Email marketing

Email marketing lets you write a one-off newsletter or announcement and send it to the customers who have opted in to your marketing emails. It is a way to fill quiet sessions, share news, and stay front of mind - separate from the automated emails Session sends for every booking.

How it differs from automated emails

It helps to keep the two kinds of email straight:

• Automated emails are always on. They are transactional - booking confirmations, reminders, cancellations, receipts - sent to whoever made the booking. See Automated emails.
• Marketing emails are the broadcasts you write here. They go only to customers who gave marketing consent, and every one carries an unsubscribe link.

Who receives your broadcasts

A broadcast sends to your subscribers - the customers who opted in to marketing emails at your venue.

Customers join that list by ticking the marketing-consent checkbox when they book, or by turning it on themselves from their account page. Consent is per venue, so it only ever reflects people who agreed to hear from you specifically.

When you send, you can choose between two audiences:

• All subscribers - everyone on your opted-in list.
• Known-good only - just the addresses you've confirmed a delivery to before. This skips anyone you've never successfully emailed, so it's the safest choice for your first send or an imported list, where some addresses may be out of date and bounce.

The choice only appears when the two counts differ - if every subscriber is already known-good, there's nothing to narrow. Known-good is a smaller list, but a clean one; sending to a lot of never-emailed addresses at once can hurt your sender reputation, which the sending limits below also guard against.

To see who a broadcast goes to, use the See who this goes to link beside the recipient count in the composer. It opens your Customers directory in a new tab, filtered to subscribers, so you can check the list without losing your draft.

Your plan and stats

At the top of the Marketing page, a row of figures gives you the shape of your list at a glance:

• Subscribers - how many customers are on your marketing list.
• Subscribed - what share of all your contacts that is.
• Sent this month - marketing emails sent so far this month.
• Deliverable - the subscribers you can actually reach, once addresses that have bounced or complained are set aside.

A slim line at the top of the page shows where you stand and what to do next:

• Choose a plan to send - marketing emails run on a monthly plan. Choose one (from £10/month, or the equivalent in your currency, unlimited contacts) to start sending to your subscribers; you can change or cancel it anytime. Plans are shown in your venue's own currency.
• Free during early access - if your venue is in a free early-access window, you can send at no charge until the date shown.
• Email plan - once you're on a plan, this shows your monthly price, how much of your allowance you've used this month, and roughly how many more sends that leaves at your current subscriber count.

Once a broadcast has sent, its row shows Delivered, Opened and Bounced. Click the row to see the full picture, including clicks and unsubscribes:

• Delivered - the share of recipients the email actually reached. Anything short of 100% is addresses that bounced or weren't sent, not a fault with your email.
• Opened - the share of people who opened it, counted once per person however many times they open.
• Clicked - the share who clicked a link in it, again counted once per person.
• Unsubscribed - people who opted out of your marketing emails from this broadcast.
• Bounced - addresses the email couldn't be delivered to.

Open and click tracking was switched on in July 2026. Broadcasts sent before then show 0% opened even though people read them - that's the tracking, not your email, and Delivered is unaffected.

Plans and your monthly allowance

Each plan includes an allowance of emails per month, not sends. One broadcast uses one email per subscriber, so what a plan is worth to you depends on the size of your list:

emails per month = subscribers × sends per month

A list of 2,800 subscribers emailed twice a month is about 5,600 emails, so the 5,000 plan wouldn't cover it and the 10,000 plan would. Contacts are unlimited on every plan - only the emails you send are counted.

Prices are shown in your venue's own currency.

Change your plan

1. 1
   Go to Email → Marketing.
2. 2
   Click Change plan on the plan line at the top of the page.
3. 3
   Pick the plan you want and click Switch to this plan. Your current plan is marked.

The change takes effect immediately - you can send against the bigger allowance straight away. Nothing is charged at the moment you switch: Stripe works out the difference and applies it to your next invoice, so you only pay for what you used on each plan.

Moving down to a smaller plan works the same way, and credits the difference. If you've already sent more this month than the smaller plan allows, Session says so on that plan's card - you can still switch, but you won't be able to send again until the month rolls over.

If a broadcast would take you past your allowance for the month, Session tells you before you send it - on the Marketing page and again in the send window - and names the plan that would cover it.

Compose and send a broadcast

Go to Email → Marketing and start a new broadcast. The composer is a three-step flow over one draft - you can jump between steps freely.

1. 1
   Settings - give the broadcast an internal name (only you see it, for finding the draft later) and pick a theme (default, light, or dark) and a font.
2. 2
   Content - write your email. Add headings, text, links and images, set text size and alignment, and drop in coloured callout boxes. Click an image to open its controls - set its size and alignment, switch between rounded and straight corners, link it so it's clickable, or replace it with a different picture (its size and link are kept). Undo and redo are in the toolbar. Click the header band to show or hide your logo at the top.
3. 3
   Confirm - review the recipient count and your email, then send. If your list has addresses you've never emailed, you'll be asked to choose between All subscribers and Known-good only (see Who receives your broadcasts). Use Send test at any point to email a copy to yourself first. If you don't have an active plan yet, the Send button is replaced with a Choose a plan prompt - your draft stays saved while you pick one.

Your work autosaves as you go - there's no Save button, and a status indicator shows when it's saved. Click Done to leave; the draft is waiting when you come back. Sending a draft turns it into a sent broadcast.

Themes

Pick a theme in the Settings step. The in-editor preview matches what subscribers receive:

• Default - matches your public booking pages: a bordered card on a cream background.
• Light - flat white, no card or borders.
• Dark - a single dark background with light text.

Personalise with the recipient's first name

You can greet each subscriber by name. In the Content step, put your cursor where you want the name and click First name in the toolbar - it drops in a {{first_name}} placeholder. At send time that becomes each recipient's first name, so Hi {{first_name}}, arrives as "Hi Sarah,".

• No name on file? It falls back to "there" - so Hi {{first_name}}, reads "Hi there," rather than "Hi ,". Every subscriber gets a natural greeting.
• Subject and preview text too. Type or paste {{first_name}} into the subject or preview text and it's personalised the same way.
• Check it with a test. Send test fills the placeholder with your own first name, so the test email shows exactly what a subscriber sees. The in-editor preview leaves the placeholder as-is.

Sending limits

A few limits protect your sender reputation and your subscribers:

• Your monthly allowance. A broadcast that would take you past your plan's emails-per-month is refused. Session warns you before you send and names the plan that covers it - see Change your plan.
• Large lists are blocked, not trimmed. A broadcast to more than 2,000 subscribers is refused rather than sent to part of the list.
• Two sends per day. A third broadcast in the same day is refused.
• Empty lists can't send. If no one has opted in yet, there's no one to send to.

Common questions

1. Why don't I see Email → Marketing? It's an early-access feature that's enabled per venue. Open the Marketing page and choose Enable email marketing, or check that you have an Admin role.

2. Do customers have to be a member to receive marketing emails? No. Anyone who opted in to marketing at your venue is a subscriber, member or not.

3. Will this email people who only ever got a booking confirmation? No. Booking confirmations are transactional and don't imply marketing consent - only customers who explicitly opted in receive broadcasts.

4. Why does the subscriber list show a different number from the recipient count? Two reasons, both expected. Subscribers whose address has bounced or marked you as spam stay on the list (badged) but aren't sent to. And the Customers directory only lists customers, so if you or a staff member opted in, you'll receive the email without appearing in the list.

5. Can customers unsubscribe? Yes. Every broadcast includes an unsubscribe link, and customers can also manage their preference from their account page. Unsubscribing only stops marketing emails - booking confirmations and reminders keep coming.

6. My broadcast was refused - why? Check the limits above: it may take you past your plan's monthly email allowance, the list may be over 2,000 subscribers, you may have already sent twice today, or there may be no subscribers yet.

7. How do I move to a bigger plan? I can only see an option to cancel. Use Change plan on the plan line at the top of the Marketing page, not Manage billing - Manage billing opens Stripe, which handles your card, invoices and cancellation, but not your allowance. See Change your plan.

8. I'm told I need a bigger plan, but I've only sent one email. The allowance counts emails, not sends, so one broadcast to a big list can use most of a month's allowance. Multiply your subscriber count by the sends you plan each month - if that's above your plan, the plan is the thing to change, not the email. The plan line at the top of the page shows roughly how many more sends you have left.

9. An older broadcast shows 0% opened - is that right? Open and click tracking was switched on in July 2026, so a broadcast sent before then shows 0% opened even though people read it. Delivered is unaffected, and the figure can't be filled in after the fact. Broadcasts sent since show a true open rate, counting each person once however many times they open. If a recent broadcast still shows 0% opened, get in touch and we'll check it.

10. Why is Delivered below 100%? Some addresses bounce or aren't sent, so Delivered reflects how many the email reached. A very low figure on an older broadcast can also mean it was sent while the account was at a temporary sending limit - that's since been raised.

11. What's the difference between All subscribers and Known-good only? Known-good only sends to the addresses you've confirmed a delivery to before; All subscribers also includes anyone you've never successfully emailed. If your list came from an import, that untested group can hold out-of-date addresses that bounce, so known-good is the safer first send. Once you've emailed people successfully, they become known-good for next time. If the two counts are the same, everyone is already known-good and you won't see the choice.

12. How do I put the customer's name in the email? In the Content step, click First name in the toolbar to insert a {{first_name}} placeholder (it also works in the subject and preview text). At send it becomes each person's first name, or "there" when you don't have their name. Send a test to yourself to check it - the test shows your own name. Only first name is supported; any other placeholder blocks the send.