How to add a fundraising thermometer to a Constant Contact email

What you need

• A Constant Contact email built in its standard drag-and-drop editor, or a custom code email if you write your own HTML.
• A thermometer from DynaMail’s free generator. You can make it without an account, and save it to a free account before you send to your whole list.

Add it, step by step

1. 1

   Make the thermometer and copy its image link

   Open the free fundraising thermometer, enter your goal and what you have raised so far, pick a style and currency, and choose Make my thermometer. No account is needed yet.

   Under Where are you pasting it?, stay on Email and copy the image link, the one meant for an image block that takes a URL. Your widget id replaces the placeholder:

   Thermometer image link

   Copy

   https://img.dynamail.io/widgets/YOUR-WIDGET-ID/render.png?target=20000

   The link carries only the goal, as target. The amount raised is left out on purpose, so the image always shows the campaign’s current total.

2. 2

   Save it before a big send

   A free thermometer loads up to 5,000 times a month, and every open and page view counts. Save it before sending to a large list: sign up in the same browser where you made it, and it becomes a fundraising campaign in your account, using your account’s monthly renders (10,000 on the free plan).

   Saving keeps the exact image link, so anything you already sent or published shows the new total too. The goal is part of that link: if you change the goal later, you get a new link, and copies of the old one keep the old goal.

3. 3

   Add an Image block

   In the email editor, drag an Image block from the Build tab to where the thermometer should go. Click the block, then, in the panel on the left, click the plus symbol or the current image to choose a new one.

4. 4

   Insert it by URL

   Click the Image URL tab, paste the image link into the Image URL field and click Preview. Describe it in Alt Text (“Amount raised so far toward our goal” works), then click Insert.

   Don’t download the image and upload it to your Library: an uploaded file is a copy, and a copy never changes. Constant Contact asks for publicly viewable images; the thermometer link is public.

5. 5

   Send a test, then add a gift

   Choose Preview & Test, then Send Test, and send the email to yourself. Then add a test gift from the campaign page or a phone link, wait a few minutes and open the test email again. A new total means the email points at the live image. If it doesn’t move, try another mail app before you change anything: yours may be showing a copy it kept (see below). Undo the test gift when you’re done.

If you write your own HTML

Constant Contact’s standard editor has no HTML block; a Constant Contact staff member confirmed it in the community forum (opens in a new tab). If you build emails with custom code instead (Channels > Emails, then + Create an email and the option to paste your own HTML code), paste this tag where the thermometer should go:

<img src="https://img.dynamail.io/widgets/YOUR-WIDGET-ID/render.png?target=20000" alt="Amount raised so far toward our goal" width="400" height="224" style="display:block;max-width:100%;height:auto;border:0;" />

Paste the tag rather than using the editor’s image insert, which adds images from your Library. The tag sets the image’s size and lets it shrink in narrow columns on phones.

Keep the total current

Once the thermometer is a campaign, its total is a running log of gifts. Add them whichever way suits your team; they all land in the same total, and each gift counts once even if it is sent twice.

From volunteers’ phones

On the campaign page, make a phone link for each group, such as “Door volunteers”, and share it by text or QR code. Whoever opens it gets big buttons for common amounts, an “other amount” field and an undo. There is nothing to install and no login. Anyone with the link can add gifts, so share it only with your volunteers; you can switch a link off at any time, and each gift in your log shows which link it came from. Notes typed on a phone stay in your log and are never drawn on the image.

From a Google Sheet

If your total already lives in a spreadsheet, publish it and let DynaMail read it. In Google Sheets, choose File, then Share, then Publish to web, pick the one sheet with your total, choose the CSV format and click Publish. Paste the link on the campaign page and tell DynaMail to read one cell or add up a column. Google’s publishing guide (opens in a new tab) says changes can take a few minutes to reach the published copy, and anyone with that link can read the published sheet, so publish only the sheet with the totals.

DynaMail checks the sheet every 5 minutes. If a check fails, say a row was renamed, the thermometer keeps showing the last good total and the campaign page tells you what broke. Gifts added by phone are added on top of the sheet, so don’t also type them into it.

From Zapier or your own system

Donation platforms that connect to Zapier can add each gift as it happens. DynaMail’s Zapier app, with an Add a Gift to a Fundraising Campaign action, is invite-only for now. Any tool that can send a web request can use the gifts endpoint directly, with an API key made with the Automation preset under API keys in your dashboard:

POST https://api.dynamail.io/widgets/WIDGET_ID/gifts

X-API-Key: dm_sk_your_key_here
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "giftId": "txn_8841",
  "amount": 25.50
}

Map giftId to the donation or transaction ID, so a retried request counts once. The amount can have cents, and a negative amount records a refund. The developer docs cover API keys and errors.

What people see, and when

On a website

The current total, on every page view, give or take a couple of minutes of caching.

In an email

A recent total. The image updates when the reader’s mail app fetches it: Apple Mail may fetch it when the email arrives, and Gmail keeps its own copy, so a reopened email can show an earlier total. Write around the image: “here’s how far we’ve come” works, “as of right now” doesn’t.

After you close

The final total and a thank-you, on the same link, so an appeal from October still reads right in March. Closing stops all updates; you can reopen the campaign.

The image shows whole amounts: $17,862.50 raised shows as $17,862, never rounded up. Past the goal, the thermometer stays full and the text shows the real total. Our Apple Mail Privacy Protection explainer covers why email can lag.

Writing the email around it

• Say what the number is: “Here’s how far we’ve come toward $20,000” stays true whenever the email is opened.
• Put the donate button right under the image. People who see progress want the next step next to it.
• Don’t type the total into the text as well. The image moves on; the text doesn’t.