Campaigns

Creating campaigns

General

To create a new campaign go to Menu > Campaigns > New campaign

For tips about each option point your mouse over .

• Sender settings
  First you select a sender profile. Optionally you can define the <From-name>, <From-email> and <Reply-to-email> values just for this campaign.
    Remeber,
  • The custom sender settings (at campaign or autoresponder level) will override the the sender profile settings.
  • Some SMTP servers may not accept these custom values and instead use the actual <From-name> and <From-email> used for SMTP authentication.
• Excluding lists from campaigns
  Since nuevoMailer v.8.6 you have a new option:

  This option is available when you choose "All lists" or "Selected lists".

  Looking at the example picture above it means, that if a subscriber belongs both to list 35 (or 8) but also to list 2 then he will not be part of the campaign. In other words, the campaign will target subscribers who belong to lists 35 and/or 8 but if some of them belong also in 2 they will be excluded. Prior to v.8.6 this was done by using filters.

• Filters
  This option is available when sending a campaign to “all lists” or “selected lists”.
• Subscriber tags
  This adds another layer of segmentation. It has the same effect as using a filter.
• Prioritize by views
  If you check this then your top viewers will be the first ones to receive the email.
• Exclude subscribers imported by administrators
  If you check this then all subscribers who were imported with a bulk import method will be excluded.
  This is usually useful with Autoresponders in cases where you have an autoresponder based on list sign-up date but you still want to do bulk imports in the same list.
• Subscribers who confirmed
  This option is available when sending a campaign to “all lists” or “selected lists”. A subscriber has a confirmed/verified status at list level. If the subscriber is confirmed for at least one list (but perhaps not in others) then he will receive the email.
• Campaign & Autoresponder tags
  You can use tags to group/categorise your campaigns.
• Disable tracking for this campaign
  Clicks & views will not be recorded.
• Anonymous tracking
  With anonymous tracking you will see Total but not Unique ratios. Only total clicks per link are reported.
  Emails clients and Geolocation reports are not affected.
  Bounces, Complaints and Opt-outs will work normally.
  Triggers will not fire.

Multipart content

When you send both an html and a text newsletter at the same time then you are sending a multipart newsletter.

• If a recipient’s email client cannot display html it will display the text version. Both parts will be personalized and tracking links will apply.
• For your convenience consider that you can create a text version of an Html newsletter with a single click.
• If you have subscribers that are likely to use old email clients that cannot display (or disabled) html, sending multipart emails ensures that they will eventually be able to read your newsletter.
• A multipart newsletter is treated better by spam filtering engines.

   In a campaign every HTML email may automatically turn to multipart (v.6.5+)
A text part is automatically added with a link to read the html version in your browser. You can change the introductory comments in your languages file. By default it says: Click here [browser_link] for the online version. You can turn this feature off in your configuration settings (v.9.5+).

Send a web page (URL)

You can send a web page that is located on a web server by giving the URL of this page (and an email subject). The result is like sending an html newsletter.

• If your page contains images and references to css files these should be in absolute/full path.
• If your images are in the assets folder they can be embedded if this option is active for the Sender profile in use.
• Views and clicks tracking works in the same way when you send an html newsletter.
• You can use all personalization tags available for html newsletters: [sub_name], [sub_email] etc.
• You can use smart links such as:

  <a href="browser_link" target="_blank">Read this in your browser</a>
  <a href="friends_forward">Forward to your friends</a>
  (Change the wording as you like.)

• For opt-out links you have two options.
  You can use all types of opt-out links that you have in html newsletters or automatically append an opt-out link (*) by checking this option: * In order to change the opt-out type and link wording have a look at the file /inc/optLink.php where you can make the necessary changes.
  Here is the complete opt-out links collection:

                  <a href="list_optout">Opt-out from this list</a>
                      
  <a href="global_optout">Global opt-out</a>
                      
  <a href="account_login">Subscriber account_login</a>
                      
  <a href="account_login">Subscriber portal</a>
                      
  <a href="lists_update">Update list preferences page</a>
                      
  <a href="suppress_link">Suppression link</a>
                      (Change the wording as you like.)

A/B split testing

A/B testing can be used to test differences in response rates (views & click-through ratios) to different content (newsletter in this case) among your recipients. Here is how it is done:

• You create the campaign using a Newsletter series.
• You can use as many newsletters as you like.
• Check Rotate newsletters with every batch (for A-B split testing).
• Select your lists.
• Use batch settings for this campaign.
• Start the execution manually or schedule it.

• Let your campaign run for some time until several batches are sent.
• Go to your summary report. It will probably take some time until statistics start to accrue. Click the A/B button:
  
  
• You can pause and edit your campaign, choose the best performing newsletter and resume it. Or not, you can just let the campaign continue as-is.

Google analytics

• Optional. Can be used with or without the clicks tracking of nuevoMailer. Learn more
• Applies to HTML and Text newsletters (since v.10.3 for Text ones) or when sending a web page using the URL.
• When using Google Analytics what you actually track is the website(s) traffic that results from the links in your newsletters. You can track the behavior of the subscribers who followed these links inside your Google Analytics account by going to Traffic sources > Campaigns.
• In short, your newsletter becomes another source of traffic and this can be tracked.
  Which means that you must have Google analytics activated at the sites you want to track.
• The URL building is done automatically by nuevoMailer. It parses the links in your newsletter and adds the campaign parameters as required by Google.
• If needed you can use subscriber personalization tags as indicated in the picture above. For the campaign id you can use [camp_id] This is not activated by default but you will find the code to activate it in the file /inc/rdr.php (bottom).
• Google Analytics link parsing of nuevoMailer works with or without the internal clicks tracking mechanism. In fact it works as an extension to the internal clicks tracking mechanism.

Sending campaigns

You can either send the campaign manually or with cron (scheduling). Manual execution requires that you keep your browser open. It is handy for small campaigns and testing. With cron everything is done in the background at the server. Learn how to set-up a cron job here.

Your activity log and why it is important
Whether you send manually or with cron a log is created. To see it go Menu > Campaigns > Activity log.

• It shows if you cron job is reaching your installation and whether there are any problems with it.
• It shows potential campaign errors (smtp errors etc).
• It provides details about the timing of your campaigns: which campaigns are sent, the time it takes for a batch to complete etc.
• It gives insights whether your batch (and related) settings are optimal.

Editing a campaign
Go to your campaigns page. You will see these options: To make changes to a running campaign (even if the mailing has started). Click the "Edit" icon. Changes will take effect with the next batch.

Pause - resume a campaign
If for any reason you want to stop your mailing then click the "Pause" icon . The pause is effective when the currently running batch is complete.
Then at anytime later you can click the "Resume" icon . The sending will continue from where it stopped (either by cron or manually).
There is no need to pause the campaign just for editing it but it is a good practice.

If you make changes to your newsletter while the campaign is running then these changes will take effect with the next batch.

Batches and timing

• It is highly recommended to use batches.
• It improves deliverability and eases the strain on the server.
• Batches help prevent server time-outs.
• Batches can help you conform with your Hosting quotas (number of emails per hour/day) and your SMTP provider quotas. Consult with your Host or SMTP provider to find these quotas.
• When sending manually with a pop-up window the applicable batch settings come from the Sender profile used in this campaign.
  You can set these settings in the page where you edit the Sender profile.
  When sending manually, the pause (batch interval) works as an exact pause. You will see your pop-up window reload exactly after the pause.
  You can use any number of minutes for pause or 0 or fractions of a minute like 0.5.
• When sending with cron you can set the batch settings specifically for a campaign. In this case the Sender profile batch settings are overridden. In this case the pause (batch interval) works as a minimum safe distance between two batches.
  We recommend using 0 for pause and let the cron period / frequency regulate the timing (unless of course you have more specific requirements).
  A rough example (when sending with cron):
  Assume your cron hits every 5 minutes. But for this campaign you want to have at least 10 minutes break before the next batch starts.
  So you use 10 minutes for pause. In your activity log you may see lines similar to this:

  Task: 3-->2014-12-15 16:27:24-->Check-point-5.-->STOP. Time since last execution: 9 Batch pause: 600.0

  In other words: only 9 seconds elapsed since the last batch finished. But the pause is 10 min (600 secs). So it will stop now and it will check again with the next cron run.

Sending manually

To start a campaign manually go Menu > Campaigns > View all & Send.

• Click to see the remaining emails to be sent.
• Click “Start mailing” to start the sending process. A new pop-up window opens and the button is disabled. Do not close your browser.
  

If you use batches then after a batch is sent you will see the following screen.
This window refreshes automatically after the batch pause and starts sending the next batch.
If you want to stop the mailing you can close the pop-up window.
However, some more emails will be sent (since the process is now running at the server).

The process is repeated until all emails are sent. At the end you will see this:

Sending with cron

1. You can define batch settings specifically for this campaign.
2. You can set a campaign daily limit.
3. You can set the hours and days when you want this campaign to run or leave empty to send 24/7.

Looking your campaigns table you will see a calendar icon
Point your mouse over and you will see a pop-up with information about the campaign.

  Good to know,
You may edit, pause/resume a scheduled campaign.
If you are not sure whether your cron job is properly configured, check your activity log : Menu > Campaigns > Activity log

Multi-threaded campaigns

In order to send a campaign using multiple concurrent threads you will need the multi-threaded sending plugin. This is an add-on that is not included in the core of nuevoMailer.
To create a multi-threaded campaign go Menu > Campaigns > Create a multi-threaded campaign
You have all the usual campaign options but with a key difference here:

• The number of emails in a batch
  Multi-threaded campaigns are sent in batches. This number refers to each thread.
• Number of threads
  Set here how many processes (threads) each cron hit initiates.
• Distance between threads (seconds)
  This distance refers to thread start times. So assuming you give a 5 seconds distance, every 5 seconds a new thread will start.

• Number of emails in a batch: 400
• Number of threads: 5
• Distance between threads: 5 seconds
• A cron hit will initiate 5 threads that start every 5 seconds apart and each thread will send 400 emails.
  So each cron hit will process 2000 emails.

Send-time optimization

• You can select either opens or clicks as basis for calculating a subscriber's most active time frame.
• These time frames are also set by you. You split the day in 3 or 4 (or anything) hour intervals.
• A 2 hour interval means that you split the day in 12 periods (=24/12). A 3 hours interval splits the day into 8 periods (=24/3) and so on.
• Here is an example for a 4 hour interval (6 periods):
  0:00 - 3:59
  4:00 - 7:59
  8:00 - 11:59
  12:00 - 15:59
  16:00 - 19:59
  20:00 - 23:59
• The system needs data: it will not work with the very first campaigns you send. But as you collect views and clicks and subscriber accounts are updated it will become more accurate.
• Every time a subscriber clicks or opens a newsletter his time-frame is recalculated.
• Caution with very large campaigns
  - Suppose you have 1 million subscribers that are designated to receive the newsletter between 8:00 and 11:59.
  - But what if your sending capability is only 500k in these 4 hours?
  - The result will be that the rest of these subscribers will be emailed the next day within this time frame.
• Therefore although a multi-threaded campaign is designed to help with "send-too-many-too-fast", combined with send-time optimization and limited sending capability, may miss the "too-fast" parameter.
• On the other hand, the multi-threaded sending plugin becomes an excellent tool to fine-tune your campaign timing and increase subscriber engagement.
• The benefits of send-time optimization.

Recurring campaigns

General

A recurring campaign is one that runs periodically. E.g. daily, weekly, every few days, once a month etc..

• Autoresponder campaigns. When you want to send a newsletter to new subscribers after X minutes (hours or days) after sign-up using an opt-in form.
• Anniversary campaigns like birthdays. nuevoMailer greatly facilitates the collection of dates from your subscribers by having date-type fields.
• Your weekly, monthly news updates.
• Re-confirmation campaigns
  Sometimes your subscribers forget or neglect to confirm their subscription. The idea is to send confirmation reminder campaigns that start a few days after they subscribed and stop after a point in time. Here is how to do it.

Campaign series

This is a type of a recurring campaign in which you can define a number of newsletters that will rotate with every next campaign.

Sending once a month To set the day of the month set the activation date to the day you want.
In the special case where you want this campaign to be sent on the last day of the month choose 31 or 30. nuevoMailer will always pick the last day of the month whether that is 30 or 31 or 28 or 29.

AND DATEDIFF(CURDATE(), iDate) >10

AND DATEDIFF(CURDATE(), iDate) <90 AND DATEDIFF(CURDATE(), iDate) >10

Auto-responders

An auto-responder is a series of timely campaigns that are sent automatically to subscribers in the order and frequency you choose. nuevoMailer supports auto-responders based on,

• General subscription date
• List sign-up date
• Date last emailed
• Snoozed until date (what's this?)
• Last link click
• Last newsletter open / view
• All subscriber fields of type date.

nuevoMailer auto-responders are fully featured independent recurring campaigns with their own statistics that recycle forever.

   If I already have subscribers on my list, what happens for them when I create a new auto-responder for this list?
It depends on when the subscribers were added to your list (the list sing-up date). So if the date condition of the auto-responder is met they will receive the auto-responder.
To exclude subscribers that you manually import as an administrator using a bulk import method, check this option when creating your autoresponder: For older nuevoMailer versions you can enhance your auto-responders using a filter:

AND  (1_subscribers.adminImported=0)   //For nuevoMailer v.9.5
AND  (1_subscribers.ipSubscribed NOT LIKE ‘%admin%’)    //For older versions

Birthday campaigns

With nuevoMailer you can capture (or import) your subscribers birthdays or other anniversaries. Anniversary campaigns can be sent using autoresponders.

nuevoMailer provides a specific integration for Birthdays but what's covered below can be used with any other custom subscriber field (of type date).

1. Start by setting up a custom subscriber field (of type date) for storing birthdays. You must choose a field type of DATE
2. Then in the same page define this field.
3. Create an auto-responder

Follow-up campaigns

You can create follow-up campaigns based on the clicks or views from a previous campaign.
When looking at your “Summary report” you can create a new campaign as a “follow-up campaign”. Your options are shown in the screen shots below:

• You are creating a new campaign with the same options as the one is it based on. You can further edit this campaign if you need to do so.
• A filter is created in the background and it is added to this new campaign. It is the filter that will make the difference in the selection of subscribers in the new campaign.
• If the old campaign was already using another filter this will not be appended in the new one.
• Create only a filter: checking this box will crate only a filter and not a new campaign. You may want to use this filter in another campaign with different parameters.
• If the campaign was sent to all subscribers then you can only create a filter (without a campaign). This is because filters apply only in campaigns sent to all lists or selected lists.
  In this case you will find the checkbox already checked and disabled.

Triggers

For a very good overview of the triggers functionality in nuevoMailer and implementation ideas see here.

Use this button to create a trigger: .
You will find in in your campaigns, newsletters, mailing lists, and "Most clicked links" pages.

Using triggers you can do the following:

• Update a subscriber field
• Tag or un-tag a subscriber
• Send a single newsletter
• Add the subscriber to other list(s)
• Remove the subscriber from other list(s)
• Execute an outbound webhook

You can set triggers for these events:

• A campaign (or auto-responder): click, view, email-sent.
• A specific newsletter: click, view. Will apply whenever this newsletter is used (in any campaign).
• A specific hyperlink: click. Will apply whenever this link is clicked regardless of the campaign or newsletter. Go to Reports > Most clicked links to find the link you want.
• On List opt-in: when a subscriber is added to a list. See also auto-responders here.
• On List confirm: when a subscriber confirms his subscription for this list.

• Recurring campaigns are re-created automatically as soon as the previous one completes. Therefore we have a parent which is the first one and children which are the ones that follow. The same mechanism applies when you create a follow-up campaign from your Summary report. But not when cloning a campaign. This is what we call a branch:
  
• Since nuevoMailer v.10, the triggers set on the parent will only apply on itself. Before v.10, the triggers set on the parent would also apply to the children.
• Since nuevoMailer v.10, the triggers set on the child campaign will also look and execute triggers set on its parent.
• If you delete the parent campaign the triggers set on it are also deleted. But not those set specifically created on its children.

You create a trigger to send a single email on an action such as an open or a click. The recipient may open or a click several times as soon as he receives the newsletter or even days or months later.

nuevoMailer can prevent the sending of the triggered email multiple times (with each open / click) by marking the triggered email as processed.

However, sometimes it may be useful to fire this trigger again after some time and if the open / click action happens again. For that reason we can set a trigger expiration period. Go Menu > Tools >Configuration settings and click on Additional settings. Scroll down to:

In older nuevoMailer versions you can do this in /inc/classUtil.php:

/** Number of days-after to delete a PROCESSED triggered email from the queue.*/
$this->usedTriggerDeleteDays    = 10;
/** Number of days-after to delete a STALLED triggered email from the queue. E.g. one that not fires for any reason.*/
$this->deadTriggerDeleteDays    = 10;

curl -l -s http://www.domain.com/mailer/admin/_sendTr.php?apiKey

Sender settings in triggered emails
By sender settings we mean the <from-email>, <from-name> values in the triggered emails.
Campaign sender settings (if applicable - if the trigger is derived from a campaign) will override the Sender profile settings.

You can read more about the various trigger options here.

Transactional emails
Building on the email triggers feature you can also send transactional emails from your own CRM/CMS or website using the api.
You only need to "post" a subscriber email and a newsletter ID. If the subscriber exists in your database then the newsletter will be personalized. If he doesn't exist then you can optionally subscribe him at the same time, in one step.

Segmentation

Filters

Filters are extra criteria that you can apply to a campaign and will result in excluding or including subscribers on the basis of demographic parameters, tracking behavior, subscription dates and many other parameters.
You can view your filters under Menu > Segmentation > View filters.

Every filter contains a short description and SQL code. You can edit both if needed. Simply click on the description or the code.

   Filters can be used when you send a campaign to All lists or to Selected lists.

Campaign follow-up filters
Such filters are created automatically when you create follow-up campaigns.

Advanced search

The Advanced search is a very powerful feature in nuevoMailer giving you many options such as:

• Perform advanced searches on subscribers using any of their available fields, tags, tracking behavior and more.
• Create mailing filters that you can save, edit, refine and use in your campaigns.
• Find subscribers with soft or hard bounces. Verified or not.
• Preview and export the results to CSV or spreadsheets like Excel, CALC/LibreOffice.
• Create lists (sub-lists or list segments) based on the search results. The parent lists remain intact.
• Tag / Un-tag subscribers.

Empty, blank filter
You simply create an empty filter and then you can add your own sql code or copy code from another filter.

Refining a filter
If you are familiar with SQL you can change the SQL code and refine an existing filter. You can also merge filters or create your own.

Testing a filter
You can test a filter when creating a new campaign. You select the list(s) and the filter(s) and you click “Count”.
Count with and without selecting a filter so you can see the difference.

Examples & tips
Using filters you can find and create a sub-list or a mailing filter or export subscribers who:

• Come from a specific country and subscribed after a certain date.
• Have a specific zip code.
• Have not updated their account since a given date.
• Did not have any activity, clicks or opens since a given date.
• Come from the same company.
• Have the same domain in their email address.
• And much more...

Create a new list segment or a mailing filter?
If you need a new list then create a new list segment with the search results.
If you only want to do a few mailings to this subscriber group then it is perhaps better to create a mailing filter. The answer really lies in your subscriber management approach.

Merging filters

You can merge (add filters together) by putting together the sql code of each filter and using an AND or an OR operator. Here is an example. One filter that picks subscribers with Hotmail and Yahoo email accounts.

AND (1_subscribers.email LIKE '%hotmail%' OR 1_subscribers.email LIKE '%yahoo%')

If you are familiar with SQL programming you can do many tricks, use AND, OR, EXISTS statements and construct complex filters.

AND 1_subscribers.idEmail  NOT IN (SELECT idEmail FROM 1_listRecipients WHERE idList=D)