Emails & the email builder

The Emails page

Click Emails in your event's dashboard sidebar. The page opens with the Abandoned-cart reminder card (an automation, more on it below), a Create new email button, and your emails in three columns:

• Scheduled: queued for a future date. The card menu offers View, Cancel (move to drafts), and Duplicate.
• Sent: already delivered (or sending right now). You can view the email exactly as it went out, or duplicate it into a fresh draft.
• Drafts: still yours to edit. View, Edit, Duplicate, or Delete. A send that failed drops back here so you can fix and retry.

The email studio

Creating or editing an email opens a full-page studio. The top bar has a desktop/mobile preview switch, zoom, undo/redo, preview, Save, Test, and Review & send. Panels on the left rail hold your building blocks; selecting anything on the canvas opens its settings (content, spacing, colors) in the inspector on the right. Leaving with unsaved changes warns you first.

What you can build with

• Layout: 1, 2, or 3-column sections and a hero. You can also change a section's column count later from the inspector; going down a column keeps all your content.
• Elements: text, button, image, divider, spacer.
• Run This blocks: pieces that fill themselves in from your event, plus a few design pieces in the Run This style. The full list is in Run This blocks below.
• My blocks: select any section on the canvas and hit Save as block to reuse it on any of your events. Run This content inside it stays dynamic.
• Photos: your own photo library, with folders. See Photos below.
• Templates: start from a built-in design (see Templates below), or save your current design as your own template. Your saved templates follow you, so one you save while working on any race is there in every race you run. Loading one swaps in the current race: its name, date, icon, sponsors and links all re-point, so the only thing to update is wording you typed yourself. Templates are personal to you, not shared with an event's other directors.

Templates

Click Templates in the left rail. The built-in templates are grouped by when you'd send them, and each says when and to whom. They're built from Run This blocks, so the date, place, start times, prices, schedule and spots left all fill in from your event page when the email sends. Where a line tells you what to write ("Say in two sentences why this race is worth running"), replace it with your own words. If you forget one, the send screen points it out.

• Get registered: Registration is open, Price going up, Last call, Save the date, and The course is set.
• Before race day: One month to go, Race week guide, Packet pickup, and The night before.
• After the race: Thank you + results, and Thank our sponsors.
• Volunteers (when your event has volunteer roles): Volunteers wanted, and Volunteer briefing.
• Fundraising (when donations are on): Help us reach our goal.
• Anytime: Heads up: a change, Announcement, and Blank.

A template fits itself to your race when you load it. Blocks your event can't use stay out (no donation box without donations, no Parking section when your event page doesn't have one), and so does the sponsors row until you add sponsors. If your subject and preview text are empty, the template fills them in too; change them however you like. Templates that start with a photo use the big photo from your event page, and leave it out if you haven't added one.

Run This blocks

Click Run This in the left rail. Most of these blocks read your event when the email sends, so a start time, venue, price or schedule you change on your event page is what people get. A block only shows up when your event can use it (Spots left needs a race with a cap, Fundraising progress needs donations turned on).

• Event header and Event icon: your icon, name and date.
• Event info: when, where, which races and the starting price, as a grid, a dark race ticket, or one thin strip. The grid can add Add to calendar links underneath.
• Location & directions: the venue, the address and buttons that open Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze. Pick which apps show. Looks: big buttons, a compact card, or a map picture made when the email sends.
• Add to calendar: Apple, Google and Outlook. The Apple link uses the same calendar file as your event page, so a date change later updates calendars that already have it.
• Races & start times: each race with its distance and start time, including wave starts. Invite-only races start hidden.
• Event schedule: the Schedule section from your event page as a timeline, a simple list or stacked. You can hide rows and add a note under it.
• Course map: a picture of your Course Studio map with the routes and markers you pick, in the map style and shape you pick. It links to your event page.
• Event page section: any section from your event page (Packet pickup, Parking, FAQ) dropped into the email. Pick the section in the panel. To change its text, edit it on your event page and every unsent email picks it up.
• Countdown: see Countdowns below.
• Spots left: how full your capped races are, as an urgent banner for the race closest to full or a bar for each race. Pick how close a race has to be before it shows. If no race is that close when the email sends, the block stays out of the email.
• Pricing: today's price and the next change, or the whole pricing schedule still ahead, for each distance. You can hide a distance and group distances that cost the same.
• Fundraising progress: the same total, goal and supporter count as your event page thermometer, with a Donate button.
• Stats row: three big numbers. Each one can be people registered, finishers (once results are published), spots left, dollars raised, supporters, days to go, races, or a number you type.
• Social links: your Links & socials, as a follow card with a heading, pills, a row of logos, tiles, a list, big buttons, or a dark band across the email. You can leave a link out of one email or change the words on it, and your event page stays the same.
• Register buttons, App Store buttons, Sponsors (your logos, 1 to 4 per row), Volunteer (when your event has volunteer roles) and Donate (when your event collects donations).
• Section heading and Callout box: design pieces you type into. A heading comes as a small green line over a big title, centered with a green rule, or with a highlighter swipe. A callout comes in pale green (good to know), yellow (heads up) or dark (the one thing to remember). Switching the look in the panel keeps your words.

Adjusting a Run This block

Click a block (or anything inside it) and its panel opens on the right. Pick a Look, then change the details under Settings:

• Each detail box shows what your event page says. Type over it to change it in this email only. The box then shows Changed and a Reset link, and the line under it shows what your event page says.
• Details you leave alone stay live and update until the email sends. Nothing you change here touches your event page.
• Show switches a line off without deleting it.
• Location & directions can send its map buttons to a different address, for a packet pickup or check-in somewhere else.

Typing straight into the block on the canvas makes it all yours. The builder asks first, then the block stops updating and exactly what is on screen sends. Reset to live in the panel puts it back.

Countdowns

Pick what to count down to: race start, registration opening or closing, the next price increase, volunteer sign-up opening, or any date and time you type (in your event's time zone). Only dates your event has show up in the list. Each comes with its own wording, which you can change. Three looks:

• Big number: a big "12 days", with Tomorrow and Today on the last two days.
• Banner: a dark bar such as "Prices go up in 3 days", with a button. In your own wording, type {n} where the days go.
• Live ticking clock: days, hours, minutes and seconds that count down while people read. It is a picture our server draws each time the email is opened, so it starts from the right second and ticks for a minute. Outlook on Windows computers shows it standing still (still the right time when opened). When time runs out it shows your "time's up" line instead.

Big number and Banner are worked out when the email sends, and leave the email if the moment has already passed.

Photos

Click Photos in the left rail. Drop photos on the upload box (or click it to browse). Several can upload at once, and each one lands in My photos. My photos is yours alone and follows you to every race you run, the same way saved templates do.

• Use a photo: drag it onto your email and let go where it should sit, or click it. A click adds it just below whatever is selected (or at the end of the email). If an image is selected, a click swaps that image's photo instead.
• Folders: click New folder, then drag photos onto a folder to move them. To move several, click Select, tick the photos, and use Move. A folder can be renamed any time and deleted once it's empty.
• Race folders: each race you direct gets a folder marked Auto, holding the photos on that race's page. It fills itself in, so there's nothing to upload twice.
• Alt text: open a photo's ··· menu and choose Add alt text. It's a few words describing the photo, shown when an inbox blocks images and read aloud by screen readers. It's added to the image every time you use that photo, and you can also change it on the selected image in the inspector.
• Remove from My photos takes a photo off your list only. Emails that already use it, including ones you've sent, keep showing it.

Dropping an Image block in from Elements (or double-clicking any image) opens Choose a photo, the same library in a bigger window. Until you pick one, the image shows a grey “Choose a photo” card, and Review & send checks with you before sending an email that still has one. With an image selected, Swap opens the same window, Edit crops the photo to any shape, and the width slider sizes it.

Text tools

Double-click a text block to type. The floating toolbar covers bold, italic, links, bulleted and numbered lists (Tab inside a list makes a sub-bullet), and a highlighter with a color picker. The inspector's Typography section sets size, weight, color, alignment, and line spacing (None through Loose).

Preview text

In Send settings, the Preview text field is the grey line inboxes show after the subject. Leave it blank and most mail apps grab your opening words instead, usually a logo's alt text or a stray heading, so it's worth writing. Around 40–90 characters shows on most phones.

Reply-to and From name

Also in Send settings: the Reply-to email address decides where a reply lands when someone hits reply. Leave it blank and replies come to Run This rather than to you, so it is worth filling in. The send confirmation reminds you when it is empty.

From name is the sender name the inbox shows, for example your event or race company rather than Run This. The address underneath always stays a Run This one: that is what our email authentication signs, and sending under another domain is what pushes mail into spam folders.

Choosing recipients

Under Recipients you pick one or more audiences. Membership is worked out live at send time, so the list is always current:

• Current registrants
• Volunteers, or a single volunteer group
• Past participants (from earlier editions)
• Bookmarked / interested athletes
• Registrants of one sub-event ("5K registrants")
• If your event is hosted by a club you run: everyone who has ever registered for any of that club's events
• If your event is hosted by a club you run: that club's email list subscribers, the people who signed up on the club's own website. See Your club's email list.

The two club groups are separate on purpose, and you can tick both. Anyone who is in both gets a single email.

You can also exclude groups, for example, email all past participants except anyone already registered this year. A live "Emailing N people" count updates as you change the selection, and the same number appears on the confirmation screen before anything sends.

Email type: essential info vs. promotion

Every email needs a type, and it decides who can opt out:

• Essential event info: race-week instructions, schedule changes, logistics. It reaches everyone who signed up and can't be blocked by a marketing unsubscribe. Because of that, it can only target people with a real stake, registrants and volunteers. Bookmarkers and past participants are off-limits for this type.
• Promotion: register-now pushes, discounts, newsletters. It automatically skips anyone who unsubscribed from marketing and carries an unsubscribe link.

Essential-info emails also offer "Also send this to anyone who registers later": anyone who signs up after the send gets the email too, alongside their registration confirmation, stopping automatically at the start of the race. The email's card shows it's still going out, and you can stop it from the card menu at any time (stopping can't be undone. You'd write a new email).

Preview

Click the eye at the top of the studio to see the email the way people get it. It shows exactly what sends: your Run This blocks filled in with your race's real details, the footer every email carries, and none of the hints the studio shows while you build. It previews what you have on screen right now, so there's no need to save first.

• Desktop + phone: both at once, side by side. On a smaller screen, switch between Desktop and Phone.
• In the inbox: your From name, subject and preview text the way an inbox list shows them, so you can spot a subject that gets cut off.
• Dark mode (approximate): a rough look at your email in an inbox that flips light colors to dark. Inboxes handle dark mode differently, so treat it as a quick check.
• Send test: sends a test copy, the same as the Test button.

Links open in a new tab. Press Esc or the X to go back to building.

Send a test

Test sends a real copy right away without touching your audience. Your own address is pre-filled; add up to 10 more, and your co-directors appear as one-click suggestions. While your event is still a draft, tests can only go to your own address, publish the event to send proofs to anyone else.

Sending and scheduling

Review & send never sends in one click. A confirmation recaps the subject, the exact recipient count, who you're sending to and when, and reminds you that a sent email can't be edited or unsent. You and your co-directors get a copy of every send. If a duplicated email's subject still starts with "Copy of", a check comes up first and lets you fix the subject right there (or keep it, if you meant it). Choose Send immediately or Schedule for later with a date and time, a scheduled email sits in the Scheduled column, where Cancel returns it to drafts untouched.

What the stats mean

Once delivery reports start arriving, each sent email's card shows: how many were sent, how many were delivered, then opens and clicks as a share of delivered, plus any bounces, unsubscribes, and spam reports.

The abandoned-cart reminder

The card at the top of the Emails page controls an automation, not a campaign: when someone reaches the checkout step and doesn't finish (free registrations included), they're automatically emailed a nudge to come back. Finishing the registration cancels it. It's on by default, and you control:

• When it sends: how many days after the cart is left, at what time of day (in your event's timezone). The card shows exactly when a cart left right now would be reminded.
• Which email goes out: the Run This default (which shows their cart and a button back to checkout. You can preview it), or a custom reminder you build yourself in the same studio. Each event has exactly one custom reminder; until you've built it, the default goes out so nobody misses a nudge.

Because it's an automation, the custom reminder's editor has no recipients, no schedule, and no send button. It says Sends automatically instead. You can still send yourself a test. The reminder never appears in the campaign columns, so it can't be sent by hand.

Looking for what your athletes see on their side? Notification preferences are covered in notifications, and posting announcements (rather than emailing them) lives on the event wall & announcements.