How to Process Opt-Out Reqeusts in GroupMail
(Subscriber Add-On)
Tuesday, January 23, 2007, 21:23
Your reputation and success depends on a well maintained list. List maintenance can be a very time consuming activity if you don`t automate the process to some degree. This tutorial will explain how to include an Opt-out link in your messages. It will also show how to automatically remove opt-out addresses from your groups when they arrive. This tutorial will show you how to use the GroupMail Subscriber Add-on to process opt-out requests.
1. First, let's put an opt-out link in a template so that it will be ever-present in our email offers.
Type an opt-out message somewhere at the end of your message and highlight the words that you want to serve as the hyperlink.
Figure 1
From the "Insert" menu, select the "Hyperlink" option
Figure 2
Fill in the hyperlink information as follows:
• Choose the "Mailto:" option from the drop down list in the middle section
• Type the following text in the URL section (using your actual email address.) mailto:[email protected]?Subject=Unsubscribe Me
Then click OK
Figure 3
Your opt-out paragraph will now have a hyperlink that your recipients will be able to click if they want to opt-out of your email offering.
Figure 4
When your recipient clicks on this link, their default email client will create a new message pre- populated with your email address as the "To" address and Unsubscribe Me in the "Subject" Line. Obviously, when you are actually doing this, use your own email address and not the [email protected] address used in the example. All the recipient has to do is press send to opt out. On the receiving end Subscriber needs to be configured to pick up messages with "Unsubscribe Me" in the subject line and either delete the From address from your groups, exclude it from future mailings or call a Stored Procedure (Microsoft SQL Server only) to remove the recipient from your database.
2. Now, let`s configure Subscriber to process those opt-out requests when your
recipients click on the link that you have included in your email. Hopefully you won`t get too many!
To begin, click on the Subscriber button:
Figure 5
3. Now, let`s create a Pop3 Account by clicking on Pop3 Email Account in the left hand menu bar:
5. Enter a description name for the Pop Account and your user name and password if required to access your mail server.
Figure 8
The Account Name, Pop3 (server address), user name and password are required.
6. Great! Now we have
a. An opt-out link in our message template, and
b. An account set up to process those messages when they arrive! Now, let`s make some rules!
7. First, click on your NEW Pop3 Account as seen in the left side menu:
Figure 9
8. Click on New
Figure 10
9. Enter a description name for your Rule. In this example, we`re creating an opt-out rule. Now, if you remember, we arranged our opt-out link to automatically put
Unsubscribe Me in the subject when a recipient clicks on the opt-out link in our email.
So we want our Rule to read:
If the [subject line] of the incoming email [contains] the text: Unsubscribe Me You can click on the highlighted words in the rule for more options. But for now, let`s click on [empty] and fill it in.
Figure 11
10. Type in the subject line text as used in your opt-out link and click OK.
Figure 12
11. You`ll now see <>in the Rule Description.
Figure 13
Then, click OK
12. Excellent! Now, you can see your new rule for that account. Now, let`s tell
Subscriber what action to take when it sees messages containing Unsubscribe Me in the sujbect line. First, we need to click on our new Rule as seen in the left hand menu (opt-out).
Figure 14
13. Now, click on New to assign a new action to our rule.
Figure 15
14. Select Unsubscribe (opt-out) and then click Next
Figure 16
15. Select the Group(s) to unsubscribe from. You can select All if you have more than one group with opt-out requirements.
In this case, we`ll use the email address of the sender as provided in the from field of the received message.
Select to Delete Recipient from Group and click Next
Figure 17
You can also choose to exclude the recipient from future mailings but still maintain their details in your group.
Figure 18
17. Hooray! Your Opt-out Rule is created. Now, let`s schedule Subscriber to process action on this account so that the work is automated. To do this, we click on the Scheduler icon.
Note: Scheduler is available only in the GroupMail Business Edition.
Figure 19
18. Click New
Figure 20
19. Select the event that you want to schedule; or you can select all accounts if you have more than one. Then, click Next
Figure 21
20. Select the date and time when you want Subscriber to process your opt-out requests and repeat as desired by hour, day, week, month or year)
Figure 22
21. Congratulations! Subscriber will now process your opt-out requests per your instructions at the frequency that you specified.
Figure 23
Note: As Subscriber searches for messages on your mail server for opt-out messages to
