Introduction to Email Signature Marketing Banners

  • Updated on May 8, 2025
  • Published on Sep 27, 2023
  • 7 minute(s) read
  • Gio Mauricio
  • OD
  • Janelle Hengeveld
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This is not meant to replace marketing platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, etc. The max number of targeted recipient domains/email addresses is 400.

  1. Log in to the Opensense Portal (Never logged in?)

  2. Click on "Banners" under the "Marketing" drop-down  

  3. Click on the "Targeting/ABM" tab near the top of the webpage  

  4. At the bottom, in "Department Targeting", ensure that there is an active route that looks like the picture below  

  5. If there is already a department target in place for the campaign you are activating, jump to the "Create a Banner" section below.

  6. If you need to add a new one, click the "Edit" button

  7. Scroll to "Department Targeting" at the bottom, and click "+Department Target"

  8. In your new Department target, ensure the following:

    • Appropriate priority number - If a user is in two different departments, Opensense will query the highest priority number

    • Target is toggled On

    • Type of target -

      • Sender: For external banner campaigns

      • Recipient: For internal banner campaigns**

     

The allusers group does not work for internal only campaigns. Always place Recipient (Internal Campaign) routes as higher priority than Sender (External Campaign) routes like in the screenshot below

  1. In the Groups Entry box, type in the Department, or Departments, to assign the banner to. You can use "*" to select from current departments, or begin typing in the name of the department until it appears in the drop down selection.
    No departments created yet? Click here to find out how to create a department and add users

    allusers is a pre-made department for your account. You can use this for company-wide campaigns.

  2. Enter the tag you would like to use for this group  

  3. Click Save. To activate the campaigns for any department targets, apply the same tag to the appropriate banner!

    The department target is now live on any signatures that contain the ABM block in the HTML code.  

Note: Department targeting also allows you to assign a department directly to the campaign name:

While the route is turned on, using the ad name is a static bind to that department. The campaign will not adhere to an enabled schedule on that banner.

To remove this campaign from rendering on your domain emails, turn the route off.

  1. Log in to the Opensense Portal and click on "Banners" under the Marketing drop down menu

  2. Click the "Add New Banner" button to create a new banner, or find an existing banner and click "Edit"

  3. the are four primary components to each banner campaign:

    • Name

    • Marketing Message

    • Pre-built URL

    • Targeting Tag

     

  4. Give the ad a distinct name related to the marketing content

  5. For graphic images, click the purple upload image button. Make sure the graphic is uploaded with the size you want to your recipients to receive. For a text ad, tab over to "Text Ad" and input your text the way it should appear.

  6. On the right, enter the URL your recipients will visit when they click your ad. You can also upload documents and videos for more in-depth engagement analytics on marketing collateral!  

  7. The banner tags (Audience/Targeting Tags) are how you will call the banner into the signature. These are freeform and should help you remember who the banner audience is. As an example, if the banner is for company wide campaigns, create a "default" tag.
    If you're not ready, save the new campaign without this piece for now. Only complete this step when you're ready to activate the campaign!

  8. You may want to include more functionality like scheduling

  9. Click save

Optional: On the right side of each banner profile, you will see a "Document" and "Video" tab. These tabs will allow you to link your banners to a specific document or video. To access this functionality you will need to:

  1. Go to the Marketing drop down menu, and click on "Documents/Videos" depending on which feature fits your campaign

  2. Upload your document/video

  3. After successfully uploading it, go back to the Banners section

  4. Select your content from a picklist under the document/video tabs

  1. Log in to the Opensense Portal and click on "Banners" under the Marketing drop down menu  

  2. Find the banner you want to activate, and copy the ad name
    Copy everything after ad: As an example for [[ad:100k_free]], you would copy "100k_free"

  3. Head to the ABM/Targeting View  

  4. In the Built-In ABM Targeting section, click "+ Account"  

  5. Input your personal email address, and/or a colleagues email address to send a live test

  6. Next, paste the ad name into the second column

  7. Click the green save button in the top right of the screen. When you send an email to the targeted email address using your Opensense signture, you should get a live render of the banner to submit for approval!

You can keep test targets in place for the next campaign, simply switch the ad name as needed

  1. After following the steps to add a tag to the banner and adding it to your signature template. Go back to the "Banners" section, and click the "Edit" on the desired Banner

  2. Click "Enable Schedule" to set a custom schedule for your banner to run. This will include Campaign start and end dates, banner frequency, etc.  

Tagged banners are live until their scheduled end date. In the screenshot above, the event banner is removed from rotation on May 10th at 4PM

  1. To implement a random rotation of banners into an email signature, use the same banner tag for more than one banner. For scheduled banners, please ensure that the scheduled time frames are overlapping for each banner
     

     

We recommend "random banner rotation" as a best practice when testing two (or more) banners. This is commonly known as A/B testing your target market

  1. Log in to the Opensense Portal, and click on "Banners" under the Marketing drop down menu  

  2. Find the banner to deactivate, and click "Edit" in the top right

  3. Remove any Banner Tags

  4. Click Save

In Designer Studio, you may see tag block rendering where your banners usually appear. This can be seen in the Opensense Portal only, and will be stripped from the email signature when sending emails



An example tag block may look like: [[adtag:marketing]]

To use the Targeting/ABM section, the ABM block must be added to the active signature design. You can confirm, add it in, or remove it using following the steps below.

  1. Navigate to "Designer Studio", under the Signatures dropdown menu

  2. Find the signature template of your click, and click "Edit"

  3. In the signature's HTML editor, include the code [[abm]] where you would like the banner to appear in your email signatures. This will replace any banner code you had previously.  

  4. Once you're happy with the banner placement, click "Save"

  5. The targeted recipient domains/email addresses will now receive the specified banners

  1. 400px by 80px shows up well across all devices. For the best aesthetic - match banner width to the pixel width of your email signature
     

  2. Clear Call to Action - "Get Your Gift" performs better than "Click Here"  

  3. A play button, or movement, helps drive engagement. Gifs are supported (even better if there is clear Call to Action)
     

  1. Go to the Marketing drop down menu, and click on "Banners"

  2. Find yours by searching for it in the search box  

  • Total Delivered: The total # of emails with this banner that have been delivered. This number will be greater than the number of "Recipients" because we often email the same person more than once.

  • Advanced Views: The # of times this banner has been viewed by external recipients. To add internal recipients to the count, check "Count Internal"
     

  • Advanced Clicks: The total # of external recipients that have clicked on the banner and it's CTR (click-through rate). To add internal recipients to the count, check "Count Internal"
     

  • Basic Views and Basic Clicks: These metrics are disabled by default on most accounts

  • Live # days: The number of days the banner has been on a signature

  • # Recipients: The total number of unique recipients

To view additional analytics, click on the purple "Show Report" button, and scroll down



  • The map will show you where your clicks are coming from

  • Click on "Show Clicks" to see the list of email recipients who have clicked on your banner

  • Click on "Clicks to CSV" to export this list. The CSV will contain the senders, recipients, and additional metadata.

  1. Under "Banners", navigate to "Reporting" on the left side of the page

  2. Click {#} AD SUMMARIES button for a full summary of the filtered ads

  3. Click {#} AD CLICKS for a list of sender/recipient information on any clicks that occurred

  4. Filter out unnecessary banners by searching for a specific campaign or banner tag  

Data can be pushed to an external attribution reporting system by adding UTM parameters into the Analytics Codes section

If you are already using a URL builder, you can copy/paste the complete URL into the Banner URL entry

  1. In the banner you would like to update, click "Edit"

  2. In the "Analytics Codes" section, click "URL Parameter"

  3. "Name" and "Value" are the arguments/tags that correspond to the external attribution report  

Important note: Analytics Codes treats UTM parameters the same as including parameters directly into the URL. Including UTM parameters in both the URL and Analytics Codes section will capture data twice