Construction Executive (CE) eBlast Specs and Best Practices
Please read this page fully, there are many important notes that will help you make the most of your eblast with CE and email marketing efforts in general.
Process
After we receive your materials, we will add our standard footer, check for spam complaints against common filters, test the email design through Litmus and various email clients, and send it to be approved to the editors of Construction Executive, and if needed, ABC’s safety director, and correct any problems we may find, such as style changes, or safe violations depicted in images.
You will receive a final proof after all changes are made.
Our email system will send you a test with any merge tags filled using information from a random subscriber.
We do not sent any emails without your final approval.
Deadline
All materials are due 3 weeks before the launch date unless otherwise stated. Occasionally deadlines may be earlier to work around holidays and industry events. See the “Materials Due” date on your Ad Insertion Order or your digital stats dashboard, for your due date.
If you are in need of an extension, please alert digital-ad@magazinexperts.com with an estimated completion date and we will try to accommodate you.
Materials
- Please send all materials to digital-ads@magazinexperts.com or here.
- We cannot accept: Forwarded emails, .EML files, .mbox files or .dat files. Only .html source files – not .html files saved from Outlook.
- We do not allow for a previous eblast to be resent, each eblast must be unique in subject and content. (Repeat emails get higher spam complaints)
- Please make sure images depict safe construction sites. A list of common safety problems can be found, here
- Materials must be provided send ready.
- The email should be provided in raw .HTML format
- ALL linked images must be served over HTTPS
- eBlast HTML and text version should be no larger than 70KB (Under 50kb is recommended) initial load (not including linked images, stylesheets, but including the the text version).
- Materials may be provided in a zip file
- Subject line(s) may be included in the email or included via a text file.
- Optional pre-header may be included in the email or included via a text file
- An optional text version may be provided in .txt format
- A list of people who should approve the test email
- A list of people who should receive the final mailed version of the email
- An optional suppression list – list of known emails who should not receive your emails. Suppression list should be either a .CSV or .TXT file, with only email addresses, one per line. Suppressions are never added to our contacts list, or reused in any way.
- We have options to suppress entire domains, to prevent competitors or customers from getting your emails. Ask us, if you have advanced suppression requirements.
- All materials must be provided no later than two weeks before the launch date. Materials that arrive after the due date, or are replaced or updated after submission may delay the launch date to the next available date.
Content
- Body copy should be in AP style or will be edited to AP style.
- Headlines and buttons must be in title case
- Only true proper nouns should be capitalized (Including Product Names, but not taglines or descriptors)
- Bold or italics may not be used for emphasis.
- Numbers under 10 must be spelled out
- No mentions of competitive publications, such as ENR, ConstrucTech, ConstructionDive etc
- All images should be hosted on your server.
- Do not include any javascript, it will be removed.
- Do not include an unsubscribe link. We will supply that.
- You may include a place for a “View Email Online” link, but we will supply the link itself (It’s also available in the Merge Tags below)
- Remove all merge tags except those which we provide.
- All images must have alt attributes, even if the alt attribute is empty. All hyperlinked images must have alt text.
- Make sure all HTML special characters are properly encoded (©, ™, ®, ’, etc). This site has most HTML entity codes.
- Do not leave merge tags from your system in the HTML file—this includes in URLs
- Contents of all ads are covered under CE‘s Advertising Terms and Conditions.
Common Style Guide Notes
Emails must be edited to AP Style. Emails received not in AP Style are subject to editing and may lead to delays. Here’s a few common corrections.
- Do not use ‘over’ when you really mean ‘more than’. Example: We have more than 3,000 customers.
- Always use “jobsite” instead of “job site”
- Do not use the oxford comma.
- Times should be expressed as “a.m.” and “p.m.”.
- Do not include the current year on dates. Use June 9, not June 9, 2017
- Timezones should use the timezone name without daylight or standard time. Example: ET, not EST or EDT. PT Instead of PST or PDT.
- Do not use GCs and Subs, spell out general contractors and subcontractors
CAN-SPAM Compliance and Sender Address
- Emails will be sent from either the sender name “CE + AdvertiserName” or simply “AdvertiserName” with the email in this format: <company@sponsors.constructionexecutivemagazine.com>
- All emails sent on behalf of an individual advertiser must come from the same address.
- The Publisher’s standard footer will appear below the Advertiser’s address with Construction Executive’s mailing address, an option to unsubscribe, and a link to CE’s Privacy Policy.
A/B and Multivariate testing
Construction Executive offers A/B and multivariate testing at no additional cost.
We can test the following scenarios:
- Multiple Subject Lines, same email body
- Multiple Email bodies, same subject line
- Multiple Email bodies and multiple subject lines
For any test, we send the test to a sample, select a winner and send the remainder. We can select any percent of the list to test, typically 20% (With two variations, each would be sent to 10% of the list). The remaining can be sent at any time under 12 hours after the initial send, with the winner selected by Open Rate, total Click through rate, or manually (You Pick one ahead of time)
Note: Winning versions are picked at the point in time they are sent, while stats are reported at a different point in time. The winning version two hours after an eblast is sent, may not be the winning version a week later when stats are collected.
A/B winners tests must be sent on the same day as the launch date
Available Merge Tags
| Description | Default | Merge Tag |
|---|---|---|
| Recipient’s email address | %%emailaddr%% |
|
| Recipient’s First Name | CE Subscriber | %%FirstName_%% |
| Recipient’s LastName | %%LastName_%% |
|
| Recipient’s Full Name | CE Subscriber | %%FullName_%% |
| Forward this email | http://editor.ne16.com/vo/Forward.aspx?FileID= |
|
| View this email online | http://editor.ne16.com/vo/?FileID=[[FileID]]&m=[members_.memberidguid_]&MailID=[outmail.messageid]&ListID=[lists_.listid_] |
Best Practices
- Include one clear call to action, not multiple. If your CTA button is an image, make sure it has alt text and is appropriately styled in case the image is not loaded
- Include an monitored email address in your email for anyone who may have questions.
- Use trackable links that will always work, such as UTM tags, over a manual redirect (Such as …com/constructionexec/)
- Avoid promoting webinars as the main content of your email, historically they have low engagement. If you are going to promote a webinar, best results come from promoting during the week of the webinar.
- Use message encoding Unicode: UTF-8
- Provide HTML email should be no more than 700px wide and should use responsive design.
- Emails must be at least 50% text. Emails with more than 50% images are ineffective in email clients that do not automatically display images, and are also more likely to be quarantined by spam filters.
Statistics
Statistics are provided in through CE‘s Digital Stats Dashboard, updated daily. A CSV export is available from there. Metrics include:
- Total email sent
- Total emails delivered
- Total Opens
- Unique Opens
- Total clicks
- Unique clicks
- Engagement clicks (clicks on your content, not our required links, such as privacy policy, forward, unsubscribe, view online, and social media links from the advertiser)
- And various rates derived from these numbers.
If you need statistics provided in a certain format or form, broken down in more detail, or provided more than once, you must alert us before your IO is signed.
Examples
eBooks / Whitepapers / Case Study
Infographics
Special Offers and Discounts
Free Trials
Request a Demo/Quote
Webinars and Events
Visit Our Booth
Content A/B Tests
Subject A/B Tests
Tradesmen International:
A: Reduce Workers’ Comp Exposure with Contract Craftsmen
B: (Winner): Need Proven Craft Professionals?
On Center Software.
A (Winner):7-step Process to Successfully Hiring a Great Estimator
B:7 Steps to Hiring a Great Estimator
Template
No templates are currently available from Construction Executive
HTML coding and design services are available for additional fees. Contact your sales rep.
Other Important Notes:
During tests, any UTM tags may be stripped out. These will show up in the final campaign.
Subscribers may opt out of all eblasts or opt to stop receiving eblasts from certain advertiser. Because of this, list size will vary.
We can provide a list of subscribers who opted out of your emails, if needed. This cannot be used for any other purpose except suppression of future emails.