• DKIM, SPF, and DMARC configuration for reliable inbox delivery
• Domain configuration
• Professional email signature setup
• Spam risk assessment and sender reputation guidance
• Newsletter onboarding with an email specialist
• First 5,000 sends are free

Before you start

• You must have an active UpVote campaigns license and system administrator privileges for your campaign
• Before you can send newsletters, your account must complete the required sending settings and get approval. Your email specialist will walk you through this during onboarding.

Where to find the newsletter tool

1. Log into the UpVote Admin Portal.
2. In the left sidebar, click Newsletters.

Step 1: Complete your newsletter settings

1. Click the Settings step.
2. Fill in the required sender and account settings (the portal will show a notice if anything is missing).
3. Save your changes.

Tip: If you see a warning banner about missing settings, complete this step first. You will not be able to send newsletters until the required settings are saved.

Step 2: Choose a template and design your newsletter

1. Click Design & Edit.
2. Under Select your Template, choose one of the template options:
   • Designed templates, organized by category (examples: Basic, Most Popular, Colored, Holidays, Blank)
   • Customized templates (your campaign’s saved templates)
   • Past Newsletters (reuse a previous newsletter)
   • Upload from URL (import an existing design)
3. Click a template to open it.
4. Edit the content:
   • Update text blocks
   • Replace images
   • Adjust buttons and links
5. Save your changes.

Best practice: Start from a template you like and reuse it each time. Consistency improves recognition and saves time.

Step 3: Choose your mailing list

1. Click Mailing Lists.
2. Select the audience you want to email.

Common list examples:

• Volunteers
• Donors
• Event RSVPs
• Supporters in a specific area
• Contacts with specific tags

Tip: If your list strategy relies on tags, confirm your tags are up to date before sending.

Step 4: Review and send

1. Click Review & Send.
2. Verify:
   • Newsletter subject and sender details
   • Mailing list selection
   • Links and buttons
   • Images and formatting
3. Send the newsletter.

Tip: Always send a test email to yourself or a teammate before sending to a full list.

Recommended newsletter cadence for campaigns

• Weekly during high activity periods (early vote, GOTV, major announcements)
• Every two weeks during slower periods
• Use one clear goal per email (volunteer, event, donate, voting plan)

Troubleshooting

“My account lacks settings for sending newsletters”

This means the required sender settings are not completed.

• Go back to Settings
• Fill in all required fields
• Save, then return to Review & Send

“My newsletter is not displaying correctly”

• Use a simpler template
• Reduce image size
• Avoid copying and pasting formatted text from Google Docs or Word, paste as plain text when possible

Need help?

If you want help choosing a template, setting up mailing lists, or building a campaign email cadence, contact the UpVote team for a short walkthrough.

The post Email Newsletters appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

Why SMS credits are critical

UpVote uses SMS credits to send one time passcodes and security codes to volunteers and staff so they can log in to the UpVote app.

If your SMS credits run out, new or returning users may not receive their passcode, which can block them from accessing the app right when you need them.

What this page is not for

This page is not for mass texting, and it is not used to text voters.

Voter messaging is a separate workflow and may require compliance steps before it is enabled.

What you can do on this page

1) Check your remaining SMS credits

At the top of the page you will see Remaining SMS Credits. Keep an eye on this number, especially during onboarding, training, and peak volunteer activity.

Recommended habit: refill or request more credits before you get close to zero so logins never get interrupted.

2) Search SMS history

Use Search SMS History to find specific messages:

• Start Date and End Date: narrow the timeframe
• Recipient Phone: locate messages for a specific volunteer or staff member
• Content: search by keywords such as “security code” or the user’s name if included

Click Search to refresh the results table.

3) Review delivery status

The results table shows key fields like:

• Date
• Main Phone
• Text
• Sent Succeeded: confirms whether the message was delivered successfully
• More Details: open the row for additional delivery information

4) Export logs

Use Export to CSV to download the SMS log for reporting or troubleshooting with your team.

Common issues and quick checks

A user says they did not get their passcode

1. Search by their phone number and confirm whether Sent Succeeded is Yes or No.
2. If it is No, double check:
   • The phone number is correct and includes the expected country code
   • The user has cellular service and can receive SMS
   • The user did not block short codes or unknown senders
3. If credits are low or empty, refill or request more credits, then ask the user to try logging in again.

Credits are low

Do not wait until you hit zero. Top up as early as possible so volunteers can always receive login codes without delays. If you are not sure how to add credits in your account, contact your Account Manager.

Best practice

Treat SMS credits like a core operational resource. If you keep credits available, volunteers can log in smoothly, onboarding stays fast, and you avoid last minute support issues during critical campaign moments.

The post Admin SMS Credits, what they are and why they matter appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

Everyone needs a volunteer account, including: 

• UpVote Admins. To use the app, you must also add yourself as a volunteer. Use your email address to log in to the admin portal, and your mobile number to log in to the volunteer app.
• Field staff and paid organizers who will act as volunteer managers
• Candidates will also need to be invited to the campaign to login as a volunteer. This is only relevant if you are not a PAC, 501c4, or 501c3 using UpVote. 

Inviting volunteers 

There are 4 ways to invite volunteers to your campaign: Self Registration Page, Admin Portal, UpVote App, and Upload Center

From the Admin Portal:

1. Navigate to the Volunteers page in the admin portal
2. Add a new user by entering their name and cell phone number
3. Opt-in or out to whether you want your new volunteer to receive a welcome SMS with instructions

From the UpVote App:

From the Upload Center via Excel Spreadsheet

1. Navigate to the Upload Center in the Admin portal and click Upload in the top left.
2. Choose the action: create volunteers.
3. Choose whether you want the list of volunteers to receive a welcome text upon their account creation. 
4. now you will upload your list. you can see the specific format you need in the visual example on the screen or download the format as an excel file that you can fill out.
5. tap next to see a mini preview and check if your format looks in order. 
6. If everything looks good, you can finish the upload.

The post Add Users to UpVote appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

The Settings page is where an admin makes crucial decisions about how the UpVote campaign is structured and what volunteers can do. These choices set the guardrails for your program: they protect your data while giving volunteers enough freedom to be effective. It is worthwhile to take a few minutes upfront to go through each setting page. Don’t worry, you can always come back and make changes later. 

To enter your settings, tap the cog icon in the upper righthand corner, to review important settings that will impact your volunteers’ experience, capabilities, and limitations. Some important settings to choose from include:   

• Whether vote status and the vote progress bar are visible in the app now or only when voting begins
  
• Which voter fields are visible and editable for volunteers
  
• Which email or phone number volunteers should use for customer support
  
• The background image that appears in the app
  
• The Welcome SMS that all new volunteers receive when they are added
  

Additional settings for volunteers allow you to fine tune how volunteers work with voters and contacts, including whether to:

• Automatically categorize new contacts as “Likely supporter,” or let volunteers use a “To Be Determined” support status
• Allow more than one volunteer to add the same voter as a contact for outreach later on
• Allow volunteers to send messages in the UpVote in-app chat, or only for admins
• Opt-in to the Quick Contact Match flow (recommended)
• When a volunteer adds a contact, should they see only that contact’s phone number from their own device, or also the phone number stored in the voter file?

The post Settings appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

Welcome to our educational YouTube series for System Administrators running their campaign’s UpVote program!

Whether you’re setting up a new campaign or need a quick refresher, this course covers the essential tools and features of the UpVote Admin Portal. The course features six short videos and one longer in-depth video that goes over the key modules.

From adding voters and managing volunteers to tracking turnout and outreach in real time, this guide will help you launch and run a smart, organized field operation using the full power of UpVote.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to log in and navigate the UpVote Admin Dashboard
• How to add and manage voter profiles and contact info
• How to assign captains, create groups, and set goals
• How to track volunteer activity, VBM turnout, and real-time engagement
• How to send messages and access field reports

Watch the UpVote Academy Course for System Administrators:

The post UpVote Academy: Admin Onboarding appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

In today’s digital age, social media is a key communication channel—and Facebook remains one of the most powerful tools for engaging voters and building support.

A smart, strategic use of Facebook can:

• Boost engagement with your content
• Create a personal connection with voters
• Increase your campaign’s visibility and influence

Our Two Smart Facebook Bots

We offer two types of bots to help you maximize Facebook’s potential:

Comment Bot
This bot automatically sends a private message to anyone who comments on your posts, inviting them to stay in touch or join your supporter database. You can define a list of words for the bot to ignore (so it skips unwanted interactions).

Message Bot
This bot responds to private messages sent directly to your Facebook page. It can answer questions, engage in conversations, and open tickets in your system for further follow-up.

Both bots are fully customizable—you can define your own conversation scripts based on your campaign’s tone and goals.

Want to see how it works for your campaign? Contact your account manager to get started.

The post Engaging Voters on Facebook: Your Guide to UpVote’s Smart Bots appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

When will you use Smart Match? When you have a list of potential voters from a third party- perhaps from your local church or synagogue congregation, or another supportive institution- who may have incomplete or partial data. Lists from outside institutions and organizations often are missing addresses, email, or voter ID numbers.

If this is the case, not to worry! Smart Match is the solution. 

Let’s walk through an example together!

Let’s say you are managing a campaign for Smith for Congress, and you received a list of potential voters from a supportive city council member who wants to help your volunteers reach potential voters. Lists like these will typically have names and phone numbers, but be lacking voter ID numbers and addresses. 
With Smart Match, you can upload the list file with partial information into the system and cross-reference your list with the data in your district’s voter registry, also called the Voter File, and the system will identify matches with registered voters additional parameters such name, phone number, address, and more. 

Follow these steps to add your new list to the system:

1. Select the preferred format for uploading your file, there are two options: 

• A format where first and last name are split into two separate columns
• A second format with first and last name in one column together
  
  

2. Choose the file to upload. UpVote provides an Excel template for you to download via the admin portal.

3. Tagging Voter Lists – You have the option to tag voters who were matched in the process. In this case we can create a “City Council Member List” tag for these voters so you can keep track of their progress when voting by mail and election day come around.

4. Associate Activists – Matches found within the Voter File will automatically be added to your database, and you can allocate these new voters to campaign staff or volunteers who will be responsible for reaching out to them.

5. Support Status –  You can mark their new target voters assigned to your activists as supporters of your candidate, not supporters, or unknown support status.

6. Select the users authorized to view the match results – Select which campaign staffers will be granted authorization to view contact match results.

7. Threshold – Each match found from your list may have one or more potential people which correspond to them in the voter file. In many cases, there can be one, two, three, or more suggestions from the voter file for you to review and choose among them which you believe is a match for your contact on your list.

These potential match suggestions are assigned a score, the higher the score the higher the likelihood of a correct match according to the algorithm. You can adjust the settings of UpVote here to block suggestions below a certain threshold confidence rating. 
We typically recommend setting a confidence rating threshold of a 4, so that any potential match which the algorithm rates as a 4 or below will not be seen. This number is customizable, and you can tailor it to your needs.

8. Set Conditions – You can set conditions that will be used to auto match the data. for example, If we select full name and phone, any match that meets these conditions will be made automatically.

The Results

After uploading the file, a summary of the selected settings will appear.

All the matches will be displayed, with details of the score that each match received and the option to mark it as a correct match. Additionally, all the matches found in the Voter File will be displayed, with an assigned score indicating how confident the system is that a given registered voter in the voter file is a match for the name on your third party list.  You will then have the option to mark which option is the correct match to the best of your knowledge. 

For example, in the images above, two matches were found for the potential Anna Davis who is on your third party list.

The first match received a higher match score of 6 for matching the name, city, and street, while the second match received a score of 4 for matching the name only.
Now you have the option to choose which match is correct and mark it by clicking on .

After saving the match, the information in the uploaded file will be added to the existing information about the voter in the system.

Statistics

The Results Screen provides instant updates on the number of matches found as you move through your list, showing how many you have approved or rejected in comprehensive pie charts and graph displays.

The post Smart Match appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

Phone campaigns enable you to plan and manage calls efficiently and effectively. You can set precise goals for campaigns, manage team time, and thereby improve performance.

Step 1: Creating a New Phone Campaign

1. Create a group for the voters you want to assign to the phone campaign. If you don’t know how to create a group, click here to access the “Creating a Group/Tag” guide.
2. In the side menu, click on “Phone Campaigns.”
3. Click on “Create Phone Campaign.”
4. Select the desired group from the existing groups in the system.
5. Choose a name for the phone campaign and click “Create.”

Campaign Settings

1. Add User to Campaign – Click the button to add call center agents to the campaign.
2. Edit Call Script – You can edit a call script consisting of question-and-answer pairs. A detailed explanation is provided later in the guide.
3. Additional Options –
   • Reset Calls – Resets all unanswered calls, allowing immediate follow-up calls instead of waiting several hours.
   • Phone Campaign Report – An Excel report detailing all calls made and the parameters marked.
   • Callers Statistics Report – An Excel report with statistics on the calls made by the callers.
   • Callers Daily Activity – A report detailing the activity of the callers on a specific day, including the time of the first and last call on that day.
4. Total Valid Voters to Call – The total number of voters to contact in the campaign with valid phone numbers who are not on the do-not-call list.
5. Campaign Manager – You can assign a manager as the phone campaign manager. Unlike the system manager, the phone campaign manager will be specifically responsible only for the campaigns you assign to them. The campaign manager can edit call scripts, manage campaign parameters, and more, but cannot export reports or perform actions reserved for the system manager.

Additional Settings

1. Max Calls per User – You can limit the caller to a certain number of calls after which they will no longer receive calls.
2. Active – Indicates whether the campaign is active and calls can be made. This is useful when the campaign is no longer relevant, such as in terms of the calling group or the call script, or when you have finished calling all voters in the campaign.
3. Maximum number of calls per voter – To avoid overwhelming voters with calls, which could lead to resistance, you can set a limit on the number of unanswered calls after which the voter will be removed from the call queue and cannot be called again.
4. Hours Until Unanswered Voter Returns to Queue – Similar to the previous item, to avoid overwhelming voters with unanswered calls, you can set how many hours after an unanswered call the voter will return to the queue and be eligible to be called again.
5. Update Voters in Campaign – As explained at the beginning of the guide, the campaign is linked to the dynamic voter group you selected. The dynamic groups in the system are constantly updated according to changes in voter settings. Therefore, you can choose whether the voter group associated with the phone campaign will be continuously updated or remain static as of the time the campaign was created.
6. Voter Marking Campaign – Allows calling voters from a list in any order rather than a predetermined sequence, especially suitable for door-to-door campaigns.
7. Auto Fire Calls – If callers are using a softphone, this automatically connects the calls in the system to the dialing in the softphone.
8. Show Household Members – Allows the caller to see, during the call, family members with the same last name and address as the voter.
9. Include Only Unique Phone Numbers – Allows you to run a phone campaign only for unique numbers. In other words, if there are voters in the campaign with the same primary or secondary phone number, only one of them will be included in the phone campaign, without regard to the phone rankings.
10. Campaign Parameter Management – For each parameter, you can choose one of four options: Don’t show/Show but don’t allow update/Show and allow update/Show and require update.

After you have finished editing all the campaign settings, click “Save” at the top of the page.

Editing Call Script

You can present the callers with a call script that is divided into questions and answers.

Call Statistics

At the bottom of the screen, you can see the call statistics for the campaign.

Reasons for Unanswered Calls:

If the call is not answered, the caller must indicate the reason from the four options shown in the image below.

If the caller selects “Line Not Connected” or “Wrong Number,” the voter will be removed from the campaign and will not return to the call queue.

If the caller selects “Voter Didn’t Answer” or “Other,” the voter can be called again after the number of hours you have set for returning to the call queue.

Daily Caller Activity Report

In the report, you can see the daily activity of each caller, including the total number of calls made, the percentage of calls answered, and more.

This report can be used to monitor and motivate your callers to improve efficiency in the call center. It can also serve as a metric for the number of calls made by each caller, salary calculations, and more.

Watch the video tutorial here to see how you can launch your first phone campaign today!

The post Creating Phone Campaigns appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

The system allows you to send notifications to all your users who have downloaded the UpVote app and enabled notifications in their phone settings. Notifications can include links, for example, a link to social media post and have text asking them to share it. Unlike SMS credits used to text volunteers, sending notifications are free and unlimited.

First, select the recipients of the notification – all users, all managers, the activists of a specific manager, or an individual activist.

Then, define the notification details – title, content, and a link if relevant.

It is recommended to use personalization by using the ‘@’ symbol to make the notification appear more personal.

The post Sending Notifications to Users appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.

Assigning Tasks to Voters

Tasks can be assigned to voters in two ways –  through your personal computer or via the app.

Assigning Tasks On Your Computer

1. In the voter’s card, select “More Actions” – “Manage Tasks”.

2. In the window that opens, you can assign tasks to the voter.

Assigning Tasks On The App

Your volunteers can assign tasks to a voter when they add them to their supporters list.

If a volunteer decides to assign tasks to a voter after they added them to their supporters list, they can do so by clicking on the three dots next to the name of the supporter.

and then clicking on the voter’s details.

Tasks Page

On the Tasks page, you can see all pending and completed tasks that have been assigned to voters. See the guide below to learn how to navigate your Tasks page.

1. Manage Tasks – Navigate to the Task Types Management page. An explanation of this page will be provided later in the guide.
2. Export to Excel – Exports the tasks displayed on the page to an Excel report. You can filter and select specific tasks. For example, in this image, only the first task is selected (in the rightmost column), so only it will appear in the report.
3. Set All Tasks as Done – Mark all the selected tasks as completed.
4. Delete the Tasks – Delete all the selected tasks.
5. Show Items – Filter the tasks displayed on the page by status (completed/not completed) and by task type.
6. More Details – Display a window with task details, where you can mark the task as completed.

Management Tasks Page

The UpVote system includes built-in with default task types. In addition, you have the option to define new task types. On the Tasks Management page, you can edit the settings of existing task types and create new task types. See the guide below to learn how to navigate the Management Tasks page.

1. Add New Task Type – To create a new task type, click on “Add New Task Type.”
2. Active: You can choose whether the task type is active or inactive. A task type that is set to inactive is essentially temporarily deleted, and all tasks of this type are removed.
3. Display to Users: Decide whether to display the task type to all users or only to specific users (e.g., callers).
4. Allow Reassign Task: Choose whether to allow the same task type to be assigned to the same voter multiple times. For example, after a voter has participated a town hall and the task is marked as completed, the same voter might want to participate another town hall. In this case, to assign the task again, you need to enable recurring tasks.

Setting a User as a Task Manager

The Tasks page, which shows tasks assigned to voters, is displayed by default only to system administrators. You can also grant access to specific volunteers or campaign staff, allowing them to view and edit tasks assigned to voters. This can be configured in the relevant volunteer or campaign manager’s profile.

To assign a user as a Task Manager, select the “Manage Privileges” tab on the right side of the screen and click on “Manage Tasks” drop down menu. In the menu that opens, you can choose whether to show the user all types of tasks or select specific ones.

Tasks Filter On the Advanced Search Page

On the Advanced Search page you can search for voters based on the type and status of the tasks assigned to them.

The post Tasks appeared first on UpVote Campaigns.