Mail merge

GSM offers a flexible and easy to use mail merge function, to send personalized and professional emails to clients und prospects.

You will need 2 things to send emails

1. A email template in Google Mail
2. A list with email addresses in Google Sheets

You can send emails in a very basic way without personalizing - or a bit advanced with variables. But, in every case: Before sending your mass email, please try it with some example email addresses!

The basic method - without variables

1. If you don´t already have a mail template, switch to gmail and create one by clicking on 'Compose'

1. Note: A GSM email template is a usual Google Email - saved in 'Drafts'. When you create a new Email it will be automatically saved in 'Drafts' by Gmail.
1. Enter your content. Text, links, pictures, attachments - and style the document as you like.

1. Switch back to Google Sheets and enter email addresses in a column.

1. Select the records you want to send a mail to.

1. IMPORTANT: The column right of your selection is used by GSM for state information and failure notes, the column should be empty!
1. Call the GSM function "Email selected addresses'

1. Choose a mail template (the list comes from your gmail drafts) and click on "Send"

1. Note: During the sending process GSM sets a timestamp (or other notes) in the column right of your selection.
1. Wait until sending is completed!
2. Note: If you have sent your mails with "Track clicks" (highly recommended!) GSM will be open the sheet 'GSM-Sum"
3. (The Tabs 'GSM-Sum' and 'GSM-Links' will be automatically created if not available)

The advanced way: Merge data from your sheet into the email

The usage is very similar to the basic example, only with more columns.

1. Enter additional data (like: firstname, lastname, city, ...) into the sheet.

1. Add a column name (must be above of your data)

1. Note1: The column names are used in the mail template as variables. Allowed characters: a-Z, 0-9, äöü, -, _
2. Note2: It is not allowed to use misspelled variable names. If a variable is marked as misspelled, correct it and/or add it to your vocabulary.
3. Note3: If you want to use "Cc" and "Bcc" recipients, simply you use "cc" and "bcc" as column name in your sheet (like in the below image). It is not needed to adopt the email template.

1. Switch to Gmail and enter the column names covered by { } into the Google Mail template. Example for a variable: {city}

1. Note: You can also use variables in links. Example: www.test.com/{orderkey} Use "Strg-k"
2. (Google will replace the { and } characters to %7B and %7D - don´t worry, that is okay!)
1. To run the mail merge go back to Google Sheets - select the email and data cells you want to send the mail.

1. Call the GSM function 'Email selected addresses'.

1. Check the identified and listed variable names

1. Select a email template ... and checkout the by colors provided information

• Tipp: If you see variable names wich you can´t find in your email template text, maybe the variable is used in a link.
• Like: https://web.com/{xx}

1. Select your Email template and click on "Send"

1. Tipp: With the 'Edit' button you can open and edit the selected email template.
1. Wait for finishing the task!

Tips

• To set a custom 'ReplyTo' email address open the SendMail Form and click there on 'Options'
• The column right of your selection is used by GSM to protocol the send task or system feedback. It will only sent a mail when this cell is empty.
  • If you want to skip a row simply enter some text in this cell

• The "Send Mail" runs automatically as first the "Mark duplicate, invalid & junk email" function

Good to know

• Before sending your mass email, try your template with some of your own email addresses!
• How many email you can sent per day depends on your Google account. The limit for free accounts is currently 100, and for business accounts 1500 email / day. This is NOT a limit from GSM - its from Google.