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e3 Help > Site Administration > Email Marketing > Contacts
Contacts

Topics

 

Contacts Overview

The Contacts section contains a database of all available contacts to whom emails can be sent. Each contact is represented as a unique email address within the system, alongside the associated field information being pulled from Member’s file in the Back office system. A member or an affiliate must be present as a contact within the E3 Email Marketing Platform to be an eligible recipient of email message via the platform. The actual selection of recipients however, takes place during the Email Campaign process.

Contacts are the foundation of Email Campaigns. The ultimate goal is to send them personalized communications with content that is relevant to them. A key part of a successful email marketing campaign is not just having large amount of contacts, but properly managing those contacts with tools like segments and fields, so that better targeting of emails can take place.
 
                               (A word of email consent [CANSPAM, CASL, UK equivalent])

In majority of cases, the addition, removal, and modification of contact information takes place via the Back Office System (Jonas, Encore, Club Systems Group). Field information such as the Members name, status, number, age, birthday, gender, and the like is exported from the Back Office System (Jonas, Encore, Club Systems Group) into the Email Marketing Platform appearing as a Contact. Click the Back Office system below for more information on Exporting contacts into Email Marketing.

The Contacts section is accessed by clicking the Contacts menu item in Email Marketing.

It is further divided into two sections; Contacts and Fields. Each can be accessed by clicking the desired tab at the top left corner.
 

Contacts Pane

The contacts pane features a dynamic contact search engine. Each contact appears in a separate row alongside their appropriate Field information presented in each column. The columns can be re-ordered by a drag-and-drop mechanism and additional columns can be added or removed.

To access the Contacts portion, select the Contact tab at the top left:



To select a contact from the Contacts pane, select the Checkmark beside their email address or click on any of the information in their associated row. Multiple contacts can be selected by holding CTRL on the keyboard and clicking on desired contacts (while holding control, each click will add that contact to the selected items) OR by clicking the left mouse button and dragging a defined box area.

Selected Contacts are highlighted in green.


 

Contact Details

The Contacts Email Address is their main identifier and is unique to each contact. Clicking the Contacts Email Address itself brings up the View/Edit Contact page. This page provides the ability to modify the contacts fields, status, assign contact to lists as well as review their Properties information and History.

NOTE: Most of the time, field information must be modified within the Back Office System and should not be modified directly within the Contact Details portion.

Contact (Email Marketing) Status

Each Contact is associated with a particular status within the Email Marketing Platform. This status is exclusive to the Email Marketing Platform and does not represent the Members status in the Back Office System (such as their Member Status, Activity Status, etc.). While some Statuses are active and can continue to receive emails, others are inactive and require further action and a status change to quality for email delivery. The contact Status is visible as one of the (Status) columns within the Contacts pane. The following is a description of potential statuses:

Subscribed  Contact is active and is ready to receive emails.
Unsubscribed Contact is inactive and has been unsubscribed either by their own actions or by an administrator. Contact must be re-subscribed via the Re-subscribe or Add Contact Form.
Hard bounce  Contact is inactive. They have previously experienced a permanent delivery failure and are unable to receive emails while in this status. The Status of the contact can be changed by navigating to the Contact Details page. If root cause of delivery failure is not addressed, however, the contact will continue to bounce.
Soft bounce Contact is active. They have previously experienced a temporary delivery failure but are still eligible for email delivery. Multiple soft bounce attempts may result in a permanent (Hard) Bounce.
Pending Contact is inactive and their status is waiting to be confirmed. Confirmation takes place via the Contacts email. Contact has received an email (triggered by administrator or an automatic opt in process) requesting confirmation of email address and consent. Once confirmed, status will change to Subscribed.

 

Show/Hide Fields/Columns - Adding Fields/Columns to display

Each column within the Contacts pane presents a different piece of information regarding the contact.
The following are the default columns that may appear:

  • Email Address – The email address of the Contact. This is a unique identifier.
  • Mailing lists – A preview of the Mailing Lists that include this contact
  • First name – First name of Contact
  • Last name – Last name of Contact
  • Date Added – The date when the contact was added
  • Status – The Email Marketing Status of the Contact.
Although the columns/fields listed above are the standard, they are by no means the only ones that can be viewed within the Contact Pane. To add or remove fields/columns from showing:
  • Click on the ‘Show/Hide fields’ link at the top right of the Contacts Pane.
  • Checkmark the associated row of the fields that should be visible
  • Uncheck the associated row of the fields that should not be visible
  • Click SELECT to apply changes

The page will reload with the selected field columns.
 


 

Sorting and Adjusting Field Columns

Field Columns can be sorted by clicking its Label name. Clicking on the Label Name once (such as Date Updated, or Status)  will sort information in the column in ascending order. Clicking on the Label a name once more will sort the information by descending order



The order of Field columns can be changed by using the drag-and-drop mechanism. Hover over a column's name until the 'Select' icon appears. Click and drag the column to its desired location. Release.

 [SCREENSHOT GIF]
 

Searching Contacts.

The simplest way to search for contacts is to use the Search Field located at the top of a column. The search field (if applicable) is located under the Label of each field.  Input information into the desired search field and either press ENTER on the keyboard, or click outside of the search field for results to query.


 
Use the Search Category Drop Down menu to further specific which contacts to show based on available categories (All Contacts, All Unsubscribed, All Test Contacts, etc.)



For even more detailed searched, the Advanced Search function can be used, located under the Category Drop down.              
                                                                      


The Advanced Search features the ability to search for contacts using multiple filters and criteria. By using the Filters, specific custom search queries can be created and saved. The Advanced Search criteria uses any combination of Contact fields (such as Member Status, number, name, etc.) and Lists or Segments. These combination are defined as a Filter Group. Multiple Filter Groups can be combined to customize the search.
  • On the contacts tab, click Advanced Search
  • Select the Filter Type using the drop down menu
  • Define the filter criteria by selecting the desired field, list or segment.        
If Contact field is selected:

Select the desired field. Next, select the specific operator (such as ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘is less than’, etc.) and type a desired search value.


 
If Segment/Mailing List is selected:

Select the operator of whether contacts are or are not in the list/segment. Next, select which list or segment to search within.



To add additional filters (of AND / OR) selected the Add Filter link on the right. Similarity, select Remove Filter to remove a desired filter.



To add an additional group select Add Group link located at the bottom. Similarly, select Remove Group to remove a desired group.

  • Add additional Filters and Groups as desired.
  • Adjust the AND / OR Operators within Filters and Groups (if applicable) to configure how the Filters and Groups connect to each other.
  • Click Search.
The example below illustrates a search for Contacts whose age is greater than 55 and are Female. The search has two Filter Groups combined with the AND operator


 
 

Importing Contacts

Although most of the time Contact will be added, modified, removed via their integration with the Back Office System, it may be necessary from time to time to add contacts manually. Contacts can be manually added in bulk by using the Import Contacts function.

Contacts can be imported by uploading a Microsoft Excel, Comma Seperated Value files (.csv), vCard’s, as well as a direct text paste. The Import Contacts Wizard guides the user through the process through following tasks:
  • Identifying the file in which contacts are currently defined/listed (Adding a contact who is already in the Email Marketing System may update the existing contact information with the information in the file).
  • Selecting which contacts are to be added (available for vCard files only!)
  • Matching existing Contact fields within the module to columns/fields from the contact file.
  • Assigning contacts to one or more mailing lists (optional)

Once the Import Contacts process is successfully complete, the contacts may take time to process. A notification will be sent to the Message Center indicating the detailed success or failure of the upload process.

The Import Contacts Wizard can be accessed by selecting the Import menu button located at the top of the Contacts pane. It involves three steps


 
(Step 1 of 3) Add Contacts

In this step, select the Source of the contact on the left hand side. Either a file (such as .cvf, .csv, .xls) or a direct copy paste from Excel.

NOTE: To adhere to proper formatting. Ensure that the first row of the spreadsheet file is a header row containing the label name of each Column (such as Email, First Name, Last Name, Member Status). This step is essential to ensure that the field information is mapped correctly.

Click the Browse button on the right side to locate and select the file on the local computer. Click NEXT to proceed to the next step

(Step 2 of 3) Match Contact Fields
 
The purpose of this step is to Map the Fields located in the uploaded File to the existing contact fields within the Email Marketing Platform. The found fields within the uploaded file/content that are automatically matched will appear in the middle of the screen.

Click on the ‘Modify Field Matching’ button at the top right to modify which information is Mapped from the uploaded content to each existing field.

The new Modify field matching pop up is divided into two columns. The left column features a list of Fields Found within the uploaded source, while the right features Existing Fields within the Email Marketing Platform.

Use the drop down menu selection on the left column to assign its appropriate existing field. If the name found Field is exactly as the existing field, the system will select it automatically. If no such field exists, or the found field should not be updated ensure that [not matched / Do not import] is selected.

Click Update Matching when finished.



Click Next to proceed to the next step.
 
(Step 3 of 3) Assign Mailing List(s)
 
The final step provides the ability to add contacts to mailing lists. The top portion presents all existing lists within the system.  Checkmark the desired lists the imported contacts should be added to. To create a new List for the imported contacts to be added to, input a name in the ‘New Mailing List name’ field.

Checkmarking ‘Update existing contacts with import data’ will ensure that contacts that are already in the system will be updated with the import file/content information. If however, the import process should not update any existing contact information, the field should be left unchecked. Leaving field unchecked will ensure that only new contacts are added via the existing import process.

Finally, If the to-be-imported contacts should be included in any existing Workflow or Autoresponder, be sure to checkmark the ‘Tigger workflows and autoresponders during import’ checkbox.


Click Finish.
 

After redirecting back to the Contacts section, a message will appear at the top advising that the import request is being processed. When the process is complete, a notification will be received in the Message Center with details of the import.

 

Fields

The fields portion within the Contacts section displays all existing fields within the Email Marketing platform. It features the Five standard fields at the top, followed by a list of custom fields and their related properties.

Fields store additional information about contacts such as first name, zip code, age, member status, member number and the like. The two main advantages of using fields are:
 
I) They can used to personalize email messages. For example, the Merge Fields option during Email Design will allow to place a field tag within the email that will display each contact their first name (according to the information existing in their First Name field).

II) Unlimited amount of Segments can be created to target members based on specific fields (such as their A/R balance, their Member Status, Category Types, and the like).
In most cases, the field information is populated from the Back Office System via the appropriate Export utility. New fields are added via the same process. As such, it is rarely necessary to create and populate fields within the E3 Email Marketing Module itself.
 

 

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