Poll and Feedback – Optimove

Use your emails to gather quick customer insights with in-email polls, enhance relevance with personalized weather forecasts, and showcase more content in less space using image carousels—all within a single, interactive template.

What You’ll Learn

In this guide, you’ll learn how to:
Add polls to collect real-time customer feedback directly within emails.
Include personalized weather forecasts tailored to each recipient.
Insert image carousels to present multiple visuals or offers in a compact space.

Before you begin

Prerequisites
- Access to Email by Optimove
- Access to Dynamic Widgets from Optimove
Required information
- Email template design that you want to use for this use case

Setup Process

Step 1: Prepare the email template

To get started, head over to Email by Optimove in your Optimove instance.
Build your email template as you would normally by pulling in text and graphics onto the email template builder.
Leave spaces for where you would like to include the poll, weather, and carousel components.
Make sure to include headers around these components for clarity.

Step 2: Create and Add the Survey (Poll) component

Within your template from above, drag the “DynamicMail” content block into your template where you want the poll to appear.
Click the “Start DynamicMail” button.
Select “Survey” from the available components.
Give your Survey a unique and descriptive name (e.g., “Sunglasses Shades Poll”).
Set how you want to identify customer responses:
1. User ID Personalization Tag — enter a customer attribute like Customer ID to identify specific customer responses.
2. Deployment ID Personalization Tag — use a tag like [%campaign_ID%] to identify responses from specific sends and aggregate poll responses by campaign ID.
For the poll to work, you are required to include a Click-Through URL. If you want all the options to link to the same location, you can include just a Default Click-Through URL.
1. Optionally, you can also include dynamic tracking parameters such as template IDs, campaign identifiers, or customer identifiers to the Click-Through URL by entering them in the “Tracking Parameters” field.
Set up the design of your poll using the Layout Settings:
1. Width: Define the total width of the template (in pixels) that you want the poll to take up.
2. Spacing: Define the space (in pixels) between poll options.
3. Rows and Columns: Control how many options you include and how they are laid out.
4. Responsive Settings: Set your poll to “Responsive” for the best experience on both desktop and mobile.
Set up the content for each poll option in the “Rows and Columns” section:
1. Image N#: Select the image you would like to show for each poll option.
2. Response Value: Enter the value to be collected when someone clicks on each option.
3. Click-Through URL (Optional): Set a unique click-through URL for each option (if left blank, the Default Click-Through URL will be used).
4. Alt Text: Optionally, include alt text for each poll option.
Include the “Results Display” to add social proof to your poll:
1. Display the percentage of clicks each option has received, starting from zero clicks or from a defined threshold.
2. You can control font color, font family, size, background color, placement, and alignment of the displayed percentage.
When you have completed the setup of your Survey, click the “Update Preview” button to see your changes reflected in the preview panel on the right.
If you are happy with your poll, click the “Generate Code” button.
On the following screen, click the “Insert in Email Template” button to place your survey.

For more details, see the full article on Survey (Polls).

Step 3: Create and Add the Weather component

Within your template from above, drag the “DynamicMail” content block into your template where you want the weather forecast to appear.
Click the “Start DynamicMail” button.
Select “Weather” from the available components.
Give your Weather component a unique and descriptive name (e.g., “Upcoming Weather Component”).
Select your Weather Type:
1. Individual Location — display the weather forecast for upcoming days based on a specific location.
2. Zip / Postal Code Tag — available for US, UK, and Canadian postal codes; uses a Zip or Postal Code to determine each customer’s location.
Using the Zip / Postal Code option, define the personalization tag that provides the location for each recipient.
Configure which graphics should display for each weather event and set fallback conditions for unmatched or missing data.
When you have completed the setup of your Weather Component, click the “Update Preview” button to see your changes reflected in the preview panel on the right.
If you are happy with your Weather Component, click the “Generate Code” button.
On the following screen, click the “Insert in Email Template” button to place your forecast into your template.

For more details, see the full article on Weather Widget .

Step 4: Create and Add the Carousel component

Within your template, drag the “DynamicMail” content block into the area where you want the carousel to appear.
Click the “Start DynamicMail” button.
Select “Carousel” from the available components.
Give your Carousel a unique and descriptive name (e.g., “Featured Products Carousel”).
Configure Layout Settings:
1. Width: Define the total width (in pixels) the carousel should occupy.
2. Items per Slide: Choose how many items appear at once (e.g., 1, 2, 3).
3. Spacing/Gutters: Set the space (in pixels) between items.
4. Responsive Behavior: Enable responsive mode so the carousel adapts on mobile.
Configure Navigation & Playback:
1. Controls: Enable arrows and/or dots for navigation.
2. Autoplay & Loop: Decide whether the carousel should auto-advance and whether it loops.
3. Transition Speed/Timing: Adjust slide change timing if available.
Add Content for Each Item:
1. Image: Upload or select the image for the item.
2. Title/Caption (if supported): Enter optional text to describe the item.
3. Click-Through URL: Set the destination link for the item.
4. Alt Text: Provide alt text for accessibility and fallback.
(Optional) Add Tracking Parameters to item URLs for analytics.
Click Update Preview to review how the carousel renders and behaves.
If you are satisfied, click Generate Code.
On the following screen, click Insert in Email Template to place the carousel in your template.

For more details, see the full article on Carousel .

Testing and Previewing

Before deploying your campaign, use the built-in tools in Optimail to preview your template as different customers. Use the instant preview option to see how your email will render across multiple inboxes, or send yourself a test email to see it live in your inbox.