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mailchimp
Inigo
Inigo

Reputation: 8685

Mailchimp: re-confirm subscribers with a one-click button

I have been sent an example of a mailchimp HTML email which allows users to re-express their wish to stay on a mailing list. It just contains a brief message and one big button "Opt In" which users simply have to click once. The code of the button is as follows:

    <img src=3D"https://somewebsite.us6.list-manage.com/track/open.php?u=3D=e57uw79a33&amp;id=3Dhs7de4d771&amp;e=3D936b9800f2" height=3D"1" width=3D"1">

(Obviously I've changed the URL and ID parameters for security). I'm trying to work out how the sender has done this. I'm not clear whether the result of hitting this button moves the subscriber onto a new list, flags them in some way, or removes subscribers that haven't clicked the button after some time limit- but any of those would suit our needs.

After a long time searching the net and options within Mailchimp, I still can't work out how to do this?

The most relevant article I can find about "Reconfirming a list" is this, but it seems a very roundabout way of doing it, plus the example email I have received appears to have been sent with Mailchimp which goes against what the article says, PLUS the article's instructions is to provide a link to a signup form rather than an embedded one-click button within the email itself, which is what I want.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2816

Answers (2)

murb
murb

Reputation: 1860

A way to track the reconfirmations of your mailing within mailchimp:

  1. Create a new campaign for your old list. Add a button 'Yes I want to continue to be on this list' and 'No thanks, remove me from the list'. The buttons should point to two different urls that undisputedly match the intent (e.g. example.com/stay-on-list or example.com/unsubscribe); prepare them on your website with whatever message you want to give them.
  2. Send the mail; Mailchimp will track the links clicked for every user (this is by default, check your settings if you might have changed this) (this is actually why I hate to be on mailchimp, but for today it's convenient).
  3. Wait a few days (or just before you want to send your next mailing)
  4. Go to 'Reports' and click on your latest campaign
  5. Click on the numbers clicked link and then do for the 'continue' link: Download the list as CSV; upload this CSV to a new list which is now 'cleaned'
  6. For the 'unsubscribe' button; download the list, open it in your spreadsheet program (Excel, LO Sheet), grab the e-mailadresses and unsubscribe them manually from old list.

You now have two lists: one cleaned with properly confirmed addresses and one with members you're not sure of. You could try again with your next mailing but at a certain point you probably have to discard your old list (actually, EU-focussed organizations already should've already discarded these lists, but if you're a small org you might get away with it (AT YOUR OWN RISK: THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVISE)).

But you may want some additional proof, because you don't have a list of who clicked what when. The risk is that someone someday might dispute his or her intent to be subscribed to your list. And the user dump you made from people who clicked on a link isn't really giving you much information that you can use and say, well at that day you did click on Subscribe. To the rescue is the MailChimp data dump (Click Username > Account > Settings > Manage my data), which actually gives you quite a simple table of timestamps, links and emailadresses. Will this hold in court? I really don't have a clue, it is easy to fake (it would've been better with ip-addresses etc), but at least it gives you some track record. Note that the data in mailchimp itself is not hard to fake, but maybe one day this data is gone, hence keep the MailChimp data dump.

(btw. before you do all this, maybe clean up your list beforehand: https://mailchimp.com/help/remove-inactive-subscribers/)

Upvotes: 1

TheEntrShack
TheEntrShack

Reputation: 1

Actually, I quit mailchimp in favor of MailingBoss, but I believe AWeber also does this... they have what's called a "capture email" that is unique to each list... if you connect a button to it by using "mailto" link ... then it opens the users default email client and pre-populates their main email in it. Once they send that email to your capture email, it ads their email to your list. Pretty sweet stuff for mobile users. Here's a vid on it

I couldn't figure out how to achieve this with MailChimp ...but in regards to the technique you want to use, after reading the MailChimp documentation I believe that the person likely achieved it by simply using segmentation... anyone that clicked the button was segmented and then perhaps only that segment was sent their follow up emails or maybe even the the segment that didn't click the link was manually unsubscribed on the back end...

Upvotes: 0

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