Mailings¶

Subject and Preview Text¶

Enter the subject line for your mailing. A compelling subject line can significantly increase your action rates.

The lower text box is for preview text. Preview text is the text that most email clients will display after the subject. In Gmail, for example, preview text is displayed after the subject with a dash between subject and preview text. Adding preview text is completely optional. If you don't add any, email clients will just pull it from the first text in your mailing's content.

For preview text to work, your email wrapper must support it.

You can easily run a test to see which of two or more subject line and preview text combinations performs better with your list and send the winner to everyone who didn't receive the test.

To run a test, just enter two or more subject lines. Click the plus sign (+) to add more subject line fields. Read more about Subject line testing. When you add another subject, the preview text from the previous subject line is copied. You can edit it or just leave it and use the same preview text for both.

As a shortcut for bulk creation of subject lines, you can also copy multiple subject lines from a document (with one subject line per line) and then paste it into a mailing subject field, which will then create additional subject fields to hold them all.

Customizing Subject Lines¶

You can customize your subject line to include user-specific content, such as a recipient's first name, city or state, using any of the snippets that are provided in the snippets pop-up menu in your email body.

To do so:

• Scroll down to the “content” section of your email.
• Click the blue “snippets” link.
• Click on the user-specific content you want to merge into the subject line. The snippet you select will appear in the email body.
• Cut and paste the snippet into the subject line to merge in the desired content.

Any snippets available to merge into the email body can also be merged into the subject line.

Advanced users: Get even more creative with your subject line customizations by using merge files and merge queries.

From¶

Select an email address to appear in the From Line of your Mailing. You can also click the Custom From line link to enter an email address for one-time use.

From lines should follow this format: "Tanya Africa, ActionKit.com" <tanya@actionkit.com>. The name section should be quoted.

You can also use snippets in your standard and custom from lines to generate dynamic from lines that vary depending on the recipient for mailings, event emails, and transactional emails. These could be merge snippets, custom user and action fields, or any other data that is able to be evaluated as a snippet in your from line.

The final from line at send still needs to follow the same format as from lines without snippets; from lines that do not pass validation will kill the mailing and you will receive a notification that your proof or mailing has died.

From the Mailings Tab, click From Lines in the sidebar on the right under Content to see your existing From Lines. From this screen you can add a new from line, edit or disable (by hiding) an existing from line, or re-enable (by showing) hidden from lines.

Reply To¶

Enter an email address here if you want your recipients' replies to go to an email address other than the From Line for this mailing.

Notes¶

Notes are not displayed to recipients. They show on Mailing lists on the Mailings tab and the Browse All results screen. Use for differentiating between multiple mailings with the same subject line and for other internal purposes.

Tags¶

Tags are words or phrases you can associate with a mailing. The tag list is the same for pages and mailings, but unlike with pages, when you associate a tag with a mailing no users are associated with the tag, whether or not they receive the mailing.

Tags are used to categorize your mailings. Tags are displayed on the Mailings Tab and the Browse all listing, and you can filter by Tag. For example, you can quickly view the list of all the Mailings you have created for a particular campaign.You could also write a custom report analyzing mailing performance by tag.

To edit, add, or hide a tag, see Working With Tags.

Email Wrapper¶

Email wrappers define the header and footer appearance and content for your mailings. You can also use them to create mailing templates to customize your mailing Compose screen.

The default wrapper doesn't include any appearance settings, but it does include a link to your default unsubscribe page. You can link to a different one, but you must link to one of your unsubscribe pages.

If you do not select an email wrapper for your mailing, then the mailing will be sent with a bare wrapper that has no appearance settings and a link to your default unsubscribe page.

You can create as many wrappers as you'd like. We've also provided some built-in examples of wrappers.

Click the Email Wrappers link on the Mailings Tab, to see a list of all your current wrappers, ordered alphabetically after the default wrappers (remember you may have a default for each Language).

Read more about creating new email wrappers.

Landing Page¶

Certain snippets require you to select the page that defines information included in the snippet. Snippets related to an e-delivery or targets for call, whipcount, letter and petition pages all require a source page, as do donation snippets. For more information, see:

• Donation Snippets
• Page Targets Snippets
• Edelivery Snippets
• Whipcount Pages

Merge Query¶

Merge queries work in a similar way to merge files, but instead of uploading the data to add to your mailing, you write a query to pull data from the database and the results are joined to the users targeted by your mailing. This is useful for grabbing data that exists in the database but is not automatically put into the mailing context, like extended legislator and event data, or custom action field values previously submitted by users.

The first column of the merge query is the key used to match targeted users to the query results. This can be a geographic designation (like country, state or zip), or a user source or unique identifier (user_id or email), but must only have one row per key.

The other columns in the query results are the value or values you want to insert. Once you've selected a merge query on the Compose screen, you'll see a snippet for each column name if you click Snippets then Merge Query in the Body section.

The Merge Query Snippets use the prefix "query" followed by the name of the column: {{ query.column_name }}. As an example, if you write the following merge query, the available snippets on the Compose screen are {{ query.id }} and {{ query.favorite_color }}.

SELECT ca.user_id AS id, caf.value AS favorite_color
FROM core_action ca
JOIN core_actionfield caf ON (ca.id = caf.parent_id)
WHERE ca.page_id = {{ page_id }}
AND caf.name = 'favorite_color';

You can click to insert the {{ query.favorite_color }} Snippet in the mailing, and the current recipient's value for that custom field from the specified page will be included. The Merge Query Snippets include requires_value so your mailing doesn't display a blank if a targeted recipient doesn't have a value returned by the query. That user is skipped. Read more under failed deliveries.

Alternatively, you can remove requires_value and use a conditional block ( {% if query.favorite_color %} ... {% endif %} ) or a default ( {{ query.favorite_color|default:"ultraviolet" }} ).

Merge Queries are just Query Reports with a few specific requirements:

• They must be tagged merge.
• They must declare a name for every column using the AS SQL alias keyword. This is true even when the natural name of the column would be the name you want, e.g. SELECT core_user.id AS id
• The first column returned by the query must be one that can be matched to users.
• The merge query cannot contain a UNION.

You can use any of the following fields for the column users are matched on:

• id (core_user.id or user_id in other tables like core_action)
• email
• city
• state (the 2-letter abbreviation, e.g. "FL")
• city, state (special case where we'll match on two columns because some city names are not unique (e.g. Springfield); if city and state are the first two columns in your merge query we'll automatically use both to make sure we get the correct value for each user)
• region
• postal
• zip
• country
• source
• us_district
• us_state_senate
• us_state_district
• us_county, state (same behavior as city, state)
• loc_code
• country_code
• region_code

(You can also match on prefix, first_name, middle_name, last_name, suffix, address1, address2 although they seem much less useful!)

If you want to write your query using the query builder, be sure to click the As button for each of your display fields, so that you can specify column names.

Once you've created a merge query, it will be listed in the dropdown for Merge Query on the Compose screen. Add a new one by clicking on the plus sign next to the dropdown. If you write a Merge Query with parameters, you will be able to enter values for the parameters when you select it on the Compose screen. In addition, any help text you write for parameters will be displayed above them when the Merge Query is selected. You can reuse a Merge Query on multiple mailings with different parameter values.

If you have a particularly slow merge query and you want to cache the results, you can use the Refresh setting on the query report just like you can for targeting queries. If you don't cache the results, they will be refreshed when the mailing is sent, or when the mailing set is rebuilt if you select the option on the Target screen to use the merge query for targeting.

Merge File¶

Use Merge Files to insert user-specific information in your mailing from a CSV or TSV that you upload. For example, you may want to use highly localized goals based on users' cities: "We need 5 more volunteers in Oklahoma City today!", or to show users the best paper for an LTE based on their zip code.

The first column of the merge file is the key used to match targeted users to a row in the file. This is usually a geographic designation (like country, state or zip), but you can also match on the user source or unique identifier (user_id or email).

The other columns are the value or values you want to insert. Once you've selected a merge file on the Compose screen, you'll see a snippet for each column header if you click Snippets then Merge File in the Body section.

The Merge File Snippets use the prefix "merge" followed by the name of the column: {{ merge.column-name }}. As an example, if you uploaded the following merge file, the available snippets on the Compose screen are {{ merge.zip }} and {{ merge.paper }}.

If you upload a file with the columns "zip" and "paper":

zip, paper
10014, New York Post
19130, Philadelphia Inquirer
94965, Marin County Chronicle
60632, Chicago Tribune

You can click to insert the {{ merge.paper }} Snippet in the mailing, and the paper that matches the user's zip code will be included. The Merge File Snippets include requires_value so your mailing doesn't display a blank if a targeted recipient's zip code isn't in the file. That user is skipped. Read more under failed deliveries.

Alternatively, you can remove requires_value and use a conditional block ( {% if merge.paper %} ... {% endif %} ) or a default ( {{ merge.paper|default:"your local paper" }} ).

See Managing Merge Files for the full list of options for the first column and for details on creating and updating merge files.

Note that merge files will be deleted 30 days after last use. This applies to merge files that were last used in a mailing that was sent 30 days ago, or in a draft that was last updated 30 days ago. If a merge file is not connected to a mailing it will be deleted 30 days after upload.

Merge files require Amazon S3 to be configured.

Body¶

The content of your mailing is entered here. You can add most HTML friendly formatting either directly, using the WYSIWYG editor, or the Drag-and-Drop editor . Unfortunately, you can’t embed videos directly in an email.

{{ user.first_name|default:"Friend" }}

Plain Text¶

ActionKit will automatically generate a text version of your email. Both versions are sent to each user; the user's email client displays the text version if HTML is unavailable. If you prefer you can provide your own text version here by clicking Edit Plain Text Version.

Web Viewable¶

Your mailing can include links to "view this mailing as a web page". To enable this:

• Check the box.
• Include a link to http://docs.actionkit.com/mailings/view/{{mailing_id}} with a note that users can click to view their email as a web page.

When combined with the AKID that is added in the mailing process, this link will re-create the email message for the specific user. For example, http://docs.actionkit.com/mailings/view/123?akid=123.5678.UB-drT generates a view of Mailing 123 for user 5678.

If the AKID doesn't include an authentic hash generated by ActionKit (e.g., if the user wasn't sent the mailing), we'll display an anonymized version using the city, state and postal code for the first recipient of the Mailing. No other user data, like name, is displayed. This prevents third parties from arbitrarily requesting a view of any user's mailing.

You can use the anonymized version yourself with a link to http://docs.actionkit.com/mailings/view/123.

Some mailings cannot be viewed anonymously, because they include {% require_value ... %} tags which look for values an anonymous user lacks. For example, donation snippets which require recent donations will always fail for the anonymous user because it hasn't placed any orders.

If you want to enable web viewing but be sure that a Mailing isn't visible without a matching AKID link, you can add {% require_value user.id %} in your Mailing; all real users have an ID, so this will only fail for anonymous viewers. If any require_value test fails, we display the message "we couldn't generate a view of this mailing."

Mailing views are formatted to look like the contents of the message in an email client. The message uses the Email Wrapper, not a Page templateset wrapper.

Mailing views are re-created based on the current information from the database, and therefore may not precisely match the version of the Mailing that was actually emailed to a user. For example, if a user moves to another state after a Mailing is sent, and then clicks the view-as-web-page link, they will see a new version of the Mailing that might include different legislative targets for their new address. Similarly, if you change the Email Wrapper after sending a Mailing, users who later click the view-as-web-page link will see the new wrapper rather than the version that was sent to them.

If a web-viewable mailing used a mergequery for targeting, we save data from mergequeries that aren’t cached for one week. During that week, web views are available. After that the user will not be able to view the mailer, and instead will get a generic mailing view error message.

Is Model¶

Model mailings are drafts that you've designated as templates to be copied as the basis for other mailings. Model mailings can not be sent.

You may want to create different models for particular kinds of mailings to save time and help enforce business rules. For example, if you have a C3 and a C4, you might have a model fundraising appeal for each where you've selected the proper from line and wrapper and limited the targeting to the correct list. Later, you can copy the appropriate model to create a a draft that shares those common elements, edit it as needed, and send it normally.

To designate a mailing as a model simply click the Is Model checkbox.

Note

Only staff users with the Mailings - Edit plus Model Mailings permission and superusers can create and edit model mailings. The checkbox to designate a mailing as a model will not show up for other users.

Target Sets¶

ActionKit finds all the users that match your selections and who are subscribed to one of your mailing lists, then saves that set of users. Building your target set when you save your mailing makes complicated targeting and proof generation faster.

If you change the criteria, ActionKit will rebuild the set. Or, you can force a rebuild of the mailing set at any time from the Proof and Send screen.

After 30 days, target sets that have been saved to your database will be deleted unless the Mailing was stopped or died. The ID of every user who was sent a Mailing is saved to the core_usermailing table which is never deleted so you won't lose mail history.

Logic¶

Below we describe the logic used to combine your choices and describe the categories available.

Your selections within and between categories are joined as follows:

Criteria within a given category (e.g. "States" or "Mailings") are combined using "OR." "OR" makes your target set larger.

Example: If you enter "NY, RI" under States your set is everyone in both states. This is the same for actions, lists, etc.

(The rules for the Custom User Field and Custom Action Field categories are a little bit more complex. See the full explanation on those below.)

Categories under Includes are combined using "AND". "AND" makes your target set smaller.

Example: If you enter "NY" under the "States" category, then click Add Criteria To This Set and select "Has Donated" under the "Donors" category your target set will include only people from NY who have donated.

All your selections in one green section (which may include multiple categories like States and Donors in the example above) are part of one inclusion set.

You can create additional inclusion sets and join them using "OR" by selecting Also Include Another Set Of Users.

Example: Continuing with our example, where you're targeting NY donors, if you click to "Also Include Another Set of Users", select "Add Criteria" and enter "CA" under "States", your set will target NY donors as well as everyone in CA.

Alternatively, if you select "NY" under "States", include another set and select "Has Donated" your target set will include anyone who has donated, regardless of where they live, and anyone who lives in NY, regardless of whether they've donated.

Categories under Excludes are combined using "OR". So if you exclude donors and NY, you won't have any of either in the result set.

Raw SQL is handled by building a temporary table of people matching the criteria and then using "AND" (for include) or "OR" (for exclude) to combine it with other criteria.

Special criteria are joined to the set of users defined by the includes and excludes using "AND". So, if you're targeting donors from NY and you check the box to target constituents of your landing page's advocacy targets, only donors in NY who live in the relevant districts will be included in your target group.

Selections¶

Click on either Add Criteria or Exclude Groups to see the options described below. Many of the categories have built in tool tips that will display when you hover over the field's label.

Actions

• Actions - Start typing the page id, name, title or tag to find all users who successfully completed an action on the matching page. Failed actions (like rejected donations) don't count. The dropdown includes the last 250 pages, plus any page that's been used in Mailing targeting in the last 14 days.

• Custom Action Fields - You can select uers based on their custom action fields. Click in the box to select a custom action field, and optionally a page and specific values to match.

  • If you don't choose a page, you can choose custom action fields from any page to match. If you do choose a page, the list of fields will update to reflect the fields in actions from that page.

  • You can enter a single value to match or multiple values separated by commas, semi-colons, or returns. If you enter multiple values, they will be combined using "OR", e.g. a value of "cat, dog, ferret" would match users with any of those values in the selected field. Entering no value at all will match all users who have the field, regardless of the value they have in it. If you add multiple fields, they will be combined with "AND".

  • If you need to search for an exact string which contains a comma, semi-colons, or returns, you can place it in double quotes. For example –

    

    Note that only double-quotes – not single-quotes – will work. "This works", but 'This will not.'

• Donors - Selecting donors displays two options:

  • Has Donated - Any user who ever donated either through an ActionKit donation page or according to imported user data. The user's total donations must be more than $0 (i.e., a user who has only ordered a free product will not be included).
  • Monthly Donors - This box provides several selections to help you manage recurring donors, including: any user who was ever a monthly donor, only those with a current recurring commitment, those whose cards have recently or will soon expire, or those who canceled in the last week.

• Event Campaigns - Selecting event campaigns displays the following targeting options:

  • Near Event Campaigns and Campaign Radius - These two must be used together with each other, and with a snippet described in the guide to attendee recruitment for events.
  • Same State Only - Limits users who are within the campaign radius to only those in the same state. Useful if events target state officials like governors or U.S. Senators. Use the special user.state as state variation of the snippet described in Attendee Recruitment Emails.
  • Same District Only - Limits users who are within the campaign radius to only those in the same U.S. Congressional district. Useful for events that target U.S. Representatives. Use the special user.location.us_district as us_district variation of the snippet described in Attendee Recruitment Emails.
  • Date Range - Optionally specify a starting and/or ending date to be used when searching for events. You may use a specific date, such as "2020-11-03", or a number of days from the present, such as "7" to represent one week. Leave these fields empty to match all events.
  • Event Fields - Optionally filter events based on custom fields saved when the event was created. To match any one of several values, separate them with a comma, semicolon, or line break. If you enter multiple values, they will be combined using "OR", e.g. a value of "march, rally, phonebank" would match events with any of those values in the selected field. If you add multiple fields, they will be combined with "AND".

• Languages - Any user with the language you specify here in their core_user record will be selected. Read more about using languages.

• Lists - If you want to limit to users on a particular mailing list, select your list here.

• Mailings - Selecting mailings displays two targeting options:
  • Mailings - Select users based on whether they are on the recipient list for a sent mailing or a draft. You cannot use a draft that was last updated more than 60 days ago for targeting. The mailings box includes a dropdown that displays the last 60 days of sent mailings. Start typing the subject, id or tag to select mailings sent more than 60 days ago.
  • Mirror Sent Mailings' Excludes - Ensure that if a sent Mailing excluded your draft, your draft will also exclude the sent Mailing. That's a best practice for avoiding Mailing overlap, and usually, you should leave the box checked. You can see which mailings have been excluded in the Excludes section of the Proof and Send screen. If there's a special situation where you want to double-hit those mailings' targets, uncheck the box. Excludes are only added when you edit your query or rebuild your Mailing set; it's normal if mailings don't show up in your targeting as soon as they're sent.
• Recurring Mailing Series - Select users who have received a recurring mailing series, optionally choosing a specific series. You can also choose a number of days prior to check for sends or let it match all sends for the series.
• Tags - Any user who completed an action on a page with the selected tag, see Tags.

Location

• City/Postcode Radius - Selecting city/postcode radius exposes two targeting options:
  • Points - Use any 5-digit zip code or a postal code followed by the country name. You can also enter a city name (followed by the country if it's not a US city) if you also enter a point radius in the following box. ActionKit targets from a point in the middle of the city and needs to know how far out you want to go from that point.
  • Point Radius - The radius finds all users w/in x miles or kilometers of the point or points entered in the points box. (You set X by selecting the mileage from the dropdown). Users who are in a zip that's on the edge of the zip radius are included whether or not their address is within the radius (some zips will have addresses within and beyond the radius).
• Congressional Districts - Use the format CA_04 for California federal house district 4. (New districts for 2022 redistricting are also available for targeting with custom SQL.)
• Countries - Any user with the designated country name in their user record.
• State House/Senate - Selecting state house/senate displays two targeting options:
  • State Senate Districts - Use the format CA_004 for California state senate district 4.
  • State House Districts - Use the format CA_004 for California state house district 4.
• States or Regions - For states, use two-letter state abbreviations. State and region are mutually exclusive, so if you want to target by region instead click the link below the box and enter the region. Regions are targeted based on the user's core_location row and NOT the value in core_user.region. Accepted syntax is: "England, United Kingdom; Scotland, United Kingdom". You can also use 2-letter country codes "Ontario, CA; Quebec, CA" . GB, not UK is the country code for the United Kingdom.
• Target Groups - Constituents of the selected legislative target group. Define new legislative target groups from the Pages Tab.
• U.S. Counties - Any user who lives in the designated county or counties based on their zip code. Separate counties using semi-colons, new lines, or commas. Or use the format county, state (ex: "Springfield, VA") if there are counties with the same name in multiple states.

Custom

• Query Library - Click in the box to select a query from your library. Select the query from the drop down list and click Add Query. To add a query to the library, click Write a new query. To edit an existing query, go to the reports tab and search for the report by name. For more information, see Query library reports.

• Raw Queries - Enter a SQL statement for targeting that you can't perform with options above. Your select statement must return the user_id and only the user_id. The mailer will automatically exclude any users who aren't subscribed, so you don't need to include this in your query. You can include more than one query by separating them with a semi-colon. For more information, see Creating a query report .

• Users - You can include or exclude individual users by User ID. You can find an individual's User ID by searching for them on the Users Tab, see About end user accounts.

• Custom User Fields - You can select users based on their custom user fields. Click in the box to select a custom user field, and optionally enter values to match. You can enter a single value or multiple values separated by commas, semi-colons, or returns. If you enter multiple values, they will be combined using "OR", e.g. a value of "cat, dog, ferret" would match users with any of those values in the selected field. Entering no value at all will match all users who have the field, regardless of the value they have in it. If you add multiple fields, they will be combined with "AND".

  If you need to search for an exact string which contains a comma, semi-colons, or returns, you can place it in double quotes. For example –

  

  Note that only double-quotes – not single-quotes – will work. "This works", but 'This will not.'

Special Criteria¶

There are a few options that are not available as Excludes. These are shown in a "Special Criteria" section, but only when they're available based on choices you made on the Compose screen.

• Landing Page Targets - You can select this checkbox if you have specified a Landing Page. Selecting this option includes any user in the legislative district(s) targeted by the page selected from the Landing Page dropdown. This box is selected by default when you select a Call, Letter, Petition or Whipcount page under Landing Page on the Compose screen.
• Merge File - If this Mailing uses merge files, you'll see a checkbox to Only include users matching the values in the id column from the ------ mergefile (selected on the Compose screen).
• Merge Query - If this Mailing uses a merge query, you'll see a checkbox to Only include users matching the values in the X column from this mergequery (selected on the Compose screen).
• E-Delivery - This checkbox is only available if you're doing an e-delivery and you've completed the required set up. If you can't check the box, make sure you've created a delivery job for your page from the pages tab and selected the same page when you specified a Landing Page. Read more about e-delivery.

Scheduling a Mailing¶

To set a later send time for a Mailing, select the Schedule to send later checkbox and enter the Date and time for the delivery.

The time zone will be displayed after the delivery time. If this is not your desired time zone, click the Change Time Zone link in the page footer, select the proper zone from the dropdown list, and click Save.

You can cancel the send for an unsent Mailing by clicking Cancel in the Actions column of the Scheduled Mailings listing on the Mailing Tab, see Mailings dashboard.

Click Rebuild at send to force a rebuild of the Mailing set immediately before send. If your Mailing set is complicated and previously took a long time to build you may want to schedule your send earlier.

Click Prepare messages as soon as I click Schedule to generate the messages for your mailing immediately. They will be queued for delivery at the time you scheduled, using the same mechanism as Timed Sends described below.

The primary advantage of preparing your messages now is efficiency - your mailings won't have to wait to be built at the scheduled time, so they will go out on time more reliably. You will also find out immediately if your mailing has errors that would prevent it from being sent, rather than waiting until the scheduled send time to find out.

The downside of using Prepare messages as soon as I click Schedule is that your messages won't include the latest data form your database. You wouldn't want to use this option for mailings that need very fresh data like event invites, for example.

Timed Sends¶

Bulk Editing¶

For Mailings, you can show hidden mailings, add and remove tags from mailings in bulk.

To bulk edit:

1 From the Browse All screen (or from the Event List screen for events), click on the “Bulk Edit” link in the top left next to “Show Hidden”.

2 Choose the items that you want to apply the action to -- you can click to select specific items, or select all items visible on the screen.

3 Click the Save button, review the count of objects to be changed, and confirm.

You’ll then see a reportback with the number of changes actually made. This may differ from the preliminary count if, for example, an object you try to apply a tag to already has that tag.

Checking Engaged User Counts¶

Once you have defined Engagement Queries you can check the count of users they will match by clicking the Check count now link on the Status line.

The counting process may take a while, depending on the size of your user list and the complexity of the queries you've selected. Reload the page as needed, or return to it after some time has passed in order to see the numbers of engaged and unengaged users produced by the queries you have selected.

The engaged count plus the unengaged count will equal the total number of mailable users in your database.

Manual¶

You can prompt the process to run immediately by clicking the Start migration now link on the Re-engagement Overview screen.

The migration process may take a while, depending on the size of your user list and the complexity of the queries you've selected. Reload the page as needed, or return to it after some time has passed in order to see the numbers of engaged and unengaged users remaining after the process has completed.

Automatic¶

To enable automated processing, click the Automatic list migration enabled checkbox on the settings screen.

When automatic list migration has been enabled, a scheduled service will run the list migration process every day.

The Status section on the Re-engagement Overview screen shows the next time the list migration process is scheduled to run, as well as the last time it ran successfully.

Auto Unsubscribing Users¶

After you attempt to activate the users on your re-engagement list a certain number of times, you should stop mailing them. We suggest unsubscribing them entirely at this point so no mistakes are made.

You can automate the process of unsubscribing these users by clicking the Unsubscribe users automatically checkbox and adjusting the Unsubscribe users after days on list setting.

Set the number of days based on your planned number and timing of re-engagement mailings.

Each time a list migration occurs, any users who have been on the re-engagement list for more than the specified number of days will be unsubscribed from all mailing lists.

If you want to immediately unsubscribe inactive users (e.g. everyone on your re-engagement list) at any point, turn on the Unsubscribe users automatically option and set the "after days on list" value to zero, then prompt a list migration.

Excluding From Mailings¶

To exclude users on the re-engagement list from new mailings by default, click on Re-engagement Settings, and click the Exclude re-engagement list from default mailer targeting option. With that in place, new mailings you create will start out with targeting that excludes users on that Mailing List.

Sending Re-engagement Mailings¶

To send re-engagement messages to that list, compose a Mailing and edit the targeting, removing your re-engagement list from the exclude groups and adding it to the mailing criteria instead.

Generally you would send your most successful mailings to the re-engagement list, with messages that have proven to draw users' attention. Since these users have been ignoring even your most successful mailings, you might consider alternative approaches as well, like subject lines specifically designed to provoke an open or click, or a very short message, or even just a "Do you still care about this issue".

If users on the re-engagement list take an action in response to a mailing that meets your Engagement Query criteria, they will be moved off of the re-engagement list the next time that list migration is run. Remember you have to prompt list migration if you didn't automate it.

If users ignore all of your re-engagement messages, and linger on the re-engagement list for an extended period of time, it is unlikely that they will ever take further action, and they can be safely unsubscribed from your lists.

Setting up a Recurring Re-engagement Series¶

If you want to automatically send one or more messages to everyone who is placed on the re-engagement list, you can use the same approach as described in the Welcome Series FAQ. However, note that you would use the new_to_list query to match users who have recently been added to your re-engagement list, rather than the new_to_database query.

For example, you could set up two recurring mailings, one that automatically mailed people one week after they were added to the re-engagement list, and a second that mailed people one month later.