In this chapter you will find information on performing all of the functions associated with your list’s subscribers. You will learn how to add and remove subscribers, both one at a time and in bulk. You will also find instructions on viewing subscribers and unsubscribers, exporting your entire list into a text file, and searching one or all of your lists for an email address. If you are using a profiling-enabled account, you will also find within this chapter information on updating individual subscribers’ profiling data.
NOTE: This chapter deals, in part, with different methods of adding and deleting subscribers. Before continuing, please read the following information on how LBGIE™ deals with the addition and removal of subscribers who have previously elected to be unsubscribed from a list:
When a subscriber receives a message from your list and voluntarily chooses to click on the removal link at the bottom of that message, the subscriber becomes "permanently" removed from your list. The subscriber's email address will be moved to the list of unsubscribers for only the list that sent the message. Having this status of being permanently removed, however, will ensure that the email address will not be accidentally re-added to the list in the future through interactions on your web site or the use of LBGIE’s™ List Importing feature.
If you attempt to add any unsubscribed address, regardless of the method by which it was unsubscribed, the email address will simply be skipped. This will avoid having permanently removed subscribers, as well as those who were unsubscribed due to message bounces, re-added to your list. Skipping the address will also ensure that you do not add an address to your list's subscribers if you have previously decided to remove it on your own.
If you attempt to manually enter the address through the Add/Delete Subscribers page, you will receive a message telling you that the address could not be added because the subscriber has permanently removed him/her self from the list.
However, you can re-add the address by clicking the "undo" button on the View Unsubscribers page. This is the only method by which an email address that has been permanently removed can be re-subscribed to a list by anyone other than the unsubscriber.
If the unsubscriber tries to rejoin to the list, an email will be sent asking him/her to click a link to confirm this subscription even if your list does not normally require subscribers to double opt-in. The email address will not be added to the list's subscribers unless the unsubscriber clicks on this confirmation link.
Once the confirmation link is clicked, a new browser window will open. If you have a profiling-enabled account and have created at least one profiling header for this list, the subscriber will be taken to your profiling form and asked to fill in the requested information before being re-added to the list. Once this form is submitted, or if this list does not use profiling headers, the subscriber will see a message telling him/her that the subscription process is now complete.
Figure 3‑1
To manually add an email address to your list, select "Manage Subscribers - Add/Delete Subscribers" from the drop-down menu. You will see a page containing the form shown in Figure 3-1. Type the address into the text box in the area labeled "Single Address.” If you have a profile set up on your list, you can enter that information also, and then click "Add Subscriber." You will see a message at the top of the page indicating whether or not the address was added. If the address could not be added, an explanation will be provided. Addresses will not be added if they are already subscribed to the list or if the subscriber has permanently removed them.
See Import List Wizard later in this chapter.
Check this box if you would like to notify the subscriber that he/she has been added to your list. To enable this you must first specify the text of your welcome message. If you are unsure of how to do this, see Managing Lists: List Settings.
To manually remove an email address from your list, select "Manage Subscribers - Add/Delete Subscribers" from the drop-down menu. You will see a page containing the form shown in Figure 3-1. Type the address into the text box in the area labeled "Single Address,” then click "Delete Subscriber." You will see a message at the top of the page once the address has been successfully removed.
See Import List Wizard later in this chapter.
Check this box if you would like to notify the subscriber that he or she has been removed from your list. To enable this you must first specify the text of your goodbye message. If you are unsure of how to do this, see Managing Lists: List Settings.
You can add or remove multiple addresses at one time by using the List Importing wizard. To access this feature, select "Manage Subscribers – Import List Wizard" from the drop-down menu.
Figure 3‑2
The import list wizard supports both Microsoft Excel .xls and plain text (.txt, .csv) files containing the email addresses and optional profiling information you would like to add or remove. If you are using a plain text file each address in the file should be separated by a comma, tab, tilda (~), bar ( | ), double bar (||), or a line break. Optionally you if you are using a plain text file you may compress the file before upload using either the zip or rar compression methods.
To upload your file to LBGIE, click the "Browse…"button and locate the file containing the addresses. To select the file, double-click the file name or click on it once to highlight it and then click the "Open" button.
Figure 3‑3
Next, select the proper radio button to indicate whether you would like to "Add Subscribers"(if you are only adding subscribers and have no profiling information to add),"Add Subscribers And Profile Data"(If you have a profile set up in the profiling system and have the profiling information in your file) or "Remove Subscribers" to delete the subscribers whose email addresses appear in the text file.
If you selected the "Add Subscribers" or "Remove Subscribers" option, click the "Import List" button to complete the importing process. You will see a small window open that will indicate that your file is being uploaded. Once this window closes, LBGIE will proceed with the addition or deletion of subscribers. Do not be concerned if you do not immediately see any changes in your list size. This process may take a few minutes to complete, but during this time you can continue working with your lists as usual.
If you selected the "Add Subscribers And Profile Data" option, click the "Go To Step 2"button. You will have a number of options on the following page they will normally auto sense your files needs. To manually override them choose what column separator you used in the file (tab, comma, etc.) and what to do if a subscriber is already on your list. If you have the column headers in your file then choose yes to the question "Does the first line of this file contain column names?" You will then need to assign a profile attribute from the drop down for each column in your file. You can also declare a default value for each column. When finished, click "Go To Step 3".
On the next page you will be given the option to confirm the layout. If everything looks ok, click the "Import List" button to complete the importing process. You will see a small window open (Figure 3-4) that will indicate that your file is being uploaded.
Figure 3‑4
Once this window closes, LBGIE™ will proceed with the addition or deletion of subscribers. Do not be concerned if you do not immediately see any changes in your list size. This process may take a few minutes to complete, but during this time you can continue working with your lists as usual.
This option will allow you to create a text file containing all subscribers' email addresses. To do this, select " Subscribers – Export List Wizard" from the drop-down menu. Click the "Export List" button to start the Export Wizard. The first screen will look similar to Figure 3-5:
Figure 3‑5
Highlight the lists you would like to export, by selecting the checkbox beside each list. Once you have selected one or more lists to export, click on "Go To Step 2.” If any of the lists you selected include profiling information, you will see the form shown in Figure 3-6:
Figure 3‑6
Here you can decide if you want to have the profiling data included in the text file. If so, you will probably want LBGIE™ to create a heading for each column of the text file to help you identify the data by field. You can also select the delimiter that will be inserted between each of the columns. Figure 3-7 shows an example of how the data might appear in a bar-delimited text file that includes profile settings and a header row:
Figure 3‑7
Although it appears as though the data and headers do not line up, you can see that the items in each row are separated by the selected delimiter. This means that the data can be easily sorted by any application able to open delimited files. For example, Figure 3-8 shows how this same data appears when opened with Microsoft Excel:
Figure 3‑8
After clicking "Go To Step 3," or if none of your selected lists include profiling information, the next screen you see will contain the form shown in Figure 3-9:
Figure 3‑9
Here you have the option to either download one “.zip” file containing the text file(s) directly from LBGIE™, or have the text file(s) emailed to the address you enter into the text box. After choosing the desired option, click the "Finish Export" button to go to the final step.
NOTE: When the page loads, the “to” email address box will contain your address, but you may change this to whatever you like.
If you chose to have the file(s) emailed, the final page will simply be a confirmation stating where the data was sent. An email will soon arrive at that address with the exported file(s) attached.
If you chose to download the data from the web, the final step in the export wizard will look like Figure 3-10:
Figure 3‑10
When LBGIE™ has finished exporting the data, the “loading” page will change to that shown in Figure 3-11:
Figure 3‑11
In the event that the “File Download” window does not appear on its own, click the “Start File Download” button.
Figure 3‑12
In the download window (Figure 3-12), select "Save the file to disk," then click the "OK" button.
Figure 3‑13
You may then navigate to where you would like to save the file (Figure 3-13) and click the "Save" button. If the download window does not automatically close once the file has been saved, click the "Cancel" button.
Note: Saved files will have a ”.zip" extension. You will need to have WinZip or a similar tool installed on your computer to extract the files.
Figure 3‑14
You can view all of a list's subscribers by selecting "Manage Subscribers - View – View Subscribers" from the drop-down menu or by clicking on the "View Subscribers" button at the bottom of the Add/Delete Subscribers page. By default, subscribers will be listed in alphabetical order by email address. (Figure 3-14) If you have more subscribers on your list than will fit on one page, you will see the links shown in Figure 3-15:
Figure 3‑15
Clicking one these will allow you to quickly jump to addresses beginning with that letter.
In addition to viewing subscribers alphabetically by email address, you can also view subscribers alphabetically by email server. With this method, you can group all subscribers with "aol.com,” "excite.com,” etc. in their email address. These groups will then be arranged alphabetically. To toggle between sorting by email address and email server, click the "Order by Email" and "Order by Server" buttons at the top of the page.
To remove an individual address, click the trash can icon to its left. This will delete the address from the list of subscribers and place it into the list of unsubscribers.
If you are using a profiling-enabled account, when viewing a list of subscribers you will notice that the email addresses appear as links (Figure 3-14). Clicking on an email address will open a new window containing all stored profiling data for that person. You can then add to or modify the subscriber's profiling information. Click the "Submit Profile" button to save your changes.
Figure 3‑16
Note: Addresses will appear as links only if you have a profiling-enabled account.
Figure 3‑17
You can view all of a list's unsubscribers by selecting "Manage Subscribers - View – View Unsubscribers" from the drop-down menu or by clicking on the "View Unsubscribers" button at the bottom of the Add/Delete Subscribers page. By default, unsubscribers will be listed in alphabetical order by email address. If you have more unsubscribers on your list than will fit on one page, you will see the links shown in Figure 3-18:
Figure 3‑18
Clicking one these will allow you to quickly jump to addresses beginning with that letter.
In addition to viewing unsubscribers alphabetically by email address, you can also view unsubscribers alphabetically by email server. With this method, you can group all unsubscribers with "aol.com,” "excite.com,” etc. in their email address. These groups will then be arranged alphabetically. To toggle between sorting by email address and email server, click the "Order by Email" and "Order by Server" buttons at the top of the page.
To restore an individual address, click the “undo” icon to its left. This will delete the address from the list of unsubscribers and place it into the list of subscribers.
You can view a graph of a list's subscribers/unsubscribers by selecting "Manage Subscribers - View – View Subscriber Graphs" from the drop-down menu or by clicking on the "Subscriber Graph" button at the bottom of the Add/Delete Subscribers page. These graphs will allow you to see both the number of currently subscribed vs. unsubscribed addresses, as well as the number of people who subscribed vs. the number who unsubscribed during any given month.
To graph a particular time period, simply choose a month and year from the drop-down boxes and click the "Refresh" button.
Figure 3‑19
Here you can quickly check to see if an individual email address exists on your list of subscribers. Enter the email address to search for in the text box. If you are unsure of the exact address, you can enter only the portion you are sure of. This will return all email addresses that contain the portion you entered.
Below the text box are two radio buttons. These allow you to specify if you'd like to search only the currently selected list, or all of your lists for the address.
When the search is complete, all results will appear below the search form. For example, a search for "fry" may result in the list shown in Figure 3-21:
Figure 3‑20
You can
click the trashcan to the left of an address to delete the address from the
list to its right. If your account is
profiling-enabled, each email address will appear as a link. Click an address to view or modify that
individual's profiling information.
This feature gives LBGIE administrators the ability to change an email address by specifying the current email address and the new email address. You have the option of changing an email address for the current selected list or all of your lists.
Figure 3‑22
Here you can permanently ban an email address from one of your lists or all of your lists. Enter the e-mail address to ban, choose from selected list or all of your lists and enter a note on the reason for the ban. This address will permanently been removed and will not be able to be added to a list again.