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Why does my mail look different in the review & approve step?

Digital images and images to print can look very different based on their color encoding!

You've created your design and added your data, all that's left is to approve your campaign.

At this stage you will be able to see several samples of your campaign. Please review your PDF sample carefully. You can download this sample for free. 

By approving this campaign you take full responsibility for any spelling mistakes, design flaws and that the selected data is correct. Once approved we will select all recipient data at this point and future changes to the same data will not apply to this campaign. This campaign will then be locked so you will be unable to make changes to the design or recipient selection.

At this stage, all personalization you have included will activate and you will be able to see our advanced mail merge features at work.  As you can see in the example above, there are two different variables running,  {username} and {b1}. When looking at the samples the variables will be evaluated to have your actual data.

You will see a number of samples depending on the volume of your mailing list. We usually aim to show you 10% to 20% of your database however, this does change depending on particularly low or high volume mailing list.  


Colour, RGB and CMYK

Most generated images use the color Model RGB or (Red, Green, Blue) whereas, when printing the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key) color model will be used. We recommend creating all of designs with CMYK as it will most accurately reflect the printed product.

However, web browsers typically do not display CMYK colors correctly. This is why your design may look different in the review and approve step compared to the mailing.

If RGB colors were used, then it may look correct at the review and approve step but the printed product may differ. 

If CMYK colors were used, then it may look wrong at the review and approve step but the printed product should be accurate to your design. 

This is why we will always recommend designing your mailings in CMYK.