Email Marketing
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      1. Accrisoft Freedom Knowledgebase
      2. Marketing
      3. Email Marketing

      Understanding the Email Marketing Module 

      To understand the purpose, components, and core functions of the Email Marketing Module. 

      1. What is the Email Marketing Module?

      The Email Marketing Module is the tool within your Freedom website that allows you to create and send email campaigns (e.g., newsletters, announcements, promotions) to your contacts. It handles the design, sending, and tracking of these emails.

      2. Key Components of the Module

      The module is organized into several tabs:

      • Campaigns: Where you create, edit, and send new email campaigns.

      • Categories: The topics or lists for your emails (e.g., "General," "Events," "News"). Contacts can opt-in or opt-out of these categories.

      • Subscribers: A master list of all email addresses and their subscription status for each category.

      • Lists: Subscriber Lists of recipient email addresses. Freedom automatically creates an opt-out list for each campaign you send. Important: Do not select an "opt-out" list for a new campaign, as it will not send to those addresses.

      • History: A log of all sent campaigns. This is where you view reports.

      3. Creating and Sending a Campaign

      When you create a new campaign, you will define several key elements:

      • Subject Line & Content: The text and HTML of your email. This is where you can include the merge tags for unsubscribing.

      • Distribution List: This is where you select who could receive the email. You can choose from pre-built Report Views that pull groups of contacts from various modules, including the contact database, forms, groups, member dues, and imported or created subscriber lists.

      • Category (The Most Important Setting): You must assign a category (e.g., "General") to every campaign. 

        • This category determines who on your Distribution List will actually receive the email. The system checks each contact's individual subscription status for the chosen category.

        • Example: The "Active Members" Report View located in the Member Dues module has 1,000 contacts. You want to send a campaign with the "General" category to these records.

          • 950 records have not opted out of "General" emails. They will receive the campaign.

          • Records 951-1000 have previously opted out of the "General" category. They will be excluded from the send. The system will show them in the "opt-out" count before you send.

      • Unsubscribe Links: The category you choose also determines which category the [[unsubscribe_url]] link will remove the recipient from upon clicking.

      4. Critical Post-Send Step: Capturing Statistics

      To see who opened your email, what links they clicked, and if any emails bounced, you must manually capture this data.

      1. Go to the History tab.

      2. Within 10 days of sending the campaign, click the eyeball icon (View) next to the sent campaign.

      3. Click the Email List tab.

      4. Click the Run Update button and confirm.

      5. The system will now import and display the open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates for that campaign.

      Why it matters: If you do not complete this step within 10 days, this valuable data is permanently lost.

      5. Maintaining Sender Health

      • Bounce Rate: Aim to keep your campaign bounce rate below 5%. A high bounce rate can damage your domain's reputation and land your future emails in spam folders. You can only see the bounce rate by completing the "Run Update" step after sending.

      • Understanding Dynamic Opt-Out Lists: After a campaign is sent, a corresponding Subscriber List is automatically created for it. These lists can be found in the Subscriber's tab > Lists subtab.

        • This list is dynamic. It is initially populated with the recipients at the moment of sending.

        • It updates when data is imported. When a recipient clicks an unsubscribe link after the campaign is sent, that change is not instantly reflected in the backend. You must use the Run Update tool (found in the History tab) to import the latest engagement data. Once the update is complete, the Subscriber List will refresh to include all new opt-outs from that campaign.

        • How to Use Them for Cleaning: After running the update, use these updated opt-out lists to identify and remove disengaged contacts from your main Contact Database Report Views. Continuously sending to people who don't want your emails leads to higher opt-out rates, more bounces, and a damaged sender reputation.