Email campaigns are a powerful way to promote sales or special offers with clients and those that viewed your collections. With Pixieset, you can send personalized campaigns and track their performance right from your Client Gallery.

On this page:

• What can I use email campaigns for?
• Building your marketing audience
• Creating an email campaign
• Choosing your audience
• Understanding your recipient count
• Best practices for campaign content
  • Avoid common spam triggers
  • General campaign tips
• Reviewing campaign performance
• Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

What can I use email campaigns for?

If you want to stay connected with clients and keep your business top of mind, email campaigns help you reach your audience with less effort. Here are some ways you can use email campaigns for your photography business:

• Announce store sales: Promote products in your collections’ integrated store, such as photo albums, wall art, or digital downloads.
• Promote new sessions: Announce limited time services like seasonal mini sessions. Link directly to your booking site and share a discount code to incentivize repeat bookings.
• Celebrate client milestones: Remind clients of upcoming anniversaries, birthdays, and significant moments with a personalized offer.
• Request reviews to grow your reputation: Invite clients you worked with recently to share a testimonial.
• Share that a gallery is ready: Collect visitor emails with a gallery ahead of time, and notify them after the gallery is published.

Building your marketing audience

Your marketing audience is made up of visitors who choose to receive emails from you. Visitors can opt in to receive marketing emails while accessing key gallery flows, such as before viewing their photos or purchasing products. YYou can also encourage sign-ups outside of your galleries such as through a sign up page.

To learn how marketing audience collection works and how to configure these options, see Building your marketing audience for email campaigns.

Note: Visitors must explicitly consent in order to be added to your marketing audience for email campaigns.

Creating an email campaign

Note: Email campaign sending is available on upgraded Client Gallery or Suite plans.

To send an email campaign:

1. Go to Email Campaigns and click New Campaign.
2. Choose a template or start from scratch.
3. Enter a campaign name.
4. Under Email, customize the email content (title, cover image, message, and button).
5. Under Recipients, build your audience from visitors who have opted in to email marketing.
6. Click Send Now to send immediately, or schedule the campaign for a later date.

Important: The structure and content of your email campaign plays a critical role in its success. For tips on improving placement and engagement for your campaigns, see Best practices for campaign content below.

Choosing your audience

You have the following audience options when creating a campaign:

• All published collections: Subscribers linked to a collection that is currently published.
• Specific collections: Subscribers from selected collections. Pre-release collections cannot be selected.
• All sources: All eligible subscribers, including contacts who subscribed outside of a collection.

Note: If you schedule a campaign, its recipient list is locked. Contacts who join the selected audience afterward will not be added unless you edit the campaign. Contacts who unsubscribe or are deleted will still be removed automatically.

Understanding your recipient count

When you select an audience, Pixieset automatically calculates how many recipients your campaign will be sent to. Only eligible contacts are included in the total.

Note: If the same contact appears in multiple published collections, they are linked to the most recent one and counted only once.

Contact-based exclusions

The following contacts are always excluded from your campaign to ensure deliverability and compliance with anti-spam laws:

• Unsubscribed contacts: Anyone who has opted out of marketing emails.
• Cleaned contacts: Email addresses identified as invalid (e.g. “gnail.com”).

Collection-based exclusions

Contacts are automatically excluded from the campaign audience if their linked collection is not compatible:

• Pre-release collection: Pre-release collections cannot be included in an email campaign. To send a campaign to contacts who subscribed through these collections, publish them first.
• Hidden or no collection: Contacts with only hidden or no collections are excluded if the campaign links to the recipient’s collection. To include these contacts, publish their collection or link the campaign to a custom URL instead.

Best practices for campaign content

Well‑written email content plays a critical role in whether your campaign reaches the inbox and how clients respond to it. Email providers (such as Gmail or Outlook) automatically evaluate the content of your email, and poorly structured or overly promotional emails can be filtered as spam even when sent for legitimate purposes.

Following the guidelines below can help improve inbox placement, open rates, and engagement with your campaign overall.

Avoid common spam triggers

Certain patterns can increase the chance that a message is filtered as spam or ignored by recipients. To improve deliverability:

• Focus on one clear topic per campaign. A single‑purpose email (such as announcing a seasonal promotion) is easier for recipients and spam filters to understand.
• Use clear subject lines and avoid overly promotional language. A subject like "Free shipping on all prints" performs better than exaggerated titles like "BUY NOW!!!". Emails that feel aggressively promotional without helpful context are more likely to be filtered or ignored.
• Avoid link‑stuffing and link shorteners. Too many links in a single email can look suspicious to spam filters. Focus on your primary call to action instead of adding multiple competing links.

General campaign tips

Following these practices can help your campaigns perform better and encourage clients to engage with your message.

• Send campaigns occasionally, rather than too frequently. Nonstop campaigns can lead to lower engagement and more spam complaints. Send campaigns when there is something meaningful to share, such as a seasonal promotion or session announcement.
• Focus on one primary call‑to‑action. Highlight a single action such as "View your gallery" or "Book a session" so recipients clearly understand what to do next.
• Keep your contact list up to date. Make sure your collections and contacts reflect current clients and valid email addresses.
• Respect client preferences. Avoid sending excessive emails and always honor unsubscribe requests (i.e. do not manually resubscribe visitors who opt out).
• Test your campaign before sending. Use Send Test to review formatting, links, and messaging to ensure everything appears correctly.

Reviewing your campaign’s performance

You can click into any sent campaign to track its performance. Analytics include the open rate of your campaign and insight into each recipient’s activity, organized into the following categories:

• Sent: The email was delivered to your client but it has not been opened yet.
• Opened: The email was delivered and opened by your client.
• Rejected: The email was ‘bounced’ by the recipient’s email server and was not delivered. A bounce can be temporary or permanent depending on the recipient’s email address. Learn more here.
• Unsubscribed: The email was delivered to your client and they clicked the unsubscribe link in the email.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

• Is there a monthly email sending limit?
• Can clients unsubscribe from campaigns?
• Can I send multiple emails in one campaign?
• Can I send a campaign only to contacts without a collection?
• Why is my business address required?

Is there a monthly email sending limit?

Yes. Email campaigns are subject to a monthly sending quota based on your Client Gallery or Suite plan. If you reach your limit, you can purchase additional emails as a monthly or yearly add‑on.

Can clients unsubscribe from campaigns?

Yes. Every email campaign includes an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, as required by anti-spam laws.

Can I send multiple emails in one campaign?

Each campaign consists of one email. You can create a new campaign if you want to send a follow up or related email. To save time, we recommend duplicating your previous campaign to replicate your original campaign’s recipients.

Can I send a campaign only to contacts without a collection?

No. Contacts who subscribed through the marketing sign-up page cannot be selected as a unique audience. To include these contacts, set the audience to “All sources” and link the campaign to a custom URL.

Why is my business address required?

Marketing emails must display your complete business address at the bottom to comply with anti-spam laws, such as the U.S CAN-SPAM Act. This is a legal requirement for all commercial emails, regardless of business size.

You can complete or review your address before sending your email campaign in your profile settings. If you do not have a physical address for your business, you can consider using a PO box or a virtual business address through a third-party provider.