Blog

News, tips and all things Campaign Monitor

Web Directions South tomorrow

Posted by Mathew Patterson on May 15, 2008

Just a reminder that I'll be speaking at Web Directions South: User Experience tomorrow at Melbourne Town Hall.

I'll be talking about how we can create a great user experience for email, and during the session I will be mentioning the following items:

Bunnings Warehouse
Gordon Ramsay
Underpants

That's something to look forward to! If you are going to be attending, then make sure you come and find me at some point during the day! I'll even have a few t-shirts to give away.

We're always keen to hear your feedback and suggestions about Campaign Monitor. You can follow mrpatto on Twitter to find out what I'm up to during the day (and Twitter @CampaignMonitor to give feedback any time).

Posted in Observations & Answers0 comments so far

Design and spam testing price drops to $5 per test

Posted by Mathew Patterson on May 13, 2008

Design and spam test screenshot with new $5 price tag

Since we first launched our design and spam testing tool in October of last year, you have collectively run many thousands of tests, and you've told us you loved the tool.

Since that first launch, we have added the 'fold' line, and extended the tests to cover mobile email clients.

In fact, you've told us it is so valuable that you'd love to use it even more. The huge uptake means we've been able to take advantage of scale and cut the price in half!

From right now, each paid test will cost just $5, reduced from $10. That may make it possible for you to run more tests per campaign, or just make the existing testing charges you pass on to your client more profitable.

We've got more improvements planned for the testing tool, so keep an eye on the blog for future updates. For now though, enjoy the cheaper testing! We look forward to seeing some truly excellent campaigns going out.

Posted in New Features & Updates16 comments so far

Email design inspiration time

Posted by Travis Bell on May 12, 2008

The collection of great gallery entries continues to grow! If you're having design block, consider browsing through the gallery for ideas and inspiration.

Subscribe to the email design gallery's RSS feed to see them all.

Posted in Email Newsletter Design2 comments so far

New feature: Send campaigns via the API

Posted by Mathew Patterson on May 9, 2008

This is an update that has been requested quite a lot since we first introduced the Campaign Monitor API, and it is finally here: The ability to both create and send campaigns completely through the API.

That means that if you have the development skills available, you can completely integrate Campaign Monitor into your existing applications, and have no need to login to the Campaign Monitor website to send emails.

We've added two new methods: Campaign.Create and Campaign.Send, which are both now included in the API documentation.

All you need to do is make sure that your account has a payment card setup, or sufficient credits, and the campaign will be sent. After that, it will appear in your reports just like your other campaigns.

We're looking forward to hearing about the cool ways all you guys and girls will make use of this new functionality, so make sure you let us know! Over in the Campaign Monitor forums there's already been a little bit of discussion of the API updates. The API developer forum is an excellent place to ask questions and post about your ideas and plans.

We're also working with some Campaign Monitor customers on creating an all new PHP wrapper for the API, to make it even easier to get started. Watch out for some news on this over the next few weeks. Check out the existing API samples in the mean time.

Again, thanks to everybody who has variously suggested, requested, demanded and pleaded for this feature!

Posted in New Features & Updates4 comments so far

New feature: Let your subscribers manage their own email preferences

Posted by Mathew Patterson on May 8, 2008

Have you ever had one of your subscribers change their email address, and ask you to update it for them? In the past, they either had to get you to do it, or unsubscribe themselves and resubscribe.

Or have you had subscribers who are happy to hear about your toy store's new soft toy range, but are not at all interested in your BMX bikes? You don't want them to have to unsubscribe totally, right?

That's why we've launched a new feature for all Campaign Monitor users today, which we call the Subscriber Preference Center. The idea is to give your subscribers more fine grained control over the information you store about them, including their name, email address, and custom field values.

By adding a simple tag to your HTML and plain text, you can create a link to a preference page pre-filled with the subscribers existing details. They can change their details, add or remove subscriptions or unsubscribe completely, all without contacting you.

Here's an example we've created, just for demonstration purposes. Imagine that Twitter offered a variety of different newsletters - their preference center could look like this:

Giving your subscribers this kind of control doesn't only mean less work for you; it can reduce the amount of subscribers who completely unsubscribe, by letting them opt out of just a part of your emails. They might also feel more confident knowing they can check exactly what they are subscribed to at any time.

To find out how you can setup these kind of 'interest' sub-lists for your clients, check out the full Preference Center help.

How to get started with a Subscriber Preference Center

It's easy - all you need to include a link in your campaigns to the preference center is a simple tag:

<preferences>this will be a link</preferences>

and

[preferences] for plain text

That's it. You can also jump into your 'Manage Clients' section and on each client's page you'll see the "Preference Center customization" link. That's where you can change the background color, text colors and add a logo.

There's plenty you can do to make good use of preference centers, and for more ideas and details check out the help topic. Thanks to everyone who has requested this feature, we hope you find it helpful!

Posted in New Features & Updates6 comments so far

"The best email solution I can find!"

Posted by Mathew Patterson on May 6, 2008

You guys are really a great company. I enjoy the warm personality of your brand, the ease of your interface, and the control that you give designers in creating campaigns. Thank you so much for the best email solution I can find!

Geoffrey Graham, Punctuate!