Start a conversation

Conversations live in Studio > Conversations, next to Audience. Choose New conversation at the top right.

Pick how it starts

The New conversation window has two sections. Chat holds the New chat card, which is not open yet (it stays greyed out). Email is where you start a conversation.

At the top of the Email section there is a search field ("Search a conversation template") and tabs: All, then one tab for each kind of template. The first card is Blank conversation: start from nothing, then choose its email and its readers.

Peakub offers these templates:

Each card shows its opening email drawn small, its name, its kind, who it goes to by default and a line about what it is for. A template that needs something your publication doesn't have yet says so on its card: Book club discussion needs a book club, and A note to paid members needs paid members.

One click on a card makes the conversation at once, from that template, and opens its Send window. There is no Continue button. Nothing is sent until you press Send.

If you close the Send window before choosing an email or any reader, a blank conversation made for it is deleted again, so no empty draft stays in your list.

Send it

The Send window walks you through three steps. See Write to your readers for the details of the To field, the limits and what readers receive.

1. How the email starts. Peakub's email templates, your own templates ("My templates") or a blank email. Picking one saves the email as a draft straight away, so nothing is lost if you close the window.
2. The email and who gets it. Write the email, choose the readers in To, and press Send.
3. The recap. It says how many readers it was sent to and where their replies arrive. Save as my template keeps the email you just sent.

A conversation can be sent more than once. Its card says "Sent once" or "Sent 3 times", and each new send starts a new email.

Name it and set it up

Open a conversation's row and choose Edit to change its settings:

• Name (required) and Description.
• Thumbnail, once the conversation exists.
• Own colour, with a Colour to pick from your publication's colours.
• Who sees it: Private, or the same choices as for a piece (everyone, subscribers, a paid level). This decides who can see the conversation's name, description and thumbnail. Replies are never shown to readers.

The row's other buttons are Insights (below), Pin, and Delete. You can delete a conversation only until it has been sent. After that it stays, with its replies.

Insights

Insights shows, for a conversation: how many readers it was sent to, Delivered, Opened and Clicked (these appear once the first delivery reports have come back), how many readers Replied, and how many are still Unanswered. Below, the Replies list shows the replies to this conversation, newest first.