How to Use the Connect Message Centre

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Modified on: Mon, 21 Nov, 2022 at 6:57 PM

The Connect Message Centre allows you to view and manage all communications sent from the platform, including Personalised Pitches and Email Announcements. Within the Message Centre, you can preview sent Email Announcements, view and export the Email Announcement Performance Snapshot Report, copy Email Announcements to send to additional contacts, view and reply to Personalised Pitches, and more!

Select one of the following topics to learn more about:

• General Navigation
• Email Announcement Management
  • Copying an Email Announcement
  • Viewing an Email Announcement Preview
  • Email Announcement Performance Snapshot Reports
  • Adding Email Announcement Recipients to a List
• Personalised Pitch Management
  • Viewing a Personalised Pitch Email Thread
  • Deleting a Personalised Pitch Email or Thread
  • Replying to a Personalised Pitch
  • Marking a Personalised Pitch Email or Thread as Read/Unread

To View all of your Email Announcements and Personalised Pitches:

1. Navigate to the Contacts tab.
2. Select Message Centre.  

When in the Message Centre:

On the left-hand side, you can filter by:

Shared Inbox: Based on all integrated email accounts for your organisation in the platform My Inbox: Includes just the emails from your integrated account Unread: Emails that have not been opened Draft Emails: Emails that have been created but not scheduled or sent Scheduled Emails: Emails that are scheduled to send at a later date
Use the Search bar to find specific emails. Search by: Email Type, Recipient Name, Subject Line, or the From: Address. To Select Additional Filters, click on the Filters Dropdown in the Message Centre. You can select the specific filter you would like to apply, then click on Apply Filter. You will see the filter has been applied to the Message Centre. Note that the Email Type is listed to the left of the Subject line for each email.

Message Centre Filters Available:

Email Status: Filters for any Unread Emails
Email Accounts: Filters based on the different integrated email accounts for your organiation. NOTE: You will only see this filter option if you look at the Shared Inbox.
Email Type: Filter for Email Announcements or Personalised Pitches
To deselect any filter(s), click on the green X next to the filter highlighted in a green pill.

Managing Email Announcements

To Copy an Email Announcement:

Many Email Announcements are used to distribute press release-style communication. You may spend a lot of time editing and adjusting spacing, colors, images, header styles, etc., before sending the first release. This is delicate work you need to do each time you draft a new email announcement unless you utilize the Copy an Email feature.

With the Copy an Email feature, you can easily duplicate an existing email announcement (draft or sent) which will preserve all of the stylings of the email you previously created!

There are 2 options to Copy an Email:

1. In the Message Centre, click on the Copy Email button that appears on the right side of the screen for the Email Announcement you wish to copy, then add a new name for the copied email and click Create Draft.

OR

2. In the Email Preview Screen (after clicking on the "Sent" email announcement you wish to copy in the Message Centre), click on the Copy Email button in the upper-right corner of the screen, then add a new name for the copied email and click Create Draft.

Follow the steps in the email wizard to add recipients, edit the email and adjust email preferences.

Viewing Email Announcement Previews and Reports:

Email Announcement Reports give valuable insight into who is engaging with your outreach efforts. The platform will automatically track delivery rates, open rates, link clicks and unsubscribes!

After clicking on the Email Announcement you wish to Review, select either the Email Preview tab or the Performance Snapshot tab.

Email Preview:

Email Preview will give you a preview version of the email that was sent.

Email Announcement Performance Snapshot Report:

The Email Announcement Performance Snapshot Report provides valuable insights of media interaction for the Email Announcement that was sent. Click on the Performance Snapshot tab from the Email Preview.

To go directly to the Performance Snapshot, click on the number of recipients for the Email Announcement in the Message Centre.

The Performance Snapshot shows the following information:

1. Delivery Rate - Percentage of recipients who successfully received the email.
2. Open Rate - Percentage of recipients who opened the email.
3. Click Rate - Percentage of recipients who clicked on links embedded in the email.
4. Bounce Rate - Percentage of recipients who did not receive the email after bouncing for 72 hours straight.
5. Unsubscribe Rate - Percentage of recipients who received the email, but unsubscribed from receiving future emails.
6. Status - This column tracks the delivery status of each recipient on the email list using the following:

Sending – The email has been sent and has not been delivered or denied from being delivered yet. We consider an email that has soft bounced one or more times in less than 72 hours to still be in a “sending” state. We will attempt to resend soft bounced emails an unspecified number of times for up to 72 hours after the initial send event.

Delivered – The email has been sent and has been delivered to the recipient’s email server.

Bounced – The email was not delivered to the recipient because it hard bounced or soft bounced for 72 hours straight. 

Not Sent - The email was not sent from the system because the recipient previously unsubscribed from emails from the account in question or the recipient previously unsubscribed from all emails from Cision.

7. Opened - This column denotes whether or not a recipient opened the Email Announcement.

8. Clicked - This will denote whether links in the email have or have not been clicked. Click on the View Links link to view which links were opened. To learn more about individual links reporting, click here.

9. We will record if a recipient previously unsubscribed from emails, which can be checked by hovering over the black circular information bubble next to the delivery status of Not Sent:

• "Recipient has unsubscribed from email contact" 
• "Not contactable via Cision due to data privacy request"

To learn more about recipients who did not open the email or click on links, click here.

To Export an Email Announcement Performance Snapshot Report:

1. Click on the Export CSV button to export the report for all contacts OR select individual contacts, then click on the Download dropdown above the contacts and select Contact List. 2. Select your preferred delimiter for your CSV export, then click on the Next: Terms and Agreement button. 3. Check the box that you agree to the terms and agreements outlined in the Cision Data Download Terms and Agreements pop-up, then click on the Download CSV button.

To Add Recipients of an Email Announcement to a New or Existing Contact List:

1. Select All recipients or individual recipients to add to your list. Note: You can filter the list before selecting recipients.
2. Click the Add to List button in the recipient's filter bar. In the side tray, select one of these two options: 3. Click the Create New List button to add recipients to a new contact list. 4.  Add recipients to Existing List(s), by clicking the Plus Sign button. 5. After selecting the list, click the Add to List button.

Managing Personalised Pitches

You'll be able to view your history of Personalised Pitch email communications with the media. To send Personalised Pitches to the media, click the link to learn more about our Personalised Pitching email integration.

To View a Specific Personalised Pitch Thread:

1. Click on the Personalised Pitch in the Message Centre.
2. Click on the Ellipses button to see the full thread.

To Reply to a Personalised Pitch:

1. Select the Specific Pitch or Reply you would like to review. 2. Click on the Reply button.

To Mark an Individual Personalised Pitch as Read/Unread:

1. Select the Specific Pitch or Reply you would like to mark as Read/Unread. 2. Click on the Mark this message as "Unread" or Mark this message as "Read" button.

To Mark a Full Personalised Pitch Thread as Read/Unread:

Click on the Envelope icon to mark all messages in a thread as "Read" or "Unread"

To Delete an Individual Personalised Pitch:

1. Select the Specific Pitch or Reply you would like to delete. 2. Click on the Delete Message button.

To Delete a Full Personalised Pitch Thread:

Since private or sensitive email messages will be displayed in the Message Centre if an Email Integration Blocklist is not set up before integrating an email account, you can delete the entire thread from the Message Centre.

Additionally, when an email integration is removed from a Connect account, the ingested emails and personalised pitches that remain visible in the Message Centre can be deleted.

From the Message Centre:

Click on the Trash Can icon to the right of the Pitch thread you want to delete. Click on the Confirm button in the pop-up window. A message will appear at the top of the screen, letting you know that the thread has been deleted.

From the Personalised Pitch Thread:

Click on the Trash can icon within the thread.