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evoMailer v.1.5

Mailing list management

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Create actionable mailing lists

Mailing list management is a core feature of evoMailer and one of the most important activities in email marketing. It is a key driver for targeted email marketing.

Mailing list management includes the following activities:

Collecting & importing various email lists from different sources (customers, prospects, website visitors, leads, contacts).
Organizing the mailing lists according your communication needs and marketing objectives.
Segmenting the mailing lists according subscriber preferences, demographic variables, campaign engagement, specific interests and more.
Maintaining clean & healthy lists by processing bounces, subscriber complaints, opt-outs and removing unresponsive (dormant) subscribers.

Highlights

Unlimited mailing lists.
The same subscriber can belong to one or more lists.
An email campaign can be sent to several lists and also exclude several lists.
Copy subscribers between lists (merge lists).
Isolate a list: subscribers are removed from all other lists and stay only on the isolated list.
Advanced search allows you to create list segments and campaign filters.
evoMailer is a server-based, mailing list management software that is installed on your own server using your own hosting (Linux, Windows etc) and built in PHP/MySQL/MariaDB. Here are some key features regarding mailing list management in the context of email marketing.

List building: collecting & importing emails

Custom subscriber fields

Collect the subscriber information you want they way you want.
Except the email all other subscriber fields are defined by you.
You can create a field as: simple text input, check-boxes, drop-down menus, radio buttons, textareas and dates (with pop-up calendar automatically appearing).
In this way you can create your opt-in forms exactly the way you like and you can visualize subscriber information the way you want.

Opt-in form builder

evoMailer has an opt-in form builder with very interesting features:

Choose the subscriber fields you want to have in the form and whether they it is mandatory to complete them.
Choose the mailing lists you want either with checkboxes or embedded as hidden.
In case of checkboxes you can have them as obligatory or optional.
If you embed them as hidden the subscriber is silently assigned to the list(s).
Captcha ready. Special attention to form security by providing code and tips to prevent form spamming.
Silent subscriber tagging.
Include a link to your privacy/terms page which will also functions as a mandatory "accept our conditions" checkbox.
Each form can use a different sender profile therefore having different greeting emails, landing pages, double opt-in and email sending settings.
Your forms are saved and by using different sender profiles you can have different forms for different websites.
You can see the total number of sign-ups for each form.
You can edit and make changes to a form. Add or remove fields. The changes are reflected automatically in the website pages where the form is embedded.
Validation errors are displayed inline avoiding unnecessary page reloads.
Advanced concept: start a series of autoresponder emails after one subscribes that are unique to this form - list pair.

Importing mailing lists

CSV import with field mapping.
Import a batch of email addresses via copy-paste.
Import from external databases (plugin) such as MySQL/MariaDb and SQL Server.
You can save these connections as data sources to facilitate frequent, periodic imports.
Using a cron job you can periodically synchronize your mailing lists with these external data sources. Learn more.
Import using the API: with the subscriber API you can accept subscriber data from other external sources.
Opt-in by email (plugin). The subscriber sends an email and he is added to this list. Learn more.
Filter opt-outs when importing so you don't accidentally import again subscribers who opted-out before.

Custom landing pages and greeting emails

It is important to provide an enhanced subscriber experience during opt-in and opt-out.

With evoMailer you can easily configure the welcome & goodbye pages and greeting emails.
These are set at Sender profile level.
You may use newsletters as landing pages or provide redirection URLs to your own pages.

Welcome landing pages and greeting emails

Mailing list segmentation

By organizing your subscribers into mailing lists you are actually doing the first step in list segmentation. Because a mailing list implies that you are grouping subscribers according your own organizational needs and marketing strategy.
Your starting point for list segmentation is the Advanced search utility.

Mailing list segmentation with demographic data

If you are collecting subscriber demographic data such as city, state, zip, gender or similar you can isolate these subscribers with an advanced search.
You can create a new filtered list (which is a mailing list like all others), a campaign filter (for a more focused email campaign) or simply export the results to a table (quick view).

Tracking-based list segmentation

By tracking we refer to campaign clicks and/or views or the absence of them.
In addition we can also do location tracking a the time of opt-in, newsletter click and open. You can record cities and countries.
Good to know: geolocation based on clicks is more accurate than geolocation based on views/opens. This is due to the way a view is captured and the measures ESPs take to protect their users privacy.
Trigger-based segmentation. See below.

Create a follow-up list from campaign results

Extremely useful to follow-up with subscribers who opened (or not), clicked (or not) in a previous email campaign.
Example: create a list with subscribers who clicked specific link(s) in the campaign or did not open the campaign at all etc.
This list can be used in a follow-up campaign, exported to csv, merged with another list etc.

Trigger-based segmentation

For example, upon campaign click and/or open you can:

Update a subscriber field with a specific value.
Tag or un-tag the subscriber with specific tags.
Add and/or remove the subscriber from other lists.

Subscriber tags

Subscriber tags is another method of segmentation.
They can be used as campaign (or autoresponder) filters, when doing an advanced search along with other variables, when importing or updating subscribers and in your opt-in forms.
A subscriber's tags can also be updated automatically using action triggers as explained above.

Example: country location by campaign clicks

Creating a follow-up list from campaigns clicks & opens

Keeping your mailing lists clean

Keeping your mailing lists clean and healthy involves these activities:

Use double opt-in when collecting subscriber emails
Handling subscriber opt-outs
Processing bounces (undeliverable emails)
Processing subscriber complaints
Removing unresponsive (dormant) subscribers
Maintain a suppression list

Double opt-in

Also known as confirmed opt-in.
Verification at list level: a subscriber may have a confirmed status for one list but not for another.
In order to comply with anti-spam legislation, the IP address and opt-in date & time are recorded when the subscriber confirms the subscription.
Double opt-in settings are defined at Sender profile level. When you create an opt-in form you can choose the sender profile you want to use.

Handling subscriber opt-outs

evoMailer offers 2 types of opt-out links:
- List opt-out: the subscriber is removed from the lists included in the campaign.
- Global opt-out: the subscriber is completely removed from your system.
In both cases a record is created in your opt-outs report.
These records also serve as opt-out filters to prevent you from accidentally re-importing the same subscribers again.
The opt-out process is completely automated. No further action required from your side.
The html editor has a special button to insert opt-out links in the newsletter. You can use your own words or images.
Ask subscribers why they opt-out. Optionally, you define a set of opt-out reasons and during the opt-out action, ask subscribers to select a reason.
Good to know: if the subscriber voluntarily uses an opt-in form to subscribe again then he is automatically removed from the opt-outs table.
You can also use the List-unsubscribe header, a standard feature in evoMailer. Learn more here.

Processing bounces (undeliverable emails)

Bounces processing can be completely automated using a cron job or webhooks.
evoMailer has a built-in bounces processor to capture soft and hard bounces that can be used with all sending methods (smtp, sendmail, PowerMTA). You can read more details here.
In case you use Amazon SES, SendGrid, MailGun or Mailjet then you have dedicated webhooks to process bounces and complaints. See here how to configure these.

Processing subscriber complaints

Similarly to processing bounces, with Amazon SES, SendGrid, MailGun or Mailjet the same webhooks can be used to record complaints.
Furthermore, evoMailer has a dedicated Feedback loop processing plugin for users with more advanced needs.

Removing unresponsive (dormant) subscribers

By dormant subscribers we mean those that never click or open your email campaigns yet their email addresses do not bounce.

You can find and isolate these subscribers by doing an advanced search. As you can see you can filter out based on views and clicks by specific dates.
You can create a new list with the search results and then you can either isolate, drop or suppress this list. We recommend first isolating and then suppressing the whole list.

Suppression list

A suppression list is not like other mailing lists. It actually is a subscriber flag. If a subscriber is flagged as suppressed he will never be part of any campaign.
A suppression list is commonly called "black list" or "do-not-email list". If you have a list of emails which you want to exclude from all campaigns and make sure that you will never even accidentally email them you can import it in evoMailer and then suppress it.
Use automatic suppression: this will greatly facilitate the management of bounces and complaints. You will find this option in your configuration settings.