Create a Plain-Text Campaign

Plain-text emails don't contain any images, rich-text formatting, or embedded hyperlinks, and are useful when you want to send a simple email featuring only your essential content.

A plain-text version of your campaign is automatically generated whenever you create an HTML campaign, and sent to contacts who prefer to receive plain-text campaigns. But you can also create a plain-text-only campaign.

In this article, you'll learn how to create a plain-text email campaign.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• We recommend you use Mailchimp's Campaign Builder to create your campaign content, instead of Microsoft Word or other rich text editors. These editors add extra code when you copy and paste the content into Mailchimp, which can cause formatting issues when the email is displayed in someone's inbox.
• Plain-text emails are harder to read than HTML email, so use dividing lines and line breaks to make it easier for your contacts to read.

About plain-text tracking

Open rates are typically determined when an invisible image inside your campaign is downloaded by a subscriber's email client. Since plain-text campaigns don't support images, we estimate opens by monitoring how many contacts click a link in your plain-text campaign. If there are no links in your plain-text campaign, we won't be able to track open rates, so be sure to include links in your content.

To track clicks in plain-text emails, we'll replace your URL with one that redirects your recipients to a page we can monitor before we send them to the site.

About Open Tracking
How Click Tracking Looks in Plain-Text Campaigns

Create a plain-text campaign

To create a plain-text campaign, follow these steps.

1. Click the Create icon.
   
2. Click Email.
   
3. Click Plain-text.
   
4. Enter a campaign name and click Begin.
   
5. On the Recipients step, choose the audience you want to send your campaign to and click Next.
6. On the Setup step, input your Campaign name, Email subject, Preview text, From name, and From email address. Choose your tracking tools, connect social media, and configure campaign settings from the available options.
7. Click Next.
8. On the Plain-Text step, remove the default text and type or paste your content in the area above the dotted line.
   
9. Copy and paste the source URLs from the content studio for any images or files you want to link to in your campaign.
10. Click the Preview and Test drop-down menu at the top of the page to Enter Preview Mode or Send a Test Email.
11. When you are satisfied with your campaign content, click Next.
12. Review the checklist on the Confirm step. Click Resolve to fix any errors or click Edit to return to a step and make changes.
13. Click Send to send your campaign immediately or click Schedule to select a date and time for delivery.
    

Plain-text footer requirements

When you create a plain-text campaign in Mailchimp, we automatically include a default plain-text footer for you. Plain-text campaigns are subject to the same legal requirements as HTML campaigns, so we include our unsubscribe merge tag and the physical address associated with your audience. You can add or remove certain merge tags and other text, as long as you include the required footer content.

The Unsubscribe Merge Tag
Required Footer Content