Interactive module generator: Binary voting

Voting is a good way to decide things, especially in email marketing. If you want to learn more about your audience and their needs, an email campaign with extensive voting options is a good choice. But what if you want your audience to decide something simpler? Chocolates or ice cream? Cast or dogs? Movies or cartoons? Well, we’ve got you covered, as we have a new piece for your emails.

It's time to make your emails interactive. No technical skills required. We present to you the addition of our Interactive module generator with a new mechanic: Binary voting.

How can you use the Binary voting module for your email campaigns?

This interactive module is quite simple. Its main purpose is to allow recipients to vote, specifically, to choose one of two things, as the poll only asks one question and offers a choice between two options. By clicking a specific option, the recipient sends you their answer via a separate button, while they see the final screen, which can simply contain text or an additional button that takes them to the page you need.

How can you use this straightforward interactive mechanic? You got a few options:

• voting is a good way for you to receive feedback from your audience (for example, you want to know which of two brand-new products, event ideas, or offers they like the most);
• voting can give you hints on what the audience wants to see from your email marketing (you can create an email campaign with voting like this, to give your audience options to choose content ideas they’ll love to see in their inboxes;
• voting allows you to discover the most anticipated feature/product/event your audience your audience wait from you;
• voting can help you learn how your emails feel to your audience, as they can vote on whether they like your emails or not; 
• voting can be a great tool to learn specific things from your audience using simple questions with simple answers (Do you use a dark theme? Do you like this kind of interactivity in emails? etc).

How to generate an interactive Binary voting module

Now, let’s begin our creation process. We’ll walk you through all the steps you need to take to receive a module for your own newsletters.

Step 1. Add your question

The first and most important thing you need to create for this kind of interactive experience is a question. Simply type the question you want to vote on into this input field.

The input field has several settings that allow you to edit the text. You can:

• configure the text as a heading;
• add emojis and links;
• make the text bold, italic, or underlined;
• change the text size.

So, experiment to tailor the text design to your needs.

Step 2. Add links and alts for your voting images

The next is images. This interactive module is all about picking images, so you can attach two different images and set the needed alts to each one. Just paste the link to the corresponding fields, and you are good to go.

Important note: The image you want to attach must not exceed 3 MB in size and 4000 x 4000 px in dimensions.

Step 3. Add a text to your submit button

The submit button sends answers to you, as well as needed to show the final screen to the recipient. You can change the name of the button by typing the new one in the corresponding field.

A bit further in the article, we’ll tell you what you need to gather answers.

Step 4. Edit your completion screen image, title, and description

Now it’s time to set your completion screen, which recipients will see once they submit their votes. First of all, you can set a completion image by picking from 3 default images or by attaching your own by clicking on the plus button and adding a link to your custom image. If you don’t want any image at all, just flip the corresponding image switch.

The next thing is the title and description, which work the same way, as you need to type in the desired texts inside the fields. You can tweak the description as much as you need using built-in input field options.

Important note: The image you want to attach must not exceed 3 MB in size and 4000 x 4000 px in dimensions.

Step 5. Add a completion button (optional)

If you want to send your recipients to another page once they submit their vote, you can add a completion button by flipping the corresponding switch. You’ll see two input fields, in which you must add a button name and a link to the page you want your recipients go to. This feature is completely optional and not required to download the game.

Step 6. Add a response storage link

Unlike the previous feature, this one is mandatory to complete the creation process. You must add a link to data storage to collect the received vote responses and the email addresses from which they were submitted.

Important note: You won’t be able to save your created game without this step. You can read more about data storage services and how to use them in a dedicated article.

Step 7. Add merge tags (optional)

To make your Binary voting module more personalized, you can optionally add merge tags. Merge tags allow you to easily add names to your vote module by inputting them into the corresponding fields.

You can add several merge tags by clicking on the green button with a plus sign. To delete tags, click on the trash bin icon on the tag that you wish to remove.

Merge tags you add appear here, and they also appear in the code of the game.

Important note: You can find more information about merge tags, where to get them, and their valuable properties in our Help Center.

Step 8. Customize styles

Now it’s time for tweaking your module’s look. We provide extensive options for customizing your Binary voting module. The first thing you can customize is images. 

By the game mechanic, they have two states:

• inactive state displays images as they are;
• hover state activates once your mouse cursor hovers over these images.

Both these states are tweakable, as you can change the background and border color. You can also tweak your border radius, and this option applies to both states.

You can also change the way your vote buttons look. Tweak text and background colors, as well as set the needed radius to the buttons to match your design vision.

To have a better understanding of what you can do with these options. Here’s how our default game looks.

And here’s how our game looks once all design features have been applied.

Prepared module examples you can use

To see what the Binary voting module can look like and gain some inspiration, you can check out our three pre-built templates by clicking on this drop-down menu. Look at them, test them, or use them straight away for your email campaign. It’s up to you.

Step 9. Download the game

Once the game creation is done, it’s time to download the game. You have two options for how you can do that.

Option 1. Saving game as a module

The first option you have is to save your created game right away as a module to your Stripo modules library. However, to do this, you must be a Stripo user and logged into your account.

After clicking Save, you'll be automatically redirected to your Account, where you'll see a message like this informing you that the module has been saved to the library and can be found in the editor.

Option 2. Downloading game code separately

This option is available to both Stripo users and those without a Stripo account. Simply enter your email address in the field and select the versions you want to receive (by default, we always send all versions of the game).

After clicking the Send button, you will receive an email with download links for the required versions. Just click the required button in the email to download the HTML code or JSON to use them later.

The module contains:

• an AMP version of your email that works in Gmail, Yahoo, and FairEmail;
• a kinetic version  that works on all devices and with all email clients that support HTML5 and CSS3 (it also works in Apple Mail and Samsung Email);
• a fallback version that simulates interactivity and works with email clients that do not support HTML5 or CSS3, such as some Outlook apps.

How to test your email with an interactive module

Testing your interactive content before sending it is a cornerstone of effective email gamification. We have several ways for you to test your Binary voting game before going live with this type of interactivity.

Option 1. Sending an email to an inbox

The first and most important one is simply sending it to your test inboxes. You’ll be able to see how your interactive game looks in real environments. Just click on the Test button.

Type in needed email addresses and then click on the Send Test button. After that, you’ll be able to check test emails with your Binary voting game.

Important note: The number of tests is limited depending on your plan. You can check how many email tests are left on the Home page.

Option 2. Testing it using Email on Acid integration

The second way how you should test your emails is how they will look in different email clients. We have a direct integration with Email on Acid, a popular email testing tool for marketers. In the same Testing Template window, click on the Email clients tab and then Run a Test.

This test will show you whether your game displays in the particular email clients, platforms, or not, as some email clients can have problems with rendering interactive content. However, you can’t test how the game plays on each platform or email client.

You’ll see how your email looks in real time through different email clients, devices, themes, and more.

You can also choose specific testing options to make sure your email looks fire in the email client you need.

Important note: The number of tests is limited depending on your plan. You can check how many email tests are left on the Home page.

Wrapping up

Binary voting module is a great way to make your emails more interactive, engaging and take a deeper dive at what your audience like, want and interested in. Besides that, creating one requires zero technical skills, so any marketer can benefit from implementing this type of interactivity in their email marketing campaigns.