My $0.02 about the top 10 list of things to add/improve

[terriz]

First--what a great script. And Dean is great about working with this community to keep improving things.

Here's my top 5 list of things I'm looking for next/soon, in priority order:
1. A way to track emails delivered and/or opened
2. Ability for user to manage their subscriptions (check/uncheck the boxes for the lists they want to be on)
3. Export link tracking data to an Excel file.
4. As mentioned above, ability to add followups between existing followups without getting existing users out of sync
5. Also as mentioned above, improvements to eliminate the manual kickstart if something gets stuck while sending (about once a month, we somehow end up sending multiple copies to folks because of this)

[DW]

Thanks for the great suggestions.  I can tell you that better recovery options are coming very soon.  I also plan on making improvements to followup editing, adding and deleting very soon.

I split your post from this one so I don't overlook your other requests.

Regards

[Kino]

Dean, just sent a message using v1.85 and it worked like a charm. Thanks again.

Okay, I've been using LM Pro for quite a while, and those who I serve with the program are expecting more information and reporting from our email blasts.

What I could use in LM Pro is mail reports.

I have a separate bounce email address which fills up with a bunch of different messages:
- address does not exist
- inbox full
- spam detection service, authorization/reply required
- domain does not exist

After an email blast I'd like a report (linked off the Sent Messages page) that simply tells me the following:

- How many messages sent
- How many messages bounced
- How many (Sent minus bounced) "delivered" messages
- Unsubscribes (if any) and a list of the unsubscriber names

Ideally, it would be good for a report to list the addresses that bounced and their reason for bouncing (i.e. code 550 'user unknown' or something simple like that). This gives us the opportunity to follow-up with users who may have been unintentionally dropped off the list by an email change.

Assuming that some kind of verification that the email was opened (track a 1px gif?) then an "opened/not opened" ratio would be nice to have, even though it's not the most reliable data.

This set of stats would be greatly helpful in using your program.

Thanks!

K

[DW]

In order to correctly read remote/receiving mail server responses, to see errors such as "550 Unknown", "550 blocked due to spam", etc. ListMail would essentially need to be its own SMTP server.  It would use 'socket' connections to connect to each receiving server and send email.

I am not sure if it is a good idea to reinvent this wheel for general sending.. I probably couldn't write anything more efficient than the current mailers out there.

We may still be able to take advantage of these very useful error messages.  We could simply connect to the receiving server and check for the error without sending a message...  This checking could be done on signup, import, email modification, or even more often if desired.

The error messages could be collected and you might "teach" ListMail what to do with certain messages.  This sounds great with the only problem being the efficiency of the process on large imports or if we choose to check a user on-the-fly at the time of queuing messages to the server.

Great ideas

[Kino]

Just re-thinking this request somewhat...

Short of getting this kind of "detailed" reporting (i.e. why an email bounced) could the bounce.cgi script for example just generate a list of bounces so you get a statistic?

For example, you start with a new imported list of 1000 emails...you send a message and 200 bounce back. You then get a report that says that 1000 (100%) sent, 200 (20%) bounced, 800 (80%) delivered. You also get a list of 5 unsubscribes and their names. This kind of reporting is useful because you don't have to pour through the bouncebacks to know these numbers.

To make it one better would be to get that list of 200 bounced emails (i.e. messageid-bounced.txt) as a single log file, so we can review the addresses for possible typos or outdated addresses.

As for why they bounced, maybe that's not as necessary to have as a "report". Searching through multiple bounceback emails (provided you have an account set up to handle bouncebacks) to find "joe@smith.com" and the reason for the bounce is not that hard.

In short, the most useful info is how many sent, how many bounced, who didn't receive, who quit the list, etc. That way you can immediately judge whether your message was effective.

Merry Christmas!

[listmailmanager]

Will the ability to track which users opened an HTML message be incorporated into any upcoming version of ListMail?

Thanks!

[DW]

Yes, I am considering it, although this type of tracking is generally quite unreliable.  Check out this forum post if you haven't already.

Regards

[terriz]

Despite the potential unreliability issues, I'd still like to see this feature very soon...hence it's position at the top of my list at the beginning of this thread!

Email services offer this feature regularly and reliably (from what I hear)...how do they implement it???

Terri Z
www.solo-e.com

[gluntz]

I agree!  Tracking opens is the number one priority for me.  Without that, we have no reliable way of knowing how the emails are performing.  

The first ghint you want to be able to track is how well you are grabbing the reader's attention.  The only stat that counts is the open stat.  And I would love to be able to do split testing (2 or 3 emails all going out with different subject lines), figure out the best subject line, then use that for my full blast.

I know most email services track reliably, so I cannot figure out why it would not be a relaible number. DW - can you explain?

Also, what about text email opens?  Any way to track that?

We can track clicks and conversions using our own tracking codes, as we do. However, knwling the opens tells us a whole lote more!

Thanks,

George

[DW]

The unreliability lies in the fact that text-only readers cannot be tracked and some email providers and users, at their discretion, block access to remote HTML images or even all HTML email.  It is my belief that more and more people and providers are blocking remote HTML because it can be used by spammers to verify email addresses.

On a plus note, we might track clicks through to "Link to HTML" message codes as "opened HTML emails" so that text-based readers can click through, view a personalized HTML page/message, and be tracked.

Regardless of the drawbacks this feature seems to be a favourite and I can see it's value - I'll make sure it's one of the next ones I implement.

Regards

[terriz]

Regardless of the drawbacks this feature seems to be a favourite and I can see it's value - I'll make sure it's one of the next ones I implement.

Yippee! I can't wait.

Seriously -- even if there are reliability problems at first, it will be more info than I have now. And once the feature is in there, I am sure we will all figure out ways to improve the reliability as time goes on!

Terri Z
www.Solo-E.com

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi,

As you know by my previous posting I don't believe there is any value in this - I believe it's those that are naive that think they can get accurate 'Open Rates', here's the problems that I have VERIFIED with almost 10 years of business on the internet:
-------------------------------------------
1.) It's not possible without a .gif file
2.) Many mailers will block html messages that have .gif files in them - reducing your deliverability rate.
3.) You can NOT rely on the 'Open Rate' numbers since many people may trigger the 'open' .gif file by just clicking on the mail and not really 'opening it'.

Also you say DW that:

Regardless of the drawbacks this feature seems to be a favourite and I can see it's value

 HOW do you know this is a 'favorite'?  Have you polled your users to find out?  I believe it may be a favorite among those who have not been in business long and purchase LMP trying to increase their sales!  Are you better serving these people by bending to their request to put in features such as this, OR would you better serve them by explaining again that it's NOT a principle that applies to Mailing in general?  

And if you are one of those marketers (such as Terriz), look at all the Email you get from the Marketing Gurus, is it all HTML email?  Many of these marketers you see will not and do not send HTML email - so as you see - they do NOT track their open rates!

DW, if you must really put this feature in, PLEASE, Please, please make this an OPTION in the Configuration screen so that people like me can turn it OFF!

If you want Open Rate information and other stats check out this page at Email Labs:
http://www.emaillabs.com/resources_statistics.html

[terriz]

webshaman,

Just because you don't see the value doesn't mean others don't. This feature has certainly been mentioned many times on these forums.
That said, making it optional in LMP is certainly wise.

I do get email from the "marketing gurus" and some use text, others use html. Everyone has a different strategy. There are actually quite a bit of differing opinions on html vs. text. I could point you to other sites that show that html is preferred. Although I don't profess to be an expert, I do believe each is appropriate for different purposes, different audiences, etc.

Bottom line, I don't really need "accurate" open rates. I need to know trends. If I change something in my ezine, how does that affect open rates? Do I suddenly see a 50% drop in my open rates (perhaps pointing to my IP being blocked by a major ISP?)

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi Terriz,

Just today I see this from Debbie Weil (a well respected marketer and publisher of WordBiz Report):

1. Your most important metrics

Surprise. It's not your open rate. Email clients are so good at blocking HTML these days, your opens may not be registering. (I.e. your readers may have "view images" turned off.) Focus instead on click-throughs and on your conversion rate. Look for patterns and long-term trends. And feel comforted in knowing that conversion rates (i.e. conversion to a direct sale) higher than 3% are rare.

So there you have it, one of the most respected marketers telling you the Open Rate is not a good measure (in fact is not measurable)...  For more info see this link: http://www.debbieweil.com/archives/2006/01/26/5_keys_to_effective_email_marketing_in_2006/index.php

I don't mind if it's included, only that those of us who can recognize that it is not useful have a way of TURNING IT OFF!  

[terriz]

Lots of 'most respected marketers' have lots of different opinions on this. I could point you at other opinions but I'm not here to debate you!

And I don't think anyone is suggesting Dean not make the tracking feature able to be turned off (see my post above to that effect)