Tutorial: Email Auto-Responders and Merge Codes

Creating survey email auto-responders with SurveyGizmo is easy. Survey email auto-responders can be used to send yourself the results of a survey or email your survey taker a confirmation/thank you.

Step 1: Add an Action

Frequently you’ll want to add your auto-responder to the Thank You page (last page) of your survey, but you can add it to any page other than the first. In your survey, click ‘Add Actions.’ The order of the Email Action doesn’t matter. Even if it sits below your Thank You text, it will execute as soon as that page is reached.

Step 2: Choose ‘Send Email’ from actions

Add an internal title for your email auto-responder. This is for you only and is not seen by the respondents.

Step 3: Setting up your Auto-responder

Subject line

The subject line of your email

From: name (optional)

The From: Name of the email – usually your name. It is pre-filled by default with a Merge Code that will insert your account’s full user name

From: email address

The From: email address – usually your email. It is pre-filled by default with a Merge Code that will insert your account’s email address

Send to: Name (optional)

The To: Name of the email – usually your name. It is pre-filled by default with a Merge Code that will insert your account’s full user name

Send to: email address

This is the send to email address. It can be your email address or one collected during the survey from the respondent. To include an email collected in the survey, you need to use a Merge Code that will be replaced when the email is triggered. Click “Click to show mergeable email fields” to show the Email Merge Helper. All of the fields that SurveyGizmo believes are emails will be listed. Remove anything in the field first, and then click insert to enter your selection. Merge codes take the format of [%%##: Title%%] where ## is the question Sku and title is short version of the title text. This specific format is used to allow SurveyGizmo the ability to detect the code. You don’t want to change/remove any of these symbols, or it won’t work.

BCC List (optional)

Blind Carbon Copy can be used to send other people in your office a copy of the email

Email Type

You may send text only, or, you can alternatively send an email with both Text and HTML and the user’s email client will use whichever one it can (called multi-part alternative).

Text Email Body

This must be filled in. Sample text is added for you to explain some of the auto-responder capabilities. You can also use Merge Codes in this field in much the same way that you use a word processor mail merge. See Merge Codes below.

HTML Email Body (optional)

After building your text body, you can cut and paste the text into the HTML to get it started. You may also add graphics, pictures, or branding to customize your HTML email.

Step 4: Advanced Options (Totally optional)

Reply To: Name & Reply: email address

Specify a reply address different from the send address.

Send by Default?

Prevent the email from being sent by default. Use this based on certain circumstances. You could escalate a poor review for more immediate customer service response, or only send the customer an email if they answered questions in a certain way. The rule below will determine when the email is sent.

Don’t Send When

Create a rule that when FALSE will trigger the email, i.e. when 1 = 2 will always be false, or when when question 10 = ‘no’ (would send email if 10 was answered ‘yes’)

Time delay

Delay send a specified number of days from survey response. Use this to send a timed series. Everyone who fills out your landing page for 10 Tips on ________ gets one tip emailed to them per day for ten days. You would set up 10 emails each with a delay 1 day, 2 days, etc.

Show Unsub Box

need description

Custom SMTP Server, user, password

If you would like to use your own SMTP server (or your ESP’s) to send the email, you may specify it here.

Using Merge Codes

You can use Merge Codes the way you do in a word processor when doing a mail merge. The Merge Code is replaced automatically when the email is triggered. As an example, if you collect the respondent’s name in the survey you can personalize the email with two merge codes like this:

Dear [%%#; First Name %%] [%%#; Last Name %%] ,

Make sure you use the Merge Helper to insert the properly numbered code. Click in the Text body field where you want to place the merge code, then click “Insert at Cursor”. You can use any of the values from the survey through merge codes. You can also ‘Insert All’ to place all of the questions and their merge codes to build a comprehensive list of the survey results.

Email merge codes can be used to insert a survey taker’s email question into the Email To: field.