Creating an automation mail

On this page:

• Setting the content and using placeholders
• Setting a from name
• Setting a reply to

To send an email inside an automation, you must create an automation mail.

An automation mail can be created like this:

AutomationMail::create()
    ->from('sender@example.com')
    ->subject('Welcome to Mailcoach')
    ->content($html)
    ->trackOpens()
    ->trackClicks();

The trackOpens and trackClicks calls are optional.

Alternatively, you could manually set the attributes on an AutomationMail model.

AutomationMail::create([
   'from_email' => 'sender@example.com',
   'subject' => 'My newsletter #1',
   'content' => $html,
   'track_opens' => true,
   'track_clicks' => true,
]);

Setting the content and using placeholders#

You can set the content of an automation mail by setting its HTML attribute.

$automationMail->html = $yourHtml;
$automationMail->save();

In that HTML you can use these placeholders which will be replaced when sending out the automation mail:

• ::unsubscribeUrl::: this string will be replaced with the URL that, when hit, will immediately unsubscribe the person that clicked it
• ::unsubscribeTag::your tag::: this string will be replaced with the URL that, when hit, will remove the “your tag” tag from the subscriber that clicked it
• ::webviewUrl: this string will be replaced with the URL that will display the content of your automation mail.

If there is no way for a subscriber to unsubscribe, it will result in a lot of frustration on the part of the subscriber. We always recommend using ::unsubscribeUrl:: in the HTML of each automation mail you send.

Setting a from name#

To set a from name, just pass the name as a second parameter to from

AutomationMail::create()->from('sender@example.com', 'Sender name')

Setting a reply to#

Optionally, you can set a reply to email and name like this

AutomationMail::create()->replyTo('john@example.com', 'John Doe')