If this sounds like a bad idea to you, then it’s because it is.   If you are a new email marketer this may sound like a good idea to you.   Building a list of subscribers takes time and you found someone that’s promising you quick results by selling you entire lists of emails addresses from people that were already “targeted”, “verified”,  “opted- in”,  and “cleansed.”

Stop.  Just think about what you are doing.

You’re getting a whole bunch of email addresses, from people that never gave you permission to have them in the first place, so that you can send mailings that they never asked for.    How is that different from spam?   Not only are you wasting money on bad prospects but you are setting yourself up for nothing but trouble.

Here are some consequences you are likely to face:

• You will receive complaints to your ISP which will result in your company being disconnected.
• You will find yourself blacklisted and no ISP will want you as a customer.
• You will be prosecuted as there are laws against this here in the US and many places abroad.
• Your reputation as a company will suffer and no one will want to buy what you are selling.
• No one will take your mailing seriously,  it will go straight in the trash, where it will never be read
• Most of your emails will bounce causing mail server congestion and your ISP will fire you.

Don’t fall into a “spam trap” by responding to an unsolicited email from so called “list brokers” claiming to offer you targeted lists of subscribers.   These emails were either purchased from spammers or collected using harvesting programs that scan sites for email addresses so they can be dumped in a database.

To combat this some sites bury email addresses in their source code so that they are picked up by harvesting programs.  The company where the email originated is then alerted to any incoming emails that go to that address at which time they contact your web host and file a spam complaint.   This leaves you not only subject to being cut off by your hosting provider but it also leaves you open to prosecution.

You can purchase an email list from either buying or renting.   When you rent an email address you are not given the email address and your mailing is sent on behalf of you.    When you buy a list you receive subscriber details, etc.   You’re more likely to find a reputable rental service that does not offer subscriber details than you are to purchase a list of email addresses that you can use to send out your own mailings.  Companies that sell subscriber details should be approached with extreme caution.

If you do purchase then you will have to ensure that your mailing does not contain the following:

• False or misleading header information
• Deceptive subject lines
• Your mailing has an opt-out method
• Your commercial mailing is identified as an advertisement and has the sender’s physical postal address

If you do a paid subscriber list and have ensured that your mailing is compliant with local laws governing unsolicited mailings be sure to tweak your expectations.    You can’t expect much from people that have not opted-in to your list and may have never heard of you.   Adjust your expectations accordingly.   Its better to take the long view and collect your mailings through subscription forms and  opt-in email confirmations.    Your list will take some time to grow, but by ensuring the integrity of your list,  your list will be worth a whole lot more.

We recently release 2 new free email templates and 1 new premium (paid) email template.

Click here to view the email templates…

In general you can expect about 10% of your mailings are going to be reported as bounces. If your bounce rates are considerably higher than this then there are a few things you may want to look at. It could be that your mail server is rejecting mailings from being sent due to the content in your messages or you have been blacklisted. Another explanation for why your bounce rates may be high is that the mail server you are using is either temporarily down or it is unreachable. High bounce rates impact your campaign not only because the sender’s reputation suffers but the delivery rate to valid email addresses is slowed. For this reason it is very important to keep your subscriber lists clean.

Bounces generally fall into one of two categories, hard bounces and soft bounces. What is typically referred to as a hard bounce is a mailing that was returned by a recipient mail server. This could be because the address is either invalid or the domain name doesn’t exist or is not recognized.

Examples of hard bounces which are defined by bounce codes in 1-2-All Email Marketing include:

5.0.0 - Hard - Address does not exist
5.1.1 - Hard - Bad destination mailbox address
5.1.6 - Hard - Mailbox has moved
5.1.7 - Hard - Bad sender’s mailbox address syntax
5.1.8 – Hard - Bad sender’s system address
5.3.2 Hard System not accepting network messages
5.2.3 Hard Message length exceeds administrative limit

In general a soft bounce is returned because of a temporary problem having to do with the email address or the recipient’s email server. For example, even if the email address you are sending to is valid the message could still bounce if the recipient’s mailbox is full.

Examples of soft bounces which are defined by bounce codes in 1-2-All Email Marketing include:

5.2.0 Soft Other or undefined mailbox status
5.3.1 Soft Mail system full
5.5.3 Soft Too many recipients

You can reduce the number of bounces in your lists by including unsubscription links in your mailings, you can have 1-2-All add an unsubscribe link to your mailings automatically or through a personalization tag. Another thing you can do is add an update profile link to your mailing, 1-2-All includes an update your profile personalization tag which you can also easily insert into your mailing. Another way to decrease bounces is to have addresses removed through setting up bounce management. In 1-2-All you can set up a cron job, cron_bounce.php that will cycle through your list and remove hard and soft bounces after a set number of times. Unless you set up this cron job you will need to manually run the bounce check until 12all cycles through all your mailings and removes addresses after they bounce a set number of times. Bounces will not show up in statistics unless bounce management is set up using a POP account for bounces and if no bounce management is selected all bounces will be sent to the From sender’s address.

Another good idea is to include custom fields for phone or address so that you can use the phone or mail to update the address of those subscribers that bounce.

Do you have an interesting experience with an ActiveCampaign product/solution?  Would you like to share how you use one or more of our products as part of your business?

We are gathering case study participants in order to promote the practical benefits of our product offerings as well as  illuminate their application in a variety of contexts and settings.  Case studies provide an invaluable measure of the strength and benefits of our product offerings. More importantly, we want to know who our clients are so that we can build around their goals in the future.  As a valued client, your participation is greatly appreciated.

Click here to fill out our case study form

KnowledgeBuilder includes a powerful user / user group system for managing users. It also allows you to connect any number of external login sources into the software in a seamless and efficient manner. You are able to connect to any external sources by using one of our preset login sources or creating your own. Connect to external databases (MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Etc…), any Active Directory / LDAP source, or literally any other source by using custom login source files.

Active Directory / LDAP Integration…

With your purchase of any KnowledgeBuilder license you are able to integrate with Active Directory/LDAP. Simply go to the “login sources” page and enable the LDAP login source. You can then choose the user group that should be used for your LDAP users.

Various other login sources available…

By default we include a set of login sources that can be used (without any code changes) that include: External ActiveCampaign Products, vBulletin, Active Directory / LDAP. You can also easily create your own login source.

Create your own custom login source(s)…

While we do include some popular login source files, some users may need to use a login source that we do not have a login source file for yet. The process of adding new/custom login source files is quite simple and quick. Often it only takes about 10 lines of code! We have an easy-to-follow tutorial to guide you through the process. And if you have any questions you can contact support and we will be glad to assist you.

Set the order and permissions of each source…

You can have multiple login sources enabled. Thus you can have it check LDAP first, then an external database, and then the local user system. The order is entirely up to you! You can also set the user group(s) for each login source. This allows you to set detailed permissions for each login source.

We just released a couple of new free email templates for download.   These templates can be used in 1-2-All (or any email marketing application) to help you with your email marketing campaigns.

If you are looking for a more advanced email template be sure to checkout our premium email templates or our premium email template bundle.

Click here to view the new free email templates

We recently expanding our set of services that we offer to now include:

• Templates / Styles / Branding Customizations
• Custom Product Features
• Custom Email Template Design
• Data Integration / Data Importing Services

Learn more and request your free quote here.

Are you looking to have your own custom email template for your email campaigns? Our template customization services are here to assist you with that. We can create a appealing email template and ensure that it will work in the majority of email clients!

Click here to request a free quote!

There are some exciting changes occurring at ActiveCampaign. We have a number of new updates in the works, KnowledgeBuilder 3.0 is about to be released into beta testing, and we are making some changes in the way you are able to customize all ActiveCampaign products.

The ability to customize ActiveCampaign products is of great concern to us. Customizing sections of the software can be crucial for the product to fit a specific use or direction. Throughout the years we have increased options such as easy branding settings, smarty templates, central language files, a selection of unencoded files, and more. And now….

All future major updates of ActiveCampaign products will be 99% unencoded.

You will be able to modify each and every part of our product. The less than 1% of files that will be encoded only takes care of installing, upgrading, and general licensing. The need for Zend or Ioncube support will remain - but it will not hinder your customization efforts.

We hope this will assist our clients who need custom solutions and are excited to start releasing the major updates of all products with the new 99% unencoded format.

P.S. The first product to be released 99% unencoded will be KnowledgeBuilder 3.0

The Mambo foundation is a volunteer, non-profit organization charged with the governance of the Mambo open source content management system.  Mambo is free software released under the GNU/General Public license and like all such projects, dealing with emails and organizational issues takes valuable time away from software development.   They use SupportTrio to manage both time and resources more effectively.

Mambo developers must work in collaboration from many different locations which makes email key to their communication.   “Email is the key communication tool. The Mambo development team and the members of the Board of the Mambo Foundation are geographically distributed and work in a virtual, online environment.  All email that is not addressed to individuals is managed through the help desk.”  Directing email traffic through a central ticketing system allows multiple members to work together on the same issue if it is not specifically addressed to a particular individual.

Mambo foundation uses the knowledgebase in SupportTrio  to provide a central location for corporate documents that require routine turn over.  “For the management of Board affairs SupportTrio has proven to be an ideal solution.  Previously, corporate documents were kept by officers of the Foundation and handed over to new officers following our annual elections of the Board. This meant that record keeping relied on the diligence of the individuals who handled those documents. SupportTrio is used as a central repository and archive. By keeping all documents in the knowledgebase and keeping emails we now have accurate corporate records that are available to future Board members. This gives us confidence that we can not only meet our statutory obligations but also that institutional knowledge is retained for the future - two things that are extremely important and sometimes difficult to achieve in a volunteer environment.”     This improves efficiency and allows accountability that would otherwise be difficult to maintain.

“Volunteer, free software projects tend to have a reasonably high turnover in personnel. People work when they can, in their spare time, and often find it hard to commit their time in advance. By having a central document repository and by handling all email through the ticketing system it does not matter who is around and when. People can come into new roles and read what has happened previously and people can take leave for a few months while knowing that others can step in and take over handling of the enquiries.

“In the past, individuals took responsibility for one or more email accounts. There was no way the rest of the team could be certain that emails were being responded to in a timely manner and no way the team or Board could be certain it was receiving all information. By collecting all emails within the help desk the groups collectively have access to each email and the responses. This has made us more accountable and has improved our responsiveness to enquiries.

“Prior to installing SupportTrio we also had issues due to the distributed, virtual team environment we work in. Team and Board members are located all over the world and not everyone has reliable internet connections. Some countries have high fees for bandwidth. This resulted in some Board members being reluctant to take on responsibility for handling email enquiries due to costs - especially as a lot of the email is spam. By using the helpdesk nobody needs to worry about the costs because email goes into the ticket system and is not downloaded to individual’s computers. If someone’s internet connection is down for awhile this is not a problem - responding is a collective responsibility and no longer a burden put on individuals.

“The Mambo Foundation has used SupportTrio for nine months now. The improvements in our responsiveness and productivity have been significant. Best of all, we now have more time to devote to developing the software.”

SupportTrio provides a central framework to allow Mambo Foundation address the challenge of working in an environment that requires the collaboration of volunteers working in different locations.  It also provides a means for maintaining efficiency and accountability in an environment that necessitates a high turnover rate.

Click here for more information about SupportTrio