In this article, we'll take a deep dive into the Send tab's features and functionality.

Using the calendar

Depending on the level of communication, it can be challenging to stay organized when multiple people are sending mailings on multiple schedules. To help with this, Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional) includes a calendar to keep everybody in the loop about what's being sent on any given day.

The calendar displays scheduled mailings, previously sent mailings, and even mailings flagged with a tentative send date. This is important information to know before you schedule your mailing, as it creates a window of opportunity to have a discussion with your colleagues about the possibility of moving a particular mailing's send date (or perhaps just the time.)

1. Navigate to Mailings > View > select a mailing > Modify > Send tab.
2. Click Calendar.
3. Check to see if sending your mailing will coincide with any other mailings on the schedule (you will know which mailings are planned based on the calendar key color scheme). Always follow marketing best practices to not send too many mailings within a period of time to your subscribers.

NOTE: Triggered mailings and campaign designer mailings don't display on the calendar because these types of mailings "stream" out rather than only being sent at one date and time.

Distributed mailings

Because a negative sender reputation can adversely affect your mailings, maintaining a positive sender reputation is critical. One of the best ways to do so is to use the Distributed Send option whenever you're sending a mailing to a large volume of recipients.

This option can help protect your reputation because large volumes of emails coming from a single IP address can be interpreted as a spam bot attack. However, distributing your mailing into several batches will help ensure that email clients recognize your mailing and not flag it as spam.

1. Navigate to Mailings > View > select a mailing > Modify > Send tab.
2. Click Schedule Mailing.
3. In the resulting window, select Distributed to have the mailing sent out in batches.

4. Select the number of hours to wait between batches.
5. If you want to also include a blackout period (a period in which no emails will be sent), check the corresponding box (it's unchecked by default). In the displayed menu, select your desired blackout period time frame.
6. Click Yes to schedule your distributed mailing.

Emergency link changes

If you've ever sent an email only to then realize one of the links within is wrong or broken, you'll be glad to know there's a way to fix them: The Emergency Link Change feature. Because Thrive Marketing Professional lies between any links in a mailing and their final location, you can correct a URL so that any subsequent clicks go to the right place.

1. Navigate to Mailings > View.
2. Click the Sent tab to view all of your sent mailings. (If needed, adjust the mailing folder list view on the upper-right side of the screen to the folder where your mailing is stored.)
3. Hover over the mailing's menu icon and select Emergency Link Change.

4. In the resulting window, click the Edit button associated to the link you want to update.

5. Make the desired changes to the link's URL and Link Name.

6. Click Save.

Using this tool will update the link in an email that has already reached a subscriber's inbox. If the emergency link change is made before a subscriber clicks the link, they'll be redirected to the new link.

NOTE: Only existing links can be edited using this feature. It's not possible to add a new link with the emergency link change tool if there was no original link listed at the time of publish.

Sending a mailing immediately

Let's take a look at how to send a mailing immediately.

1. Navigate to the Mailing Designer > Send tab.
2. At this point, it's a good idea to check over the following fields: subject line, friendly from, reply to, and target group.
3. Click Send Mailing Now to send your mailing immediately.

4. Thrive Marketing Professional will prompt you to confirm that you want to send the mailing. Click Yes and the mailing will be sent.

NOTE: If you want to instead send your mailing automatically at a future date and time, use the Schedule Mailing function. Refer to the Scheduling a one-time mailing section below to learn how.

Scheduling a one-time mailing

Let's learn how to schedule a one-time mailing for a future date and time.

1. Navigate to Mailings > View > select a mailing > Modify > Send tab.
2. Click Schedule Mailing.
3. Select Once as your Schedule Option.

4. Click Edit and select a date and time from the date picker.
5. Click Done.
6. To send all mailings at the selected time, select Standard as your Delivery Method.

7. Check Text Only if you want to override your subscribers' profile preference and send this mailing only as a text version.
8. Click Yes to schedule your mailing.

Scheduling recurring mailings

A Recurring mailing is one that is sent on a regular schedule (e.g., every day at 3:00 PM or every Friday at 6:00 AM). This is a very efficient way to achieve a predictable schedule for your mailings. Let's learn how to set it up.

1. Navigate to Mailings > View > select a mailing > Modify > Send tab.
2. Click Schedule Mailing.
3. Select your desired Schedule Option:

1. Daily or Weekly allows you to set recurring mailings on a daily or weekly basis. Select the date and time (an end date is optional).
2. Monthly allows you to set recurring mailings to be sent on a monthly basis. Select the date and time (an end date is optional).

4. Select your preferred Delivery Method.
5. Select Yes to schedule the mailing.

Send time optimization

If you send to a certain list of subscribers often, try using send time optimization. This feature sends the mailing to individual subscribers at the time they're most likely to open their inbox (based on their interaction history with your mailings). This way, your mailing will be at the top of their inbox when they check their email. making it just that more likely they'll read it.

NOTE: Send time optimization is best suited for mailings that are NOT time-sensitive. Remember, it could take up to 24 hours for your subscribers to receive their mailings.

1. Navigate to Mailings > View > select a mailing > Modify > Send tab.
2. Click Schedule Mailing.
3. Select Optimized to have the mailing sent over a 24-hour period (based upon when the subscriber historically has opened mailings). Thrive Marketing Professional sends mailing batches every hour during this period.

4. Click Yes to schedule the mailing.

NOTE: Make sure that you always set a schedule option (remember, you need to consider your subscribers who have never received a mailing).

How it works

If you are curious about how Thrive Marketing Professional's STO logic works, there is a behind-the-scenes procedure that looks at the following conditions from top to bottom:

1. Last 30 Days of Opens - Thrive Marketing Professional finds the hour that the subscriber has opened the most emails over the last 30 days and sends at that hour.
2. Last 60 Days of Opens - If the subscriber did not open a mailing in the last 30 days, Thrive Marketing Professional goes back 60 days to determine the hour when the most opens occurred to determine a send time.
3. Regional Domain Preference - If the subscriber has not opened in the last 90 days, and the subscriber is on a regional domain (.uk, .au, etc.), then Thrive Marketing Professional looks for other subscribers in the same region and determines the most common time when they have opened emails to determine a send time.
4. Immediate Send - Anyone who excluded from the previous three conditions is sent the mailing immediately.

Viewing duplicate records

Before you send your mailing, it is a good idea to look over the information in the Set-Up tab. While Thrive Marketing Professional only ever sends one copy of a mailing to an email address, it's good to understand if you have a lot of duplicate email addresses building up. Follow these instructions to take a quick peak before you press the send button!

1. Navigate to the Send tab in the Mailing Designer.
2. Under the Target Group section, click the View subscribers receiving this mailing link.

3. In the Subscribers Removed section of the resulting window, look at the Duplicate Emails line and see if there are any duplicates.
4. If there are, you can view them by clicking the number.