Trophy can send automated emails to users based on key triggers without requiring any code. Here we’ll look at what these triggers are, and how they can form part of your product’s gamification experience.

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Types Of Emails

Trophy supports 4 types of emails, each of which is designed to suit a common scenario in building gamification experiences. All emails are optional, but all four can be used simultaneously and can be controlled from the Emails page in the Trophy dashboard.

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Achievement Emails

Achievement emails are sent to users each time they unlock an Achievement.

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Recap Emails

Recap emails are sent to users on a pre-defined frequency to summarize progress. Recap Emails can be configured to be sent daily, weekly, monthly or yearly depending on your use case.

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Reactivation Emails

As Trophy monitors usage across your entire userbase, it can detect when users become inactive and send automated win-back emails to encourage them to return. Emails are sent as follows:
  • After 3 days of inactivity
  • After 5 days of inactivity
  • After 7 days of inactivity
  • After 14 days of inactivity
  • After 30 days of inactivity

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Streak Reminder Emails

Streak reminder emails are automatically sent to users up to 4 hours before they are about to lose their Streak.

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Designing Emails

Trophy has a fully-featured block-based email builder that allows you to design templates, controlling all email copy and subject lines. Within the Emails page you can create templates and assign them to the 3 different Email Types.
When you create an email template, it can simulatenously be used across as many email types as you want. So if you want your emails to be simple, just having one email template might be enough. Otherwise, general best practice is creating one template for each type of email you want to send.

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Default Templates

By default, Trophy provides 3 email templates that are good starting points for the different Email Types that Trophy offers. The default templates can’t be changed, but you can duplicate and customize these as you wish.
You can also create blank templates if you just want to start from scratch.

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Creating A New Template

To create a new email template, follow the steps below.
1

Head to the Emails page

Within the Emails page, you’ll find the Configure tab which is where all your email templates live, as well as the configuration for deciding which template to use for each type.
2

Hit the Add Template button

Choose an existing template to start from based on your use case, or create a new template from scratch.
3

Design your new template

Use the block-based editor to design your email template.

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Block Types

Trophy’s email builder supports a number of different block types that serve different purposes. All the basic components you’d expect to find in an email editor like paragraphs, headers, and images are called Basic Blocks. There is also a set of more powerful components like charts and streaks that leverage Trophy’s user activity data and gamification features. These are called Smart Blocks.

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Basic Blocks

Here’s the full list of un-opinionated basic blocks that Trophy supports:
  • Paragraph - Good for short or longer text snippets.
  • H1, H2, H3 - Useful for headings of varying sizes.
  • Button - Creates a call to action for users to take in emails.
  • Card - Can nest other blocks, focusing attention.
  • Divider - Good for seperating content into logical sections.
  • Emoji - Include any supported emoji, controlling size.
  • Image - Upload any image and Trophy will render it in emails.
  • Spacer - Good for giving blocks room to stand out.
  • Columns - Useful for creating up to 3-column layouts with any content.
  • Logo - Will render your organization’s logo, set on the Branding page.

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Conditional Blocks

Trophy also has a powerful conditional rendering system powered by the Conditional block type. By nesting any other block inside a conditional block and setting up the conditions logic, you can create almost any email design that will show different blocks in emails based on the evaluation of conditions at send time. If you’re familiar with the if/else logical operators then this will feel very famililar to you. Otherwise here’s a quick diagram to explain how it works. One common use case for the conditional block is to conditionally show a user their streak (one of Trophy’s built-in Smart Blocks) and some streak-related motivational text only if they have an active streak. If the recipient isn’t on a streak at the time the email is sent, then a simple message is displayed instead.
This creates a powerful framework to design emails based on highly relevant and personalized user data and can be used to create a wide-range of emails for common gamification use cases.

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Smart Blocks

Smart blocks are powerful components designed to support common gamification use cases and integrate with all of Trophy’s features including metrics, achievements and streaks. You can find all smart blocks in the Recommended Blocks section, and they are always recognizable by the icon. Watch Charlie walk through smart blocks and how they work:
Read more about the use case of each smart block:

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Email Variables

Trophy provides an expansive set of dynamic variables that are useful for designing highly relevant and personalized emails. Variables bring context from your Trophy account, the recipient’s progress data, and email specific settings to your email templates.
Email variables can be inserted by typing {{ in any block that supports rich text, like headers, paragraphs, and buttons, and searching for your chosen variable. The editor will insert the variable code for you.
You can also use variables in email subject lines.
See below for a full list of all email variables supported by the email builder:
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user
object
Variables related to the recipient of the email.
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metrics
object
Variables referencing data from metrics within your Trophy account.In all metric variables, key relates to the unique reference you set for the metric when created. You can find this in the details page for each metric.
Variables for a metric called ‘Words written’ with a key of words would be accessed with a metrics.words prefix. For example metrics.words.percentile.
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streak
object
Variables related to the recipient’s streak.
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period
object
Variables related to the current setting of the data Aggregation Period.
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achievement
object
Only relevant in the context of Achievement Emails.
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reactivation
object
Only relevant in the context of Reactivation Emails.

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Text Variations

Variations can be used to add randomness to text within emails sent by Trophy. This prevents emails from getting boring and helps improve open and click rates.
Any block that supports text entry inculding H1, H2, H3 and paragraph support variations.
You can also use variations to add randomness to email subject lines.
To create a variation click the Add Variation button on any block that supports them.
Variations do not support A/B testing yet, but this is on our roadmap so stay tuned…

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Using The Editor

The email template editor is a blank canvas for designing emails that look great in the inbox. Using pre-configured Blocks makes it really easy to create email templates that suit common gamification use cases. Here we’ll walk through how to best use the editor to create awesome looking emails.

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Adding Blocks

To add a new block an email template hit the key, this will open the block selection dialog where you can choose the block you want to add.
Or if you want to add a block immediately after another block, use the block menu.

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Arranging Blocks

Blocks can be dragged up and down using the block menu.

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Text Formatting

The email editor offers rich text formatting including bold, italics, hyperlinks and code formatting.
It also supports more complex text formatting use cases based on the Mustache specification with the most common use case being to conditionally show text based on the value of Email Variables.
If you need more complex conditional formatting, or aren’t familiar with Mustache, consider using Conditional Blocks instead.
Here’s an example where we show text if the email recipient has an active streak or not: 
{{#streak.active}}
  You're on a streak!
{{/streak.active}}
Additionally, the editor support pluralization. In the below example we show different text based on if the value of the metrics.words.currentTotal is 1 (singular) or greater than 1 (plural). 
{{#plural}}
  {{metrics.words.currentTotal}} words written
{{/plural}}
{{#singular}}
  {{metrics.words.currentTotal}} word written
{{/singular}}
For #plural and #singular to work, the first entry must be a number variable.

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Email Customization

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Aggregation Period

The aggregation period controls the timeframe over which blocks like the Progress Chart display usage. It also controls the frequency at which Recap Emails are sent. Possible values are daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. Head into the Integration page to manage this setting.

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Font Style

On the email configure page, you’ll find a setting to change the font style used in all emails.
Other email styles are pulled from your Trophy account’s Branding settings.

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Send-time Optimization

In most cases, emails sent by Trophy are sent at 17:00PM ET, however sending emails to users based on their local timezone usually results in better engagement rates. That’s why if through User Identification you specify a timezone for each user, Trophy will optimize the send-time for you by sending emails to users at 17:00PM in their local timezone.

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Setting up Emails

Trophy supports sending emails from your own domain out-of-the-box. There are two ways to set this up, Single Sender Verification and DNS Verification. All domain settings can be found in the Domains page in the Trophy dashboard.
If you’re looking to get set up quickly we recommend starting with Single Sender Verification then setting up DNS Verification when you’re ready to move to production.

Sender Verification

Quickly verify a single email address

DNS Verification

Recommended for production use

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Sender Verification (Basic)

During onboarding you’ll be prompted to set up Sender Verification. This is a super simple way to quickly verify a single email address that you want to use with Trophy without needing to change any code or DNS settings. You’ll be prompted to enter the email address, from name and reply-to email that you’d like Trophy to use when sending emails:
Trophy will send a verification email to that address. Simply click the link in the email to let Trophy know what you own the address and you’ll be good to go.
The email you receive will come from our email provider, Postmark. So keep an eye out for ‘Postmark Support’ in your inbox!
Sender Verification is great for getting started but is limited in that you won’t benefit from your existing email reputation and can only send emails from one address. Also, if you want to change the address in the future, you’ll have to go through Sender Verification again which you can do in the settings screen.

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DNS Verification (Advanced)

Recommended for production use
For production use we recommend DNS Verification. Once set up, this allows you to configure Trophy to send emails from any address on your domain. So if you want to change the address in future, you won’t need to verify again. Completing DNS verification also gives you the full benefits of any existing domain reputation and is the best way to make sure your emails avoid the spam folder. This does however require adding a couple of new entries into your DNS to allow Trophy to verify you own the domain. Follow the steps below to set up DNS verification:
1

Head to the Emails page

Within the Emails page, you’ll find the Domains tab which is where you’ll configure everything related to the email domain Trophy will use to send emails on your behalf.
2

Configure your domain

Head down to the DNS Verification section and enter the domain you want to set up with Trophy.You can also also configure a custom Return Path. This is where Trophy will forward notifications of bounced emails to help you investigate deliverability issues:
3

Set up your DNS records

Once you’ve entered your email domain, Trophy will provide you with details for two new DNS records that you’ll need to add to your DNS provider.
  • First is the DKIM record which is used by inbox providers like Google to verify the authenticity of emails. Enter the name and value provided as a new TXT record in your DNS provider.
  • Second is the Return Path record. This is used to forward notifications of email bounces to your domain. Enter the name and value provided as a new CNAME record in your DNS provider.
Here are the pages for the most common DNS providers on how to set up new records:
Note: If you’re using a proxy like Cloudflare, make sure to turn it off for these records or Trophy won’t be able to properly verify them.
4

Verify DNS records

Once you’ve added the two records into your DNS settings, hit the refresh icon and Trophy will attempt to verify the records for you.Usually Trophy can verify records within a few minutes but bear in mind that DNS changes can take up to a few hours to fully propogate.If you see the following alert, the records may not have propogated yet, or there may be an issue with your setup.
Once you’re sure everything’s set up correctly in your DNS provider, hit refresh and Trophy will attempt to verify your DNS records once again.As soon as you see the following message, you know everything’s verified:
5

Configure your sending address

Once your DNS records are verified, it’s time to choose the email address you want to send emails from. Note that now you’ve fully verified your domain, you can change this address whenever you like without impacting deliverability.Simply enter the email address you want Trophy to send from, the name to show to users in the inbox when they receive emails and a support email address they can use to contact you if needed:

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Handling Unsubscribes

All emails that Trophy sends include an unsubscribe link and message. This is important for maintaining compliance with regulations and it’s not possible to hide it.
The message will read as follows: You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to progress report and achievement emails. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe.
Any recipient that clicks this link will no longer receive any emails from Trophy.

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Email Analytics

Trophy has built-in analytics for all Emails that it sends. This includes:
  • Recipients (The total number of people that recieved the email)
  • Open rate (The percentage of recipients that opened the email)
  • Click rate (The percentage of recipients that clicked on at least one link in the email)
  • Retention rate (The percentage of users that opened the email that came back and used your platform after at least 2 days)

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Get Support

Want to get in touch with the Trophy team? Reach out to us via email. We’re here to help!