Rules and Notifications

This month we'd like to run through the Rules and Notification features of Campaign Master, and how you can use these to improve your email marketing. Setting up rules and notifications can turn your email marketing into a two-way communication where emails are triggered based on actions by your recipient.

You have probably signed up for an email newsletter or registered to attend an event and then received an email to acknowledge this. Confirmation emails of this nature can go a long way to enhancing your sender reputation, achieving greater trust from your recipients and keeping your brand front of mind.

Rules

When you receive confirmation emails or notifications, we know there isn't a person sitting on the other end sending you these emails. It is all automated and done seamlessly.

Setting up rules in your Campaign Master account can help you:

• Automatically update a recipient profile in your database
• Send confirmation emails
• Automatically clean your database
• Manage opt-in and opt-out requests for the different types of communications you send

Notifications

A notification is an email that is sent based on an action, such as a form being submitted. Notifications will allow you to connect with the recipient immediately and can be a great way to start your relationship with them and create a dialogue.

Let’s a take a look through some examples:

Bounce Management

Company A is experiencing a large number of bounces on their email sends and their sender reputation is beginning to get affected. They have been told that if they don’t reduce the number of hard bounces, they run the risk of being blocked.

To avoid this, they can implement some basic rules that will automatically clean the list. For example, they can set the bounce rule to make recipients inactive if they Hard Bounce once or Soft Bounce more than three times. They can also use the database to flag whether the recipient was made inactive due to a hard bounce or soft bounce.

Not only does this remove the bounces and improve your sender reputation, it also saves you money by no longer sending to addresses that are going to bounce. You will also be able to run reports on the number of people that have been made inactive due to bounces.

Confirmation emails

There are several scenarios where a confirmation email can be of use. We will run through a few examples below:

During opt-in or opt-out

Confirmation emails can easily be applied to opt-in and opt-out situations. Sending an email after registering for your newsletters allows you to give the recipient a taste of what your email marketing will be like. You can get them used to the creative, the From Address and subject lines that you use. You can also request that they add you to their safe sender list and explain your privacy policy.

If you want to ensure your lists are as clean as possible before you send your email campaigns, you can set-up double opt-in as part of your opt-in confirmation emails.

Confirming Opt-outs with a notification is also a good idea as it gives you the opportunity to close the relationship, or renew the relationship through new channels. A recipient may be unaware of other newsletters that you have and a confirmation email is a vehicle to advertise that. For example, your recipient might not be interested in your newsletter but they still want to receive specials and other emails from you. You can reduce your number of unsubscribes by giving them the option to choose what they wish to receive from you.

Opt-out confirmations can also be used to gauge why people have opted out. Applying a short survey to this email will give you valuable information on what is causing your recipients to opt-out.

Event registrations

In the case of event registration, it is the perfect opportunity to confirm all details and give your recipient a printable itinerary or ticket to the event.

Exchanging of data

We recommend that you use confirmation emails whenever you have a form where a recipient is sending you data or personal information. This gives you the opportunity to personally thank the recipient as well as reassure them that the data is going to a trusted source.