Send the Right Email to the Right People: A Complete Guide to Email Blasts

Email Blasts let you write, target, preview, and track org-wide emails right from 24Trots — no spreadsheets, no BCC chains. Here's a complete look at everything the feature can do.

Email Blasts — Send the Right Email to the Right People Estimated read time: 9 minutes Updated on: Aug 17, 2026 Email Blasts is 24Trots's built-in broadcast email tool — Admins and Managers can find it in their sidebar. It's not a general-purpose newsletter platform; it's purpose-built for equestrian program coordinators who need to reach participants, families, volunteers, and staff without leaving the app or maintaining a separate mailing list. This guide follows the feature from the moment you open it to the moment you read the delivery report. 📋 Your Blast History When you open Email Blasts from the sidebar, the first thing you see is the full list of every blast your org has sent, scheduled, or left in draft — searchable by subject, filterable by status and audience type. Each entry shows a status badge so you can tell at a glance what's in flight. • Draft (grey) — Saved but not scheduled or sent. Click to continue editing.

• Scheduled (amber) — Queued to send at a specific time. Click to edit; the dropdown also offers Send now to skip the wait.

• Sending (blue, animated) — Delivery in progress, with a live "Sending X of Y" counter.

• Sent (green) — Delivery complete. Click to open the delivery report.

• Failed — Something went wrong during dispatch. Contact support.

If your org's outbound emails are ever paused at the admin level, a warning banner appears at the top of the list. No blasts will send until the setting is re-enabled.

Hit New Blast in the top right to start composing. 👥 Choosing Who Gets It The compose view opens with the recipients panel. Targeting is built around your org's existing profiles — no import, no CSV, no separate list to maintain. The panel has several layers you can combine. Audience type At the top level, choose between All profiles and Accounts only: • All profiles reaches everyone in your org using the email address stored on their profile, including people who have never logged into 24Trots.

• Accounts only limits the blast to people who have an active 24Trots login. Use this when your message is about something app-specific, like a feature update or a settings reminder.

Person type and role tag filters Below the audience toggle are checkboxes for each person type: Participants, Volunteers, Staff, and Guardians. Check any combination. Under each type, pill filters let you narrow further: • All — everyone in that type

• Specific role tags — only people who have been assigned that tag

• No tags — people in that type who haven't been tagged yet

Each person type has its own independent tag filter, so you can reach "Barn Crew volunteers" and "Head Staff" in the same blast without either filter affecting the other. Additional notification emails A toggle available for Participants only. When turned on, the blast also goes to any extra contact email addresses stored on a participant's profile — typically a parent or caregiver address that isn't a full 24Trots account. Those recipients receive a short personalized greeting prepended to the message so they know the email is connected to the participant's record. The recipient preview panel Before you send, expand the preview panel to review exactly who is on the list: • Each row shows the person's name, email address, and role tags

• Inactive profiles appear in a separate section at the bottom, flagged as excluded — you never have to manually remove former members

• Use the per-row toggle to exclude any individual without changing the overall targeting rules

The count in the panel header updates live as you adjust your targeting or toggle individuals. ✉️ Writing Your Message With your audience set, move to the subject line and body. The editor has a full formatting toolbar: headings, bullet and numbered lists, blockquotes, text alignment (left, center, right), bold, italic, underline, highlight, links, inline images, and horizontal dividers. You can also select any text to bring up a quick-format bubble menu without reaching for the toolbar. Two toolbar options appear only in the email editor: • CTA Button — Inserts a styled call-to-action button that deep-links into the app. Choose "Go to Dashboard" or "Go to Settings" from the dropdown. The button renders as a proper email-safe layout so it looks right in every mail client, including Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail.

• Reference Block — Inserts a formatted card listing people, horses, sessions, or a session series pulled directly from your org's data. Search by name or title, select as many items as you want, and insert. The card renders in the email with avatars, session dates and times, recurrence patterns, and session type badges — formatted exactly as it looks on screen.

🏷️ Merge Tags (Updated on 8/17/26) Merge tags let you personalize a blast so each recipient gets a copy addressed to them, not a generic broadcast. Every tag you insert is expanded individually at send time using the data on each recipient's own profile. The five available tags are: • {{first_name}} — The recipient's first name (or preferred name if set)

• {{full_name}} — First and last name

• {{org_name}} — Your organization's name

• {{type}} — The recipient's person type — Participant, Volunteer, or Staff

• {{role_tags}} — The recipient's assigned role tags, rendered as inline colored badges in the email

Inserting tags: Simply type a {, or click the Tags button in the toolbar to see the full list and insert at the cursor. You can also select any existing text in the body and choose a tag from the bubble menu that appears — the tag replaces the selected text. In preview and test sends: The Preview modal and Send Test both resolve merge tags using your own admin person record, so you see a real expansion rather than the raw {{placeholder}} syntax. See the Previewing Before You Send section below for details. If a value is missing: A recipient whose profile has no first name set will receive a graceful fallback rather than a blank — design your opening line with that in mind if your org has incomplete profiles. 📅 Dynamic Session Lists (Updated on 8/17/26) Beyond merge tags, the email body can include dynamic session blocks — live-resolved lists of sessions that are different for every recipient. These aren't static content baked into the email at compose time; the server queries each person's data individually at send time and substitutes the appropriate list before dispatch. Two block types are available from the toolbar when composing a blast: Upcoming Sessions Inserts a formatted list of each recipient's own assigned sessions falling within a look-ahead window. A volunteer who has three shifts in the next two weeks sees those three sessions; a participant assigned to none sees an "Nothing scheduled in the next X days" message rather than a blank gap. The look-ahead window defaults to 14 days and can be adjusted directly in the block while composing — drag the slider or type a number. You can place multiple Upcoming Sessions blocks in one email with different windows if needed (for example, one showing the next 7 days and another showing the next 30). Open Volunteer Sessions Inserts a list of open shifts — sessions that have unfilled volunteer spots — filtered to match each recipient's role tags. A volunteer tagged "Barn Crew" sees open Barn Crew shifts; a volunteer tagged "Side Walker" sees Side Walker openings. This means one email can serve your whole volunteer list without you manually segmenting by role. Important: The Open Volunteer Sessions block is only available when the blast targets Volunteers exclusively. If your targeting includes any other person type, the block is silently stripped from those recipients' copies rather than showing incorrect data. The toolbar button is greyed out when the targeting doesn't qualify. Previewing a dynamic block in the editor Each block shows a live preview while you compose. It loads your own upcoming sessions by default so you can see what a real resolved list looks like. To preview what a specific recipient would see, click the person picker inside the block, search for anyone on your recipient list, and select them — the preview refreshes instantly with their data. This works for both block types. 📐 Templates If your org sends similar emails repeatedly — weather cancellations, pre-show reminders, barn shift callouts — templates save the message body so you don't retype it from scratch. After writing a message, click Save as template and give it a name. It'll appear in the Templates menu on any future blast. From there you can: • Apply a template to load its body into the editor

• Edit a template's name or body without sending a blast

• Delete a template you no longer need

Templates save the message body only, not the subject line or recipients. If the editor already has content when you apply a template, you'll see a confirmation prompt before anything is replaced. 👁️ Previewing Before You Send (Updated on 8/17/26) Before a blast goes out you have two ways to check it. Full preview Click Preview to open a modal showing the full rendered email — your org's logo at the top, your name and org name as the sender (from alerts@24trots.com), the subject line, and your complete formatted body including any CTA buttons or reference blocks. It renders as a live iframe, so what you see is the actual email, not a wireframe approximation. Merge tags and dynamic session blocks are both resolved using your own admin person record, so you see real values — your name, your role tags, your upcoming sessions — rather than raw {{placeholders}} or empty blocks. Test send Click Send test to deliver a copy to your own email address immediately. This lets you check links, verify formatting in your own mail client, and confirm that reference blocks or CTA buttons look right before the blast goes to everyone. If your blast uses merge tags or dynamic session blocks, the test copy personalizes them using your own record — so the email that lands in your inbox shows your name, your role tags, and your own upcoming sessions exactly as a recipient with your profile would see it. 🕐 Sending and Scheduling When you're ready, you have two options: send immediately or schedule for later. Send now dispatches the blast straight away. The status on the list page flips to the animated blue Sending badge and shows a live "Sending X of Y" counter as delivery progresses. The dispatch runs server-side, so you don't need to keep the app open. Schedule for later lets you pick a date and time. The picker works in your org's configured timezone, so "Friday 9:00 am" means 9:00 am for your location — no mental timezone math required. Once scheduled, the blast sits in your list with an amber Scheduled badge. You can still go back and: • Edit the subject, body, or recipients

• Change the scheduled time

• Send it immediately by choosing Send now from the dropdown

Either way, you can also hit Save draft to hold your work and come back later without committing to a send time. 📊 Reading the Delivery Report Once a blast is sent, clicking it from the list opens the report. The stat cards at the top give you the summary: • Sent — Total recipients the blast was dispatched to

• Delivered — Confirmed successful deliveries (bounced addresses subtracted). During the ~3-minute post-send window while bounce results are still arriving, this card shows only the confirmed count with a small "N checking…" note — it won't be inflated by addresses still in-flight.

• Bounced — Failed deliveries. A detail panel below the cards lists each address with its bounce reason.

• Received — Addresses where a delivery confirmation fired. See the FAQ below for why this says "Received" instead of "Opened."

• Received Rate — Received ÷ Delivered, as a percentage

• Unique Clicks — Distinct recipients who clicked at least one link

• Click Rate — Unique clicks ÷ Delivered, as a percentage

Below the cards is a per-recipient table with a row for each person: delivery status, received indicator, click indicator, and timestamps for first received and first click. During the 3-minute bounce window, the Delivered column shows a spinner that resolves to a checkmark or an X automatically — no need to refresh. The report page refreshes itself every 10 seconds for the first 3 minutes after sending so you can watch results populate in real time. 💡 A Few Good Things to Know Inactive profiles are always excluded. People marked inactive in your org are automatically removed from every blast and shown in a separate "Excluded" section in the recipient panel. You don't have to do anything special to prevent accidentally emailing former participants or alumni. What you see is what gets sent. The recipient list in the compose panel and the actual send use the exact same resolution logic. If someone's name appears in your preview, they're on the list. If they don't appear, they won't receive the email. There's no hidden second pass. "Received" is not the same as "Opened." Email clients like Gmail pre-load all images — including tracking pixels — at delivery time, before a human ever opens the message. Logging this as "Opened" would overcount significantly, so 24Trots uses "Received" instead. It's an honest signal: the email arrived and the mail client processed it. Your org logo appears automatically. As long as your org has a logo set in Settings, it appears in the header of every outgoing blast. No per-blast configuration needed. Contact emails get a personal touch. When "Include additional notification emails" is on for Participants, the copies going to those contact addresses include a short personalized greeting so a parent or caregiver knows at a glance which participant the email is about. ❓ Frequently Asked Questions Can I send to just one or two specific people? Yes — apply your usual targeting filters, then open the recipient preview panel and toggle off everyone except the people you want. The count in the header updates as you exclude rows, so you can confirm exactly who remains before sending. What's the difference between "All profiles" and "Accounts only"? "All profiles" reaches everyone in your org using the email address on their profile — including people who have never logged into 24Trots. "Accounts only" limits the blast to people with an active login. Use "Accounts only" when your message is about something app-specific that requires a login to act on. Can recipients unsubscribe? No, and that's by design. Email Blasts are operational communications — lesson changes, barn closures, schedule updates, urgent notices — not a marketing list someone signed up for out of curiosity. Being part of an organization in 24Trots means these emails are a core part of how the org runs. If someone has genuinely left the program, marking them inactive in People removes them from all future blasts automatically. Can I see exactly who clicked a link? The per-recipient table shows a click indicator (✓ or —) and a First Click timestamp for each person. It doesn't break down which specific link they clicked if a blast had multiple links — just whether they clicked anything at all. What happens if I use a Reference Block and the session gets cancelled after I send? Reference Blocks capture data at insert time — the date, time, and title are baked into the email when you write it. If the session is later cancelled, emails already sent won't change. This is intentional: the email is a record of what you communicated, not a live data feed. Why did my Delivered count start lower than Sent and then go up? During the first ~3 minutes after a send, bounce results are still arriving. The Delivered card holds at a conservative confirmed count until the bounce window closes. Once 24Trots stops expecting new bounce reports, Delivered settles at its final value. Will guardians get a copy if I send to Participants? Not automatically — Guardians are their own person type and need to be included explicitly. However, if a participant has additional contact emails stored on their profile (often a parent's address), turning on "Include additional notification emails" will send copies to those addresses too. Can I target participants from a specific series or session? Not directly from the targeting panel today — filters work by person type and role tag, not by session enrollment. The workaround is to apply a broad filter and then use the recipient preview panel to manually exclude individuals. Email Blasts will keep gaining new targeting and reporting capabilities as the product grows. If there's a recipient filter, targeting option, or report metric you'd like to see, head to Settings → Feedback & Suggestions and let us know — you can attach a screenshot to show exactly what you mean.