ESUPERFUND · Mailchimp · May 2026

Updating Emails
in Mailchimp

The Safe Edit

Same six steps · every time
1

Find

All journeys start with "Journey – ". Check both Automation flows and Classic Automations.

2

Clone

Never edit the live journey first. Clone, edit the clone, swap in when verified.

3

Edit

Use the WYSIWYG. Respect existing styles. Leave *|FIELD|* tokens alone.

4

Preview

Desktop AND mobile. Most ESUPERFUND opens are mobile. Click outside the text box first.

5

Test

Send to yourself first. Better: one Gmail account, one Outlook — they render differently.

6

Activate

Hit Save. Re-activate the journey if you paused it. Verify the "Active" badge.

Job by Job

Click the task you're about to do
  1. Open Audience → Emails or the journey containing your email, then click the email to edit.
  2. Click into the text block. Edit your copy. Stay within existing global and section styles — don't introduce new fonts, colours or sizes.
  3. The big one: always hit the Save button at the bottom of the editing panel — especially after editing the subject line. It does not auto-save.
  4. Keep *|MERGE|* tokens intact. Test them by previewing with sample data — broken tokens send literal text.
  5. Preview desktop and mobile. Send a test to yourself before publishing.
EDIT EMAIL · WELCOME #1 SUBJECT Welcome to ESUPERFUND, *|FNAME|* BODY SAVE click every time →
Tim's live call-out: "It's really easy to do." You'll edit the subject, click away thinking it's done, and lose the change. Save is at the bottom of the panel.
  1. Size BEFORE uploading. Mailchimp's auto-resize isn't reliable. Resize in Photoshop / Preview / Canva first.
  2. Use a standard width — see the Reference section below. Most full-width hero images = 660px.
  3. Upload to Content (the library), not from local each time. Keeps assets organised and reusable.
  4. Click the existing image block → Replace. Don't delete and add — preserves surrounding block formatting.
  5. Always add alt text (accessibility + many clients block images by default) and a link on every image.
  6. Mobile preview after. Wide images that look fine on desktop can crop or scale unevenly on mobile.
IMAGE BLOCK · HOVER MENU EDIT REPLACE DELETE REPLACE, don't delete-and-add → keeps the block formatting around it intact.
Image weight matters: Gmail clips emails over ~102KB with a "view entire message" link — hiding the unsubscribe. Aim for under 200KB per image, under 1MB total.
  1. Start from the existing blog tile pattern in the Master Module Template — don't build from scratch.
  2. Components: image (sized correctly), headline (sentence case, under 60 chars), 2-sentence excerpt, "Read more" CTA.
  3. Never paste from Word or Google Docs — strips formatting unpredictably. Paste as plain text and re-apply styles.
  4. Test the Read more link. Carry over UTM parameters consistently with the source.
  5. Mobile preview. Two- and three-column blog grids stack into one column on mobile — check the reading order.
BLOG TILE · ANATOMY IMAGE · 285PX HEADLINE EXCERPT READ MORE CTA
Templates have drifted from live emails. Cloning a recent live email is usually faster than starting from the master template.
  1. With caution. Ts & Cs and disclaimers change often — verify you have the latest text before saving.
  2. Make sure the unsubscribe link is intact. Legally required (Spam Act).
  3. Make sure the ESUPERFUND physical address is intact. Also legally required.
  4. If the change is system-wide (e.g. updated ABN, new T&Cs), update the global footer — not each email individually.
  5. After any footer change, send yourself a test and verify unsubscribe + privacy links actually work.
FOOTER · WHAT MUST BE THERE UNSUBSCRIBE LINK required by Spam Act PHYSICAL ADDRESS required by Spam Act SENDER IDENTIFICATION legal name + working reply-to
Legal floor: consent + unsubscribe + sender ID. If your change risks any of these, escalate before sending.
  1. For ad-hoc sends — EOFY price reminders, recovery sends to dropped applicants, occasional updates.
  2. Start from a copy of an existing live email, not the template. You'll lose less time on formatting fixes.
  3. Set the subject, from name, and preview text. Reply-to should be a monitored mailbox.
  4. Choose your audience — a segment, not the whole list. If unsure which segment, ask before sending.
  5. Schedule within the sending window: 11am–8pm, weekdays only. No Saturday sends.
  6. Test send first. Schedule. Verify the campaign appears in the scheduled queue.
SENDING WINDOW HOURS 6a 9a 11a SEND 8p 10p 12a DAYS M T W T F S S Vicky's rule, holds across all journeys + ad-hoc sends.
If the first time, walk through with marketing. Onboarding-team use: EOFY price reminders, recovery sends to applicants who dropped off pre-revision.

Reference

Click any colour to copy the hex

Image Sizes (pixels wide)

Full width hero / banner 660px
Content width body image 600px
2-col 285px
2-col 285px
3-col 180px
3-col 180px
3-col 180px

Bars sized to relative pixel widths. Resize images to these widths before uploading.

Brand & Tokens

ESF Blue #1c6095
ESF Orange* #E8A82B
Body text #14110F

* hex pending confirmation. Merge tag syntax: *|FNAME|* · with fallback *|FNAME:there|*

Business Rules

  • Sending window11am – 8pm
  • No-send daysSaturdays
  • Journey prefixJourney –
  • TabsFlows + Classic
  • Max sends/day1 per contact
  • Email weight< 1 MB total

Top Gotchas

Things that have actually gone wrong
Subject lines

Save Doesn't Auto-Fire

Edit the subject line, click away thinking you're done, lose the change. Always hit Save at the bottom of the panel.

Cloning

Things Don't Copy Cleanly

Image widths can shift. Footer Ts & Cs may be stale. Special characters (ticks, dots) sometimes drop.

Paused journeys

Forgot To Re-Activate

You paused it to edit, you saved, you forgot to resume. Paused journeys don't send. Check the badge.

Send timing

Out-Of-Hours Sends

Vicky's rule: 11am – 8pm, no Saturdays. Holds across all journeys and ad-hoc sends.

Settings location

Wrong Layer For Settings

Subject, from-name and timing all live in the journey, not the email. Edit at the right level.

Image weight

Email Gets Clipped

Gmail clips at ~102KB. Oversized images plus heavy HTML and your unsub link disappears below the fold.

Special chars

Ticks & Dots Don't Render

Unicode symbols render inconsistently across email clients. Use SVG / image icons instead, or skip them.

Source format

Pasting From Word / Docs

Strips formatting unpredictably and injects ghost styles. Paste as plain text, re-apply existing styles.

Preview text

Inbox Snippet Defaults

Without explicit preview text, Mailchimp uses the first line of body — often a "view in browser" link.

When To Escalate

Match your situation to the row, then act
Tier 1

Cosmetic

Typo, image swap, blog tile update, footer text update from the approved version.

Test, save, ship. No escalation needed.

You
Tier 2

Functional

New journey, structural change to a live journey, new audience segment, new merge tag, new template.

Stop. Brief Zonk before building.

Tim @ Zonk
Tier 3

Mid-Send Issue

Something looks wrong while a campaign is firing. Wrong link, broken merge tag, layout broken on mobile.

Pause first. Then Tim, immediately.

Pause → Tim
Tier 4

Data Incident

Wrong client received the email. PII exposed. Anything that could trigger NDB obligations under the Privacy Act.

Pause + Tim + Privacy Officer.

privacy@esuperfund.com.au

Jargon Buster

Vocab that came up — and a few that didn't
Audience
The contact list. ESUPERFUND has one. Everything sends to a slice of it.
Segment
A saved filter on the audience (e.g. "registered, no login in 7 days"). Dynamic — re-evaluated at send time.
Tag
Manual or rule-based label on a contact. Persists with the contact. Used to mark journey state.
Journey
Automated multi-step email sequence triggered by an event (e.g. APP_Registered). The newer system.
Classic Automation
Older-style automation built before Mailchimp launched Journeys. Still runs. Lives on a separate tab.
Campaign
A one-off email send (not part of a journey). What you'd use for an EOFY reminder.
Custom Event
Trigger fired from the CRM into Mailchimp (e.g. APP_Registered, APP_Set_Password) — enrols contacts into journeys.
Merge Tag
Token replaced with subscriber data at send time. Format *|FIELD|*. Fallback: *|FNAME:there|*.
Master Module Template
Reference template containing every approved ESUPERFUND email module. Drift warning: clone a live email instead, often faster.
Global Style
Email-wide setting (font, default colour, link colour). Changing it affects every block in the email.
Section Style
A style applied to one section of an email. Overrides the global for that section only.
Preview Text
The line shown next to the subject in the inbox. If you don't set it, Mailchimp grabs the first line of the body.
Soft / Hard Bounce
Failed delivery. Soft = temporary (full inbox). Hard = permanent (address invalid). Mailchimp auto-removes hard bounces.
Suppression List
Unsubscribed and cleaned contacts. You can't re-add them via the UI. They're suppressed for the legal reason they asked to be.
DKIM / SPF / DMARC
Domain authentication. Stops your emails landing in spam. Set up once at the domain level, mostly invisible after.
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