Email Marketing & Campaigns

Build, send, and track email campaigns to the guest database your WiFi collects. The Email Marketing suite includes a campaign wizard, a template library, audience segments and automations, and full sending analytics.

Plan requirement: Email marketing is included on the Growth plan and above (2,000 emails/month on Growth, 5,000 on Multi-Site). See Plans & Pricing.

Where Everything Lives

In the sidebar under Email Marketing:

Page	What it's for
Campaigns	Create, schedule, and track campaigns
Templates	Your reusable email template library
Audiences	Saved segments and automatic emails
Settings	Sender identity, domain verification, and suppression list

First: Verify Your Sending Domain

Before you can send campaigns, your sending domain must be verified — this proves to inbox providers that CaptiFi may send on your behalf, and it's the single biggest factor in staying out of spam.

1. Go to Email Marketing → Settings → the Sender & domain tab
2. Under Sender identity, set your From name (e.g. "Bella Vista Café") and From address (e.g. hello@bellavista.co.uk), then click Save sender identity
3. Saving your sender identity generates a table of DNS records (type, host, value) with copy buttons under Domain verification
4. Add those records at your domain provider (the place you bought your domain). Open How to add these records below the table for step-by-step guides covering Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, 123-reg, Squarespace Domains, and IONOS
5. Once the records propagate (usually minutes, up to 48 hours), click Verify now: each record shows a Pass badge and the domain shows Verified

Not the person who manages your domain?

Use Email these instructions under the records table: enter the email address of your IT person (or whoever looks after your domain) and we send them the exact records with setup tips. They don't need a CaptiFi login — once they've added the records, you click Verify now.

WARNING

Campaigns can only be sent once the domain is verified. Until then, the sidebar shows a warning badge on Settings. If you get stuck adding DNS records, support can walk you through it.

Creating a Campaign

1. Go to Email Marketing → Campaigns and click to create a new campaign
2. The wizard walks you through:
   • Name — an internal name for the campaign
   • Audience — choose who receives it: all subscribed guests or a saved segment, optionally filtered to one venue
   • Template — pick a design from your library and set the subject line and content, with personalisation like the guest's first name and your venue name
   • Schedule — send now, or pick a date and time
   • Review & send — check everything, then confirm
3. Your campaign appears in the list with its live status

Only guests who opted in to marketing on your splash page are emailed, and every email automatically includes an unsubscribe link. Guests can also opt out with the Unsubscribe button their mail app shows at the top of the message. Either way the opt-out is immediate and applies to every venue on your account, and the address moves to your Suppressions list.

Contacts you brought in yourself count too: see Import Existing Contacts for uploading a list you already have. Imported contacts appear in campaign audiences and count towards your monthly email allowance exactly like WiFi guests.

Managing Campaigns

The Campaigns page has tabs for All / Drafts / Scheduled / Sending / Sent / Cancelled. Each row shows the campaign's status and its key stats (sent, opens, clicks). Per-campaign actions:

• Edit — continue a draft
• Duplicate — copy an existing campaign as a starting point
• Preview — see the email as recipients will
• Cancel — stop a scheduled campaign before it sends
• Delete — remove it (with confirmation)

Click a sent campaign to open its detail page with full analytics.

Templates

Email Marketing → Templates holds your reusable designs. Create or edit a template in the visual editor, then pick it in the campaign wizard. Duplicate templates to build seasonal variations quickly.

Starter templates

The library ships with 28 professionally designed starters, all editable in the visual builder:

• General (any venue): Welcome New Guests, We Miss You (win-back), Special Offer, Event Invitation, Review Request, Announcement, Monthly Newsletter, Seasonal Celebration
• Cafe: New Coffee Blend, Breakfast Special, Loyalty Rewards, Pastry of the Week, Work Space Promo, Student Discount
• Restaurant: New Menu Launch, Weekend Brunch, Chef's Special, Wine Tasting Event, Date Night Special, Group Reservations, Seasonal Menu
• Bar: New Cocktail Menu, Happy Hour Special, Live Music Tonight, Sports Game Viewing, Trivia Night, Ladies Night, Weekend Party Event

Click Preview on any template card (or the thumbnail itself) to open the full design in a scrollable window. When one fits, click Use template to copy it into your own library, then tweak the copy and colours to match your venue. Every starter is written to send with minimal edits: each one opens with real placeholder photography to swap for your own shots, its own layout (photo-led, bold offer poster, editorial, or event ticket), realistic example copy (menus, prices, dates) to overwrite, personalisation like the guest's first name and your venue name already in place, and the unsubscribe link built in.

Send yourself a test

In the template editor, click Send test in the top bar. CaptiFi saves your design and emails it to your own login address with sample values filled in (your venue name, your first name), so you can check it in a real inbox before a campaign goes out. Test emails are limited to a few per minute.

Mobile and dark mode

Emails built in the editor are sent with mobile-friendly markup: two-column layouts stack on small screens, and the email declares a light colour scheme so mail apps do not force-invert your design. The editor's phone icon previews the mobile layout before you send.

Suppressions

The Suppressions tab under Email Marketing → Settings lists addresses that will never be emailed — unsubscribes and hard bounces land here automatically. This keeps you compliant and protects your sender reputation.

Hard-bounced addresses are also marked with a Bounced badge on your Guest Visits page and are rejected if anyone tries to sign in with them again, so a dead address only ever costs you one send.

Reading Your Results

Metric	Good benchmark
Open rate	25-40%
Click rate	5-15%
Bounce rate	Under 2%
Unsubscribe rate	Under 1%

Open tracking relies on image loading, so real opens may be higher than reported; Apple Mail privacy features can also inflate opens. Watch trends rather than absolutes.

Best Practices

1. One clear call to action per email — a visit, a booking, a review
2. Keep it short — 50-100 words; people scan, they don't read
3. Personalise — use the guest's first name and your venue name
4. Send at good times — 10am-2pm weekdays performs best; avoid Mondays and Fridays
5. Don't over-email — 1-2 emails per month is ideal; weekly or more drives unsubscribes
6. Segment — a win-back offer for lapsed guests beats a blast to everyone
7. Use a custom domain — verified domains dramatically improve deliverability

Troubleshooting

Issue	Cause	Solution
Can't send a campaign	Sending domain not verified	Complete Domain verification under Email Marketing → Settings
Emails going to spam	New or unverified domain	Verify your domain; warm up with small sends; avoid spammy subject lines
Low open rates	Subject lines or timing	Test different subject lines; schedule for 10am-2pm weekdays
High bounce rate	Old or invalid addresses	Bounced addresses are suppressed automatically; focus on fresh WiFi signups
Guest says they got no email	Not opted in, or suppressed	Check their profile in Guest Visits and the Suppressions list
Campaign stuck on Sending	Queue delay	Wait 15 minutes; contact support if it persists

Related Features

• Email Automations — welcome, review-request, and win-back emails that send themselves
• Guest Analytics — the audience data behind your campaigns
• Email Marketing Best Practices — deeper guidance