Composing Email Invitations

When you're using the HTML Template, you can use the text formatting toolbar to:

• Bold, underline, or italicize text
• Change the font and font size*
• Add bulleted or numbered lists

It's not possible to hyperlink text or add images in the HTML Template.

*Display issues can occur for respondents when you use the following fonts: Symbol, Webdings, or Wingdings

You can edit the Header or Button color of any draft or new message at any time:

1. Click Edit Message in the upper-right corner of the message preview.
2. Click the square color block and choose a color or enter a hex code.
3. Click Apply.

When you create a message, we automatically apply the same colors you use in your survey theme to the HTML Template.

If you make updates to your survey theme after creating an Email Invitation Collector, the changes are not reflected in existing sent or draft messages. However, if you open a draft message, you can check the box under the Header and Button fields to apply recent changes to your survey theme.

You can use the Custom HTML message format to add images, embed videos, or hyperlink text in your message. This feature is only available on some paid plans—see if it’s on your plan. For info on how to hyperlink the survey link or opt out link using HTML, see: Required Data in Email Invitations

If you need additional help with Custom HTML formatting, we recommend using w3schools.com.

You can use custom data to personalize messages. When a recipient reads the message, the merge tags are replaced with their personal information from Contacts.

After you're done composing your message, click Save to preview it.

You can also send yourself a test email when scheduling your message.

It's not possible to preview a Custom HTML message in SurveyMonkey, but you can copy and paste the HTML into a free online HTML previewer to check your formatting.

You can copy any message you previously sent (or currently have saved as a draft) to use in a new message. Then you can make any necessary changes, or send the message as is.

To copy a previous message:

1. Create a new Invitation, Reminder, or Thank You message.
2. Click the black down arrow next to the Edit Message button.
3. Click Copy a previous message.
4. Browse the messages you previously used in any Email Invitation Collector in your account. Click a subject line to see the contents of the message.
5. When you find the message you want to copy, hover over the message and click the Copy Message button on the right.

Why don't I see my previous message?

When sending Invitation or Thank You messages, you only see previous messages of the same type as the message you're sending. For instance, if you're sending an Invitation message, you only see previous Invitation messages you've used.

When sending a Reminder message, you can see previous Invitation messages. Next to Display message type, click Reminder to toggle to Invitation.

When you Invite More, you’ll see the last message sent or scheduled from the collector. If you prefer to use the SurveyMonkey Default messaging, click the down arrow to the right of Edit Message and select Set To Default Message. If you choose to reset the message, any edits to the current message will be permanently lost.

You can view sent messages from your Message History. Click . to the right of the message to view a snapshot of the message or to view the recipients for that message.

We develop our emails so that they render well in as many modern email clients as possible. Email clients can render HTML messages differently, which can cause HTML Template or Custom HTML messages to display differently than what you expect. For example, fonts, font sizes, layout, and more may look different in Gmail than they do in Outlook.

It's more common for older email clients to have trouble rendering modern HTML emails. Unfortunately, it's not something we can fix on our end—it depends on the particular email client. However, there are a couple things you can ask recipients to try:

• Enable HTML viewing—they'll need to view the email with full HTML in order for it to render correctly.
• Allow images to be displayed—occasionally, some email programs don't load images by default.

There's an issue with Lotus Notes where the Begin Survey button won't display if you send your message using the HTML Template. Unfortunately, it's not something we can fix on our end—it's a limitation within this email client since it can't properly render the HTML being used. However, there are a couple workarounds you can try.

Workaround 1

If you use Plain Text to send your invitation instead, this will remove any text formatting and display the full URL to the survey in the email.

Workaround 2

If you have access to Custom HTML message format, you can try the following steps to replace the code for the button (the code Lotus Notes can't render) with code that hyperlinks text instead.

1. Switch your message format to Custom HTML.
2. In the HTML, find the code outlined in the first grey box below and delete it—you can find the code easily by looking for [SurveyLink].
3. Replace the code you deleted with the code in the second grey box.

Find:

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center" style="background:#4B4A3C; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid #BBBBBB; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:14px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-shadow: -1px -1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); padding: 10px 18px;">
	<tr>
		<td align="center" valign="center">
			<a href="[SurveyLink]" target="_blank" style="color:#FFFFFF; text-decoration:none;">Begin Survey</a>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

Replace:

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center">
	<tr>
		<td align="center" valign="center">
			<a href="[SurveyLink]" target="_blank">Begin Survey</a>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>