Newsberry Help

Why are statistics missing from text-only campaigns?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:13:27 GMT

In text-only campaigns, emails are sent without images or redirect links that allow us to track opens and clicks in your campaigns. This is more of a limitation in text-only emails and a process of keeping your emails clean.

For text-only reports, you will notice that open and click data is removed by default. If you wish to track open and clicks in your campaigns, you may use the "from scratch" or "template" options when creating your campaign content.

[New] Confirm your subscribers for upgraded status

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:04:17 GMT

We recently released a feature allowing your subscribers to easily confirm their subscription with a custom tag in your campaigns.

This new custom tag can be inserted into any campaign, which converts to a link for your subscriber. When your subscriber clicks on the link, the status of that subscriber changes from "unconfirmed" to "confirmed".

Getting Started
To confirm your subscribers, you can simply insert the new custom field into your campaign and request that the subscriber clicks on the link to confirm the subscription. Here are some examples:

Please <a href="[CONFIRMLINK]">confirm</a> your subscription to our newsletter.

Please confirm your subscription by clicking the link below:
[CONFIRMLINK]

Viewing and managing confirmed subscribers
As your subscribers click on the link, you can view the status of each confirmed or unconfirmed subscriber in your subscribers list.

As more of your subscribers confirm their subscription, you will improve the effectiveness of your list and your reputation with ISP's like Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL. Since your subscribers are confirmed, your chances of spam complaints are reduced drastically.

At any time, you can deactivate all unconfirmed subscribers to have a pure list of confirmed subscribers. This not only improves your reputation with the ISP's, but tells us that you have taken extra effort to reduce spam.

Why is this important?
It helps us verify that your subscribers want to receive your emails and reduces the chance of spam problems. By doing this, each confirmed subscriber will be sent on our privileged email servers to ensure the best delivery possible to the major ISP's.

Using the HTML Editor

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:55:22 GMT

A rich HTML editor is provided to edit HTML content of your campaigns without needing to know the details of HTML code. To keep things simple, only a few basic options are available to manipulate content. These options include bold, italic, strikethrough, font color, justification, lists, paragraph style, font size, insert link, insert image, undo, and spell check.

The best way to use this editor is either starting from scratch with simple formatted text and images or editing an existing HTML template. We do not recommend using this editor for designing complex HTML emails, since the features are limited.

Inserting an image
Inserting an image is an easy process. Just place the cursor where you would like to insert the image and click the image button. As a result, the following window will display:

If this is your first time inserting an image, you can click the Upload image button. If you already have an image, you can select on on the left and click insert. This will automatically insert the image where your cursor was located. When uploading an image, you will see a new screen that looks like this:

Click Browse to select the image on your computer, then click Upload to upload the image to the service. When you are finished, the image will appear on the first screen. Click Insert to insert the image into the editor.

Advanced Image Editing
In some cases, you may want to resize an image or move it around the page. By right clicking on the image you can access the image properties. Click on the option that says Set Image Properties.

After doing so, you should see a new window:

In this screen, you can align the image, resize it with the width/height option, create padding or spacing around the image, or even apply a border and border color. When you are finished, click OK to change the options.

Support for SenderID and DomainKeys to all customers

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:51:00 GMT

We are really excited to have launched our next big feature, email authentication support. Any sender signatures that are created from now on will have automatic support for DomainKeys/DKIM and provide instructions on editing your domain to support email authentication.

What is email authentication?
There are many resources that explain this better than we can, but in short, email authentication is a way to approve who can send emails for your company. ISPs like Yahoo, AOL, and MSN use this to verify legitimacy of your emails and fight spam.

How does this benefit you?
By setting up DKIM and SenderID, ISPs can verify your reputation as an email marketer and verify who can send for you (Newsberry). This will assist in improving your delivery rates along with what Newsberry already has in place. Even more, if you have setup SenderID and DKIM and maintain a good reputation, we will move your account to an exclusive tier of IP addresses that we send from.

Getting started
The problem with email authentication is that it takes some deep technical knowledge. Fortunately, some of the main domain registrars already support this and have tools that make it much easier. When you setup a Sender Signature, we recommend that you follow the instructions or hand them off to the person who manages your website and email. Godaddy has a tutorial on creating and SPF record.

Once you have everything setup, you can either verify it with SenderScore's site that it is setup correctly. In Newsberry, your Sender Signatures will be updated automatically or you can click the verify buttons to check manually.

Need help? We're here.
We encourage all customers to contact us for more information or help. It is in our best interest to have our customers using DomainKeys and SenderID. Feel free to contact us at any time.

Can I send targeted emails based on subscriber data?

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:25:11 GMT

In each list, Newsberry has a feature called sub-lists. Sub-lists allow you to create targeted groups of subscribers based on search criteria. For instance, find all subscribers with the zip code 19103. With that sub-list, you could send a campaign to all subscribers with the zip code of 19103.

Sub-lists can be found by going to the Subscribers tab, then choosing Sub-lists.

Sub-lists are based on data that you have for each subscriber. Before getting started with sub-lists, you should read about importing and custom fields.

We are going to start with a simple list of subscribers for this example.

To create your first sub-list, click the Create Sub-list button.

On the next page, you will see a set of search conditions based on the fields in your list. You can specify whether the field contains or does not contain the search keyword that you insert. You can also specify whether all conditions (each one must be met) or any condition should be met when searching for subscribers. You may use * for wild characters or separate multiple search values with a comma.

You can click on Add another condition to search another field or click Find Subscribers to produce results on the current search criteria. When the search is complete, it will display a sample of the subscribers that were found to verify that your search data is correct. Notice that the search criteria is highlighted.

After reviewing the results and verifying that they are correct, you can give the sub-list a name and save it. Make sure to provide a descriptive name based on the criteria.

After the sub-list has been saved, it will appear on the main sub-list page as your first sub-list.

At any time, you can click on this sub-list to view all of the subscribers in the sub-list.

The next step is to lean how to use a sub-list when sending. This part is easy. When creating a new campaign, the second step is called Assign Recipients.

On this step you will now see your new sub-list as an option for your recipients. By selecting this sub-list, the campaign will only be sent to this group of subscribers. If you have multiple sub-lists, you can send to many at one time.

Some things to note:

If you send to multiple sub-lists, Newsberry will not send duplicate emails to a subscriber in both sub-lists.
Sub-lists grow. Since each sub-list is based on search criteria, the number of subscribers will change as people unsubscribe, bounce, or subscribe.

Getting Started with Newsberry

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:27:34 GMT

Are you new to Newsberry? These articles should help you get started.

If you still have questions, feel free to contact us. We will respond quickly to any questions you may have about Newsberry or email marketing in general.

Does Newsberry support multiple fields for each subscriber?

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:44:26 GMT

Yes, Newsberry allows you to insert many fields for each subscriber. These fields can be created when adding subscribers or they can be created in the Fields & Forms section.

To find the Fields & Forms section, click on the Subscribers tab in your list, then click Fields & Forms underneath.

Each list is setup with two default fields: Name and Email. You can add fields to the list by using the Add new field form below the list of fields. When adding a new field, insert the name of the field, the type of data (number or text), and the default value. Here is an explanation of the settings.

Name
This is the name of the field, which is also used to describe the field on your sign up pages.

Type
A field can be either a number or plain text. If it is a number, the data that is in this field must be a number. If it is not, Newsberry will ignore the information. For instance, if you insert "100,000" it will be ignored, since the data includes a comma.

Default Value
The default value is used to fill in any subscriber data that is blank. For instance, if a subscriber's name is blank you can use "Customer" instead. This way when you customize a greeting it will read "Dear Customer".

How can custom fields be used?

Personalize Content
Custom fields can be used for personalizing content, such as inserting a person's name, city, or email into the content of your message.

Creating targeted sub-lists
They can also be used to create sub-lists, which are targeted lists based on subscriber data. Let's say you want to send an email to all subscribers in the 19103 zip code or to all subscribers who signed up from a trade show. Having custom fields allow you to search this subscriber data to create more compelling and targeted campaigns for your subscribers.

How can I insert the subscriber's name in the email?

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:36:42 GMT

Newsberry supports many "tags" that can be inserted into campaign content, both text and HTML. To insert a subscribers name in an email, use the [NAME] tag. This will insert the name from the subscribers records into the content. For instance:

Dear [NAME],

This is my campaign with a personalized message.

Sincerely,
Chris Nagele

In the example above, [NAME] would be replaced by the name in the records for each subscriber. If you have the "full name" for each subscriber, the full name will be inserted exactly how it appears.

If a name does not exist for a subscriber, the text will be blank. A default value (Customer, Friend, etc) can be set for each field in the Fields & Forms section.

How can I create a template?

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:20:28 GMT

Newsberry offers default templates that can be customized with your own information. In addition, you can also create a custom template if you already have HTML content.

To add a template, click on Add New Template in the left menu.

When clicking Add New Template a new page will display with a default name for the template.

You can edit the template name and click Rename to save. To edit the content of the template, use the provider HTML editor. In this editor, you can paste or type your information or you can use the HTML Editor tab if you already have HTML code for your campaign.

Click Save and Close to save your new template. You can use the Preview link in the upper right to preview your content at any time.

Note: If you are using HTML code, you must upload images using the Visual Editor image tool or reference images on another web site.

After you have completed the template, it can be selected from the Create Campaign process in any future campaign.

What are bounced emails?

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:43:26 GMT

This question is asked often and can have many meanings. In short, a bounce is when an email is returned back to Newsberry's email servers after being sent. This can happen for many reasons.

The email address no longer exists (Hard Bounce)
The person is out of the office or the mailbox is full and not accepting emails (Soft Bounce, Auto Responder)
There were problems connecting to the person's mail server (Transient, DNS Error)
A message was returned asking for approval (Challenge Verification)
A change of address was sent (Address Change)

How Newsberry handles bounces

In Newsberry reports, detailed information for each bounced email is provided. When emails are identified as Hard Bounce they are automatically deactivated from your list. The next time you send, these emails will not be included. This is done to remain polite to mail servers Newsberry sends to, as well as keep your lists clean.

To view the detailed bounce information for each email, go to the report for that campaign and click on the link for the number of bounces. This will open a new page displaying the bounce types and emails. By clicking in the (?) icon, it will reveal the actual bounce message from the server.

What you can do about bounced emails

In most cases, bounced emails are out of your control. These emails should be cleaned from your list. There are some exceptions though.

False positives
In some cases, an email might hard bounce, but still be valid due to the way the server rejected the message. If you feel and email was bounced incorrectly, you can activate the email again by clicking on the check mark () next to the email address.

Address Change
If an address change is requested, it is best to contact those subscribers individually and as for the new email address. You can then edit the subscribers information to make sure your list is up to date.

Challenge Verification
Some subscribers sign up for services that force you to confirm your identity (email) before they accept emails from you. This is called a Challenge/Response. If you noticed some bounced emails with this status, we also recommend that you contact these subscribers individually to be granted sending access to the person's email.

How can I add a subscribe form to my site?

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:01:11 GMT

Newsberry allows you to add a subscribe form to your site for each list. After you have setup a list, go to the Subscribers tab, then click on Fields & Forms.

Halfway down the page (under the fields) you will see a large button labeled Generate HTML Form Code. When you click this button, it will show a pop up with HTML code.

Copy this code to insert it anywhere on your site or give this code to the person who manages your website. The form can be customized to fit the look & feel of your site.

Important: Do not remove the hidden field in the form that looks like <input name="listId" value="xxxx" type="hidden" /> where xxxx is the ID of your list.

Customizing the process

When a subscriber sign up on your list, we send a confirmation email to the email address entered. The subscriber will only be active after the link in the confirmation email is accepted. Here is the process:

Person signs up from a form on your site
A page is displayed telling to person to check their email to confirm
An email is sent to the person's inbox with a link to confirm the subscription
After the person clicks the link, a page is displayed to confirm the subscription is active

This is standard practice for list management and ensures that your subscribers will receive your campaigns.

Each step of this process can be customized in Newsberry on the Fields & Forms page.

1. Sign up form on your site

This step was described above.

2. Subscribe form confirmation page

Newsberry offers a default page for the form confirmation, but this page can be created to match your site. If you have designed your own page, just insert the link into the field labeled Subscribe form confirmation page.

3. Confirmation email

When a person signs up, a confirmation email is sent to confirm that the email address is correct. The Name, Email, and Content of this message can be customized to fit your own needs. When editing the Content of the email, just make sure that the [CONFIRMLINK] tag is not removed. This is where the link for confirming the subscription will be inserted.

We recommend that this email is very short and to the point. Make sure that the link is near the top and noticeable.

4. Email confirmation page

Similar to the form confirmation, Newsberry offers a default page for the email link confirmation page. This page can also be created to match your site. If you have designed your own page, just insert the link into the field labeled Email confirmation page.

How can I insert custom tags into my email?

Thu, 31 May 2007 17:48:46 GMT

Newsberry supports a wide range of custom tags that can be inserted into your campaign content. The details and usage of these tags can be found on Step 3: Add content of the Create and Send process. Above the form there is a small link labeled view custom tags.

When clicking on this link, a list of options are displayed explaining how tags can be used in campaigns. Each tag has a similar format. The name of the tag is surrounded in brackets [ ] and is spelled in ALL CAPS. If you are creating HTML emails, these links should be wrapped in HTML link code.

Here are the tags that Newsberry currently supports

[SUBSCRIBE]
This will insert a subscribe link to a Newsberry form where a user can subscribe to your list.The form looks similar to this.

[UPDATE PROFILE]
This will insert a link to a form where the subscriber can view his/her profile and update the information. The form looks similar to this.

[ONLINE VERSION]
This tag provides a link to view an online version of the campaign. This can be useful if users have trouble viewing your email in certain email clients.

[NAME]
This tag will insert the subscriber's name where it is placed.

[EMAIL]
This tag will insert the subscriber's email address where it is placed.

Custom field tags

If you have setup custom fields in your list, each field can be used to retrieve data about the subscriber. For instance, if you added a field for city for each subscriber in your list you can insert the tag [CITY] in your email. This will be converted to the city for that subscriber (Chicago, for example).

This method can be repeated for any custom fields. Just insert the name of the field in ALL CAPS and between brackets [ ]. The data for that subscriber will be inserted into the content. This can be useful when sending targeted emails. It allows you to customize content for each user based on the data you have in the system.

How can I add an unsubscribe link?

Thu, 31 May 2007 17:30:50 GMT

By inserting the tag [UNSUBSCRIBE] in your content, Newsberry will automatically convert this into a specific link for each subscriber. Here are some examples on how you can insert the unsubscribe tag:

If you are sending HTML emails:

You can instantly <a href="[UNSUBSCRIBE]">unsubscribe</a> from our newsletter.

If you are sending text-only emails:

If you no longer want to receive these emails, follow this link:
[UNSUBSCRIBE]

When the link is clicked, the subscriber will see a page like this. The unsubscribe process is a one-click action, meaning that the unsubscribe happens immediately after clicking the link without a chance to confirm.

Email Delivery Best Practices

Thu, 31 May 2007 16:54:15 GMT

This is a short list of best practices to follow when collecting emails, sending campaigns, and growing your subscriber base.

How can I build my list?

A common misconception is that you can buy, rent, or acquire a list and just start sending emails. In truth, this will not only offer bad results, but will destroy your reputation as an email marketer. In order to send to a list, you must have explicit permission to send to them. This means that the subscriber gave you direct permission (opt-in) to send them emails. The general rule to abide by is this:

If the subscriber recognizes who you are and expected the email, it is acceptable.

The usual thought process is to send as many emails as possible to get the most exposure. What most people don't realize is that they are severely diminishing their reputation to ISPs (Yahoo, AOL, MSN, etc). Once this happens, it is very hard to improve that reputation again. If a subscriber is not expecting your email and does not know who you are, then the lead is most likely worthless anyway.

Email marketing should be viewed as a long-term strategy. If you plan to maintain and improve long-term growth, permission based marketing is your best friend. If not, you risk a ruined reputation and give us a clear reason to cancel your account. We constantly track each customer's delivery practices and spam complaints to ensure these rules are being followed.

What should I include in my campaign content?

It is required by CAN-SPAM laws to include an unsubscribe link and the name and physical address of the sender. In Newsberry, it is required that you include the single click unsubscribe tag and a physical address in each campaign. Campaigns can not be sent without this information.

What are Spam Complaints?

Thu, 31 May 2007 16:07:27 GMT

As an initiative to to fight spam, some of the major ISPs (AOL, Hotmail, MSN, Live.com) created a system that allows people to report spam. When an email that comes through to an inbox looks like spam, the subscriber can click "Spam" or "Junk" (see screen shots below). When a person reports a message as spam, Newsberry is notified immediately. At the current moment, only AOL and Microsoft (Hotmail, MSN, and Live.com) send this information back to senders (Newsberry).

How we handle spam complaints

When a spam complaint is reported by one of your subscribers, we track this and immediately make the subscriber inactive in your list. You cannot activate this subscriber in the system. The only way for this person to become active again is by subscribing a second time.

What if spam complaints are high?

ISPs and Newsberry use spam complaints to measure the delivery practices of our customers. As a general rule, AOL and Microsoft will take action if 0.20% of their users report your campaign as spam. To make this easier to understand, that is 25 complaints for every 10,000 subscribers.

If we notice your spam complaints to be above the acceptable threshold, we will most likely close your account. Spam complaints not only affect your list, they affect the reputation of Newsberry as well. If the spam complaints are high for one account, it has the potential to affect many other accounts on Newsberry.

We can help

If your spam complaints are getting high, there are a number of reasons why. Please check our best practices guide for more information. It is our mission to help each customer improve delivery and reduce the potential for spam complaints. Feel free to contact us at any time if you have questions.

What are sender signatures?

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:31:26 GMT

Newsberry uses Sender Signatures as the Name and Email that each campaign is sent from. Sender Signatures can be used across all lists and used across any campaign. In order to send a campaign in Newsberry, you must first setup a Sender Signature.

To create a sender signature, click on the Account tab, then click on Sender signatures.

1. Add a new Sender Signature

Click on the Add Sender Signature button. The next page will ask you to fill out some basic information such as name, email, and reply-to email. This will be the name and email that users see when a campaign is sent. The reply-to field is usually the same as the email, but can be changed if needed.

2. Confirm Sender Signature

Each sender signature must be confirmed to verify that the email is a working and valid address. After you have created the sender signature, check your email at the address that was entered in the form. You will receive an email with a link to confirm the address. Once this link is clicked, the Sender Signature may be used for your campaigns.

3. Advanced Settings: Email Authentication

After submitting the form for a new sender signature, or editing a Sender Signature, you will notice some information about SPF Records (SenderID) and DomainKeys. For the average user, this may be difficult to understand, but it could improve your email delivery to the top ISPs (AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) dramatically.

Newsberry has built-in capabilities for email authentication. By following these instructions, your emails will follow industry standard guidelines to help improve delivery and results. DomainKeys and SPF can only be setup on domains that you own, not free ISP emails such as Gmail, AOL, or Yahoo. We recommend that you provide your technical administrator with the information about setting up DomainKeys or SPF.

After everything is setup, Newsberry will automatically check each day to see if your DomainKeys and SPF can be verified. Once they are, you will see a check mark in the column. You can also verify the records manually by clicking on the verify button for each column.

How can I add or import subscribers?

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:14:48 GMT

You can add subscribers in Newsberry by going to the Subscribers tab in your list, then clicking Add subscribers.

When adding subscribers, you have two options.

Insert manually
Import from a file

1. Insert manually

If you only have a small set of subscribers, or you have them in a text file, you can paste or type these subscribers into the form. Each subscriber should be on a new line and may contain multiple fields (age, city, etc). Each field for the subscriber must be separated by a comma.

If a subscriber does not have information for a specific field, it should be left blank and still contain the commas for that field.

2. Import from a file

If you already have subscribers in a file, Newsberry accepts both CSV and Excel files. Click the browse button and find the file on your computer, then click Import subscribers.

3. Choosing your fields

Newsberry has extensive support for targeting and custom fields. In our example, we inserted name, email, city, and age. After adding subscribers, you need to name the fields in Newsberry so you can use them later. For each field, you can choose a name of the field from the list or create a name for the new field.

After selecting and naming fields, click Continue to import these subscribers into your list.

4. Confirmation

Newsberry will process and import all of your subscribers into your list. If there are duplicates, they will be automatically removed. If any errors are found during the process, you have the opportunity to download these subscribers in a file to fix and import again. The number "1" (screen shot below) would be the link to download updated or broken emails from the import.

Now that you have a list and subscribers, you can create a campaign.

How do I create a list?

Thu, 31 May 2007 14:19:06 GMT

Newsberry is list driven. This means that any reports, subscribers, and campaigns are specific to each list. Every list you create is an independent resource and do not share information. The only features in Newsberry that are shared are templates and sender signatures.

When your account is first created, it is a blank slate. The first step is to create a list. In Newsberry, each list is an independent group of subscribers. All reports on any campaigns you send to this list of subscribers will be specific to the list. For instance, if you have three companies, each one might have its own list.

To add your first list, simple click on Create list and give your list a descriptive name, then click Add list. That's it!

After you have created a list you will see a new set of tabs and tools. Each list contains these tools to manage subscribers, create campaigns, and view email campaign reports.

The next step is to add subscribers.