency.
Starting a newsletter
Open Marketing → Newsletters and click New newsletter. The list page groups your newsletters by where they stand:
| Group | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Waiting for approval | Submitted, not yet approved |
| Drafts | Being written, or sent back for changes |
| Approved and sending | Goes out at its scheduled time, or as soon as approved |
| Sent and cancelled | Finished |
Each row shows who it comes from, email and/or in-app, the number of recipients and when it was saved, scheduled or sent. Click Continue on a draft, or Open on anything else.
The composer is one page with four cards: Message, Preview, Audience and Sending. Click Save draft early; after that the button reads Save whenever you have unsaved changes.
Writing it
Fill in the Message card from top to bottom. The Preview card beside it redraws the email about a second after you stop typing, with sample names in place of real ones.
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Internal title | A name for the list page. Only staff see it. |
| Subject | The email subject line. Required. |
| Preview line | The grey text most inboxes show after the subject. Optional but worth writing. |
| Body | The message itself, in Markdown. Required. |
Formatting the body
The body uses simple Markdown:
**bold**and*italic*[link text](https://example.com)for a link; every link needs the fullhttps://address- a line starting
-for a bullet list - a blank line between paragraphs
You don't need to add a signature, an unsubscribe link or the mailing address. They are added to every newsletter for you.
Buttons above the body
Put the cursor where you want something, then click:
- Client first name, Client full name, Advisor first name, Advisor full name insert a merge field such as
{{ClientFirstName}}. Each client sees their own name. Type them only from these buttons; a misspelt field stops the newsletter from being submitted. - Add image uploads a JPEG, PNG or GIF of 5 MB or less and places it in the body.
- Embed a Journal piece… drops in a story card from the OTA Journal. It must sit on a line of its own, and the piece must be published.
Not ready to send yet
If something is missing, a yellow Not ready to send yet box appears above the preview. Fix each line before you submit. The common ones:
| Message | Fix |
|---|---|
| It needs a subject / It needs a body | Fill in the field |
| Choose email, in-app or both | Tick at least one box under Sending |
| The scheduled time has passed | Pick a new time, or clear it |
| Unknown merge fields | Retype the field with its button |
| Links and images need a full web address | Start the link with https:// |
| Put each Journal piece on a line of its own | Add a blank line before and after the card |
| These Journal pieces aren't published | Publish the piece in the Content Center, or remove it |
Choosing who it goes to
The Audience card starts with everyone in your book; each filter you set narrows it. The Reaches box on the right recounts after every change, and that number is what you are deciding on.
How filters combine. Different filters combine with AND: Activities: Hiking plus Has travelled to: Italy means hikers who have been to Italy. Choices inside one filter combine with OR: Hiking and Cycling means either. A filter left empty means anyone.
| Filter | Narrows to |
|---|---|
| VIP clients only | Clients marked VIP |
| Include companions without their own trip | Also counts travelling companions, not just the lead client |
| Endurance athletes only | Clients flagged as endurance athletes |
| Experience, Travels as, Activities, Trip type, Likes to travel in, Wants to visit | What the client told us in their travel preferences |
| Home state | Two-letter codes, comma-separated, e.g. CA, CO, NY |
| Has travelled to | Countries from booked trips; the number beside each is how many trips went there |
| Trip name contains | Words in a trip's name, e.g. Viking or Ironman |
| That trip started | A window for the trips above: last 12 months, 2 or 5 years, next 90 days or 12 months |
| Upcoming trip booked | Has a trip coming up, or has nothing booked |
| Lapsed | No trip in the last so many months |
Countries come from the suppliers on the ground, so a flight-only trip has none. If you are after a destination, also try Trip name contains.
Reading the Reaches box
- The big number is how many inboxes will receive it.
- of N matching clients can be emailed shows how many matched your filters before consent was checked.
- The lines below say why the rest are left out: no email address, unsubscribed, said no to marketing, never opted in, or sharing an inbox with another recipient (a household gets one copy).
- Who's in it opens the list of names. The tag beside each shows where their consent came from.
Expect the big number to be much smaller than the matching number. Most clients have never opted in to marketing email, and they are never included.
Admins also get Whose clients at the top: the author's book, any one advisor's book, or every client of the agency.
Sending options, approval and timing
A newsletter moves from Draft to Waiting for approval to Approved to Sent, and only a draft can be edited.
- Draft
- Waiting for approval
- Approved
- Sent
Cancelled is the fifth state: a newsletter can be cancelled from any step before Sent.
Cancel newsletter is available at any step before Sent.
The Sending card
| Setting | Choices |
|---|---|
| From | Each client's advisor: it arrives from the advisor's own OTA mailbox. The agency: it arrives from the agency address. If an advisor has no OTA mailbox, their clients' copies come from the agency instead. |
| How | Email, In-app message (only clients with the app get this copy), or both |
| When | A date and time to send. Leave it empty to send as soon as it is approved. |
Submitting and approval
- Click Submit for approval. It saves first, then the newsletter shows Waiting for approval and can no longer be edited.
- To change something, click Withdraw to edit. It goes back to a draft, and you submit again when you're done. This works until sending starts.
- An admin reviews it and either clicks Approve or Request changes. If changes are requested, it returns to your drafts with a yellow Changes requested note at the top.
- Once approved, it goes out at the time in When, or within a few minutes if that is empty. A large newsletter sends in batches over several minutes.
Cancel newsletter stops it for good; a cancelled newsletter can't be sent. While it is going out the button reads Stop sending: copies already sent stay sent, and nobody else receives it.
An approved newsletter can show Approved — on hold. That means the system paused it until something behind the scenes is fixed, such as client data that hasn't refreshed in the last 48 hours. The reason appears at the top of the newsletter. It sends by itself once the hold clears; you don't need to resubmit.
The History card at the bottom records every step: who submitted, approved, withdrew or cancelled it, and when.
After it goes out
Once sending starts, a Delivery card appears at the top of the newsletter. It refreshes every minute while sending is in progress.
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Waiting | Not sent yet |
| Sent | Delivered to the mail system |
| Failed (will retry) | Tried and failed; it will be tried again |
| Skipped | Not sent, with the reason shown below the counts |
| Rehearsed (dry run) | Test run only; the client received nothing |
The skip reasons include: unsubscribed since sending started, said no to marketing on their profile, no app account for the in-app copy, and sent from the agency because the advisor has no OTA mailbox.
Unsubscribes are handled for you. Every email carries an unsubscribe link. A client who uses it is left out of every later newsletter from OTA, and you don't need to do anything.
Dry runs. While the agency is testing, an admin can switch sending to dry-run mode. A newsletter then shows Dry run sent: a few sample copies went to a test inbox, the rest were rehearsed, and no client received anything. An admin can click Withdraw dry run to a draft so it can be approved and sent for real.
Questions
My audience says 0. What's wrong? Usually nothing: none of the matching clients have opted in to marketing. Widen the filters, or ask an admin to check the agency-wide count.
Why can't I edit my newsletter? Only drafts can be edited. Click Withdraw to edit if it's waiting for approval or approved.
A client asked to be added. They need to opt in to marketing email first, from their own profile or the newsletter sign-up. You can't add them yourself.
Can I see what a client will see? The Preview card is the email as sent, with sample names in place of the merge fields.
Watch it instead: the 3-minute walkthrough video on the Help page covers the same steps.