Subscribers & mailing lists

Mailing lists

• You may create as many mailing lists as you like.
• For every mailing list you may define a name, an extended description used only internally and a short description that your subscribers can see if you give them this option when creating an opt-in form.
• A list can be public or hidden.
  When hidden it is not visible in the Subscriber portal.
• A subscriber is assigned (subscribed) to one or more lists. A non-assigned subscriber is one who is not subscribed to any lists. It is a good organizing practice to use lists and assign your subscribers to lists. If however a subscriber has opted-out from all lists but he did not do a global-opt out then he will remain in your system as non-assigned.
• A subscriber can be verified/confirmed in one list but not in another depending on how you use the double opt-in verification system. You can send confirmation reminders or manually confirm all subscribers with a single click.
• Suppression list - Syntactically invalid emails: subscribers in the suppression list or with syntactically invalid emails do not appear in your lists count.
• To delete Suppression list emails go to Menu>Mailing lists>Suppression list and expand the Actions tab.
• To delete Syntactically invalid emails emails go to your Subscribers page and list them:
• An inactive/suppressed subscriber can be activated again by the administrator or if he voluntarily uses an opt-in form to subscribe.

By deleting a list you delete only the list. You do not delete subscribers. If some subscribers are assigned to other lists this status will be maintained.

By dropping a list you delete both the list and the subscribers. The subscribers that were assigned to this list will be removed from your system whether or not they are assigned to other lists.

Suppressing a whole list. Very handy if you have any legacy do-not-email lists. You can import them and then suppress them.

Isolating a list. This means that all subscribers in this list will be removed from all other lists and stay only in this one.

Follow-up lists

You can create a follow-up list from your campaign's summary report. You have these options:

• Did not click and did not open at all
• Did not open at all
• Did not click at all
• Opened at least once or Clicked at least once
• Opened at least once
• Clicked at least one link
• Clicked specific link(s)
• Did not click specific link(s)

nuevoMailer offers you the option to create a new list based on subscribers clicks & views activity.
The applications of this feature are many. It allows you to isolate, group and export subscribers based on the above actions by creating a new list.
The follow-up list appears in your lists page and it is like any other list.
The original list remains intact and it still contains all the subscribers that were originally assigned to it.

Custom subscriber fields

• By default nuevoMailer is loaded with 40 custom fields: 25 text fields, 5 integer fields, 5 decimal fields and 5 fields of type date.
  Should you need more it is easy and simple to add. Contact us for instructions.
• These different field types allow you to use comparison operators when creating filters, run specialized queries and a lot more.
  Example: you may create a custom field that asks subscribers to give a numeric value, an exam score or their age.
• When the form input is a drop-down menu Option 1Option 2 the first option should be blank.
  
• When the form input are checkboxes or radio buttons all options must have a value.
• To import multiple values at once, instead of adding them one by one, separate them with ||.
  
• Click "Add option". Click "Save changes". Reload the field from the menu and you will see your new options.
• The same principle applies when importing subscribers.
  Example: you have a custom field "Favorite pets".
  And you want to import your values from your native source (csv, database) when importing your subscribers.
  These values should be given in nuevoMailer in this way:
  "me@domain.com","Dog||Cat"
  "you@other-domain.com","Dog||Bird"
• Every time you add a custom field open a subscriber page, refresh and see it in action.
  Create also an opt-in form to see how the field appears in the form.
  Open an html newsletter and click the "Personalization tag" menu button to test your Personalization tag.
• Importing countries, states or regions
  Inside the folder install you will find the file states_regions.txt from which you can copy directly lists of World countries, US States, Italian regions, Australian, Canadian provinces etc.
  These values will work with the Google geomap graphs that you can generate with nuevoMailer in Reports > Geolocation reports > Legacy Geomaps.
  Important but optional: before using the geomap graphs you must setup your country and/or region custom fields. Then go to Tools > Configuration settings and click Additional settings and scroll down to the Google Api Reports section.

How to add - import subscribers

Introduction

Common settings

Insert as confirmed
Checking this box will import the subscribers with a confirmed/verified status for each list you assign them.

They prefer html mailings (recommended)
When you create opt-in forms you have an option to ask the subscriber whether he prefers to receive your newsletters in Text or in Html format. It is better to check this box since all modern email clients today support Html.

Opt-outs filters
Keep them checked so you will not import again subscribers who opted-out in the past.

Select one or more lists
You may also specify to which list(s) they will be assigned.

Update lists when email exists
Check this box if subscriber X is already under list A and now you do a new import and you want to assign him under list B. If you do not check it he will be considered as duplicate and he will not be assigned to list B.

Subscriber tags
Choose one or more tags. Tags is a way of further segmenting/organizing your subscribers. A subscriber can have several tags.

Subscribers’ passwords are assigned automatically.

Import a list of emails

• Enter one email per line.
• This is the quickest way to add subscribers when you have a plain list of emails.
• You may add a large number of subscribers (even a few hundreds or thousands).
• Normally your PHP post-max-size value limits the size of data you can post with a form. You will get an error if you reach this limit. Reload and try again with less data in this case.
• Depending on the number of subscribers and your server set-up it might take some time. At the end you will get a report on the number imported and if any duplicates were found and therefore not imported.

Import from csv/txt files

Check your file's structure
Although a file may appear as *.csv it does not necessarily mean that the delimiter is a comma.
Using a simple text editor open your file and check the delimiter and whether your values are enclosed by double quotes.

Import from another database

• You can import from another MySQL, MariaDB or MS SQL Server database.
• You can save these connections. Saved connections are called "Data sources". This facilitates periodic imports and enables synchronization with cron jobs. You do not have to enter the same information every time.
• The system guides you and tells you when you do something wrong or a value is missing.
• You can automate and synchronize the importing with a cron job. See data source synchronization.
  Cron synchronization results are automatically emailed to the administrator whose api key used.
• The Custom SQL statement applies to the source database.
  Examples & applications:
  Can be used to filter/segment subscribers when importing by the criteria you want.
  You can join and bring data from different tables from your source database. Check these two articles for ideas:
  Import customers from WooCommerce
  Import customers from PrestaShop

Opt-in by email

• You can designate one opt-in email account for each mailing list. Your subscriber sends an email to this account and he is subscribed. You will find this option where you edit your list:
• These email accounts should be from the same domain and use the same password as your "List un-subscribe header".
• This does not mean that you have to activate the "List un-subscribe header" although we strongly advise that you do so. They simply use the same mailbox settings. We followed this approach in order to simplify the work of having different mailboxes and accounts to open and read.
• Do not use the same email account for different lists. Use different emails but with the same password. That's because the process empties the mailbox and if different lists share the same email it would work only for the first list.
• You may download these emails to your email client but you must leave a copy at the server. After the processing it is deleted.
• The subscriber is added as confirmed/verified depending on the "double opt-in" settings used in your default sender profile.
• You can setup a trigger for this event and mailing list. It is triggered by "List opt-in" and you can choose any reaction you want.
• You must also set-up cron job #11 to process these mailboxes.

Add or update a subscriber from your own CRM/CMS

<iframe src="http://yourdomain.tld/mailer_dir/subscriber/subProfile.php?apiKey=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&email=email@domain.tld" style="width:100%;max-width:1000px;height:800px;border:0"></iframe>
        

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function openWindow(url, width, height) {
    left= (window.outerWidth-width)-20;
    var params = 'scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,status=no,location=no,toolbar=no,menubar=no,width='+width+',height='+height+',left='+left+',top=100';
    popupWin = window.open(url, "_blank", params);
    popupWin.focus();
}
</script>

<a href="#" onclick="openWindow('http://yourdomain.tld/mailer_dir/subscriber/subProfile.php?apiKey=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&email=email@domain.tld', 1000, 1000);return false;">Open subscriber profile</a>

Export subscribers to a csv file

• You can export all subscribers or by list.
• You can choose the delimiter (what separates the values).
• You can choose which subscriber fields to include.
• Values are enclosed by double quotes by default.
• Each subscriber takes a new line in the file.
• The generated file is named list_name_timestamp.csv and is saved inside the data_files folder. The folder must have write permissions or chmod755 (in some cases chmod777) so that files can be written to it.

Manage dormant subscribers

• Delete: the subscribers are completely removed from your system.
• Suppress and remove from all lists: the subscribers are removed from all lists and they are also added in the suppression list.
• Move to this list: the subscribers are removed from all lists and you will be prompted to a select a list to move them to.

• Remove from this list: they are removed from this list. But they remain in the system, perhaps under other lists.
• Suppress and remove from all lists: the subscribers are removed from all lists and they are also added in the suppression list.
• Move to this list: the subscribers are removed from all lists and you will be prompted to a select a list to move them to.

Opt-in forms

• Building and integrating secure opt-in forms is one of the strongest features of nuevoMailer.
• You have two different captcha methods to protect your forms: Google reCaptcha v3 and a simpler but effective numeric captcha.
• You have a spam trap and a rate limiter (that could be very useful if you don't want to use a captcha).
• You can easily style your forms.
• You have multiple ways of integrating your forms in your website including ready to copy-paste pop-up forms.

• The email is always required and is added to the form automatically. All other subscriber fields are optional.
• When you set a field as required then the subscriber must complete this field otherwise he cannot complete the subscription.
• It is handy sometimes to use hidden lists. You can read below about this.
• You can preview and test your form before saving it.
• New in v.8.7: after saving a form you can re-open it for editing and add/remove fields and options.
• New in v.9.5: when creating a form you can set your own font styles, colors and background colors.
• New in v.9.6: you can create QR codes.
• New in v.10.1: you can deactivate a form and you can add a background image when building the form.

QR codes can be used in various printed materials or other media to facilitate sign-up from a mobile device. For example, in a flyer that you distribute in an event.

Here is a very nice example by "Original Rainbow Cone" using a QR code in an on-premises poster (source).

Here are the options you have after saving a form.

Click on the form's name to change it.

Activate or deactivate a form.

You can add your own notes/comments.

Preview and test your form. This is the unique URL of this form.

You can see the form's html content and the related code for embedding the form.

You can edit/rebuild your form's options, colors and fields.

Create a QR code.

Clone form.

Depending on the form's properties you have several ways to embed it in your website. Click this icon

• Using an iframe.
  A captcha if you added one in the form will work automatically.
  This is a dynamic way of embedding a form. If you make changes to the form then these are active immediately.
• You may copy-paste the form's code inside other html content. You can only use Google reCaptcha v3 in this case.
• Pop-up code. In the above screenshot the form has already popped-up to give you an idea of how it will look like.
• You can make changes in the Html code and save them. But if you rebuild your form these changes will be lost.

<iframe src="https://demo.domain.com/subscriber/iForm.php?idForm=23" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;width:100%;max-width:600px;height:800px;border:0"></iframe>

• Since nuevoMailer v.9.5 you can choose your own styles when building the form. And in 99% of cases this is sufficient.
• Basic Bootstrap styles are used. The page that loads the form is /subscriber/iForm.php. Bootstrap css is loaded in this page.
• Editing the form's Html code directly: you can, as explained above. However, if you edit and rebuild your form these changes will be lost.

Outbound webhooks (External POST requests)

With this feature you can send/post subscriber and opt-in forms data, opt-outs, bounces, clicks and views to external systems like your own CRM/CMS.
For example you can use this feature when your CRM/CMS has an API to receive data from other systems.

First create the webhook
What you actually do here is to map nuevoMailer subscriber fields with the target system fields.
The following are the minimum required: Target field, Email, Target URL.

Testing the webhook
Open a subscriber profile for editing. You will see this:
Click the icon and you will open a pop-up window where you can select a webhook and execute it.

Opt-in form data
When creating or editing an opt-in form you will see this option:
Every time the opt-in form is used the webhook sends the subscriber to your target.

Opt-outs
Open the Sender profile Goodbye settings: Tools > Sender profiles
Expand the Goodbye section. You will see this option.

Bounces
Go to your Bounce servers page: Tools > Bounce servers
You will see this option.

Clicks & views/opens
This is done using Triggers. Such a trigger can be set on the following events:

1. A campaign (or autoresponder) click and/or view.
2. A newsletter click and/or view.
3. A specific hyperlink (click). Go to Menu > Reports > Most clicked links,
4. List opt-in event.
5. List confirm event.

When you edit/create your trigger you will see this option/reaction available. Here is a hyperlink example.

For developers: technically speaking you are doing POST using CURL. In case you want to customize the specifics you will find the code in the file /inc/extPost.php.

Double opt-in

How it works - activation

Double opt-in is set at Sender profile level by going to
Tools > Sender profiles
Open a sender profile for editing. Then when you create an opt-in form you can select the Sender profile to use:

1. The subscriber is inserted with the status of "un-confirmed" (unverified).
2. He then sees the "Confirmation-required" page (or redirected to the URL you want).
   The "Confirmation-required" email is sent automatically asking to confirm the subscription.
3. He clicks on the confirmation link in the "Confirmation-required" email, his status changes to "confirmed" and a new window opens with the "Welcome" page (or he is redirected to the URL you want).
   The "Welcome" email is automatically sent (if active).

1. The subscriber is inserted with the status of "confirmed".
2. He sees directly the "Welcome" page.
   The "Welcome" email is automatically sent (if active).

In order to comply with anti-spam laws the "Confirmation details" (IP address and date/time the subscriber clicked the confirmation link) are recorded for each list. But not when the administrator does bulk imports and/or manually confirms subscribers.

Re-confirmation campaigns