How to send a Text Only campaign

With ActiveCampaign, you can create a text only, or plain text, campaign to send to your list.

Take note

• It’s not possible to track opens for text only campaigns. Learn how ActiveCampaign tracks email opens
• It's not possible to track replies for plain text campaigns
• You can track link clicks with plain text emails. To include a link in a plain text email, you'll need to type the entire URL, including the https:// or http://. For example, https://www.activecampaign.com/ . This link cannot be embedded into text. Note that not all email clients or devices may hyperlink your URL when your contact receives the email
• If you want the look and feel of a text only email and still track opens and embed your links into text, you will need to create an email using the "Start From Scratch" > "Standard" option
• Personalization tags are not available for use in plain-text campaigns. Because of this, you are not able to edit the default footer in plain-text campaigns

How to create a plain text email

To create a plain-text email:

1. Go to Campaigns and click “Create a Campaign.”
2. On the Campaign Type page:
   • Supply a name for your campaign
   • Select your campaign type. Text Only campaigns are compatible with the following campaign types: Standard, Auto Responder, RSS, and Date Based 
   • Click the “Next” button
3. On the Campaign Summary page, supply your campaign details. Note you can skip this step and start creating your design. However, you will need to supply campaign details before sending your email. 
4. Click the down arrow next to the “Create with email designer” button. Select “Text Only.”
5. Select a template (if applicable) or click “Start from Scratch.”
6. On the next screen, add your campaign content to the composer.
7. To insert personalized content, conditional content, an image, an RSS feed, or content from a URL, click the “Insert” option then select the item you want to add. Next, follow the prompts to add that item. 
8. Click the Setting (gear) icon to update your subject line and “From” and “Reply to” information.
9. Click the "Next" button. You will be redirected back to the Campaign Summary page.
10. Once everything looks good, you can click “Send now” to send the campaign, click the “Schedule” button to send at a later date and time, or click “Save and Exit” to come back to the campaign later.