The Creative Side

To kick off the New Year I thought I’d put together a Listrak specific post of 50 tips, tricks, and Listrak features (in no particular order) that you might not have known about.  With an advanced application of Listrak’s size, there’s bound to be things that even the most experienced users might have missed.  My hope is that both novice and advanced users alike will find a few gems in this list that you can immediately use to improve your email marketing efforts.

1. Google Analytics Integration
   If you currently use or would like to experiment with using the free site analytics provided by Google, you can have Listrak automatically pass click through data from your email directly to Google Analytics. You can enable this feature by going to Manage > List Settings and selecting the “Extend Listrak link tracking with Google Analytics for the following domains:” radio button from the “Third Party Web Analytics Integration” area. Next, just add any domains that you would like the data passed on to. For more information see the Listrak Google Analytics integration tutorial.
    
2. Brand Your Links with a Domain Alias
   In order to track click through information in an email, all links end up being replaced with a tracking link that passes data to Listrak. For both branding and deliverability purposes, all Listrak users should set up a Domain Alias so that the links in your messages use your defined domain rather than the standard generic default domain. These domains can be defined in the Manage > List Settings Branding Settings area. Your DNS and SPF records will need to be configured properly in order for the Domain Alias to work. See the Listrak Help System for in depth instructions.
    
3. Personalize the To-Name
   Would you like to use personalization tags to specify the exact to-name for your message? You can do this by selecting the “Yes” radio button on the Manage > Lists > List Settings page and then adding the personalization tags to the To-Name text box on the Author page.
    
4. Personalize Your Subject Line
   You can add personalization tags such as name or any other info like brand preference into the subject line by simply copying and pasting the personalization tag into the subject line where you would like the text to appear on the Author page. Additional subject line tips can be found in this whitepaper: Crafting a Must-Read Email Subject Line.
    
5. Add and Customize a Pass-Along Link
   Because different email clients can change the format of your email when using the default forward function, many Listrak users choose to add the Pass-Along feature that will send an exact duplicate of the email from the Listrak system to ensure the structure of your message is not changed. This can automatically be added by enabling the Pass-Along option on the Author page or the code can be inserted and customized by going to Support & Information > Code Support > Email Pass-Along Form to copy and paste the HTML. You can also edit the message that would be appended to the top of an email that is passed along by clicking the “Pass-Along Message:” edit button on the author page.
    
6. Schedule Your Message
   Once your message is ready to go, you always have the option of scheduling a message to be sent at a later time and date. You can choose the day and the time in half hour increments by enabling the “Schedule” option on the Author page. You can always edit or cancel a scheduled message by going to Authoring > Scheduled Messages.
    
7. Help Us Get to Know Your Team
   You can submit your team members as account associates by going to Manage > Account > Listrak Account Associates. Here you can list their contact information and identify their role with Listrak. This will help us to notify the correct people on your team with the right information when it is needed.
    
8. Organize Your Messages Using Campaigns
   When saving, scheduling, testing, or sending messages, it’s always a good idea to associate them with a campaign grouping. This can help you to organize and find your messages as well as view report totals for all the messages contained in a campaign. You can do this in the Message Settings area of the Author page by selecting an existing campaign from the drop down or creating a new one. You can always modify campaign groups later or add unassigned messages to campaigns in the Manage > Campaign Manager area.
    
9. Always Add a Removal Link
   A removal link can automatically be added by selecting the “Yes” radio button on the Manage > Lists > List Settings page for the “Automatically insert the list removal link at the bottom of the message?” option. Another option is to use the code that can be customized by going to Support & Information > Code Support > Email Unsubscribe Link.
    
10. Send International Messages
    If you need to send messages using a foreign language character set, you can turn on the “Enable Internationalization?” option in the Manage > Lists > List Settings area. Once this is turned on, the author page will display a drop down where you can choose the language to support. For more information on language support, see the Listrak Help System.
     
11. Insert a Browser Link
    Although you should be testing in multiple email clients and using best practices when designing an email, there may still be contacts that are not able to view your message in the exact way you intended. Many users add a browser link to the top of messages to make sure that contacts can click through to a web version of the message that was sent. This can be automatically added by going to Manage > Lists > List Settings and selecting the “Yes” radio button for “Automatically insert the browser link at the top of the message?” or you can manually add the code for the browser link allowing you to customize the exact text displayed by going to Support & Information > Code Support > Email Browser Link.
     
12. Create RSS Items With Your Messages
    With Listrak, you have the option to create a new RSS item posted to an RSS feed with any message sent through the system. To turn on the RSS functionality, go to Manage > Lists > List Settings and select the “Yes” radio button for “Enable RSS feeds within Author page?”. On the author page you will now have an RSS 2.0 Options area to define the properties for the RSS item. For more information on the RSS system see the RSS 2.0 System Walkthrough video.
     
13. Publish an Audio File with your RSS Feed
    By making use of the “enclosure” optional RSS item elements, you could push out an audio file along with your RSS item. For more information on the enclosure element, see the RSS Item Manager area of the Listrak Help System.
     
14. Add RSS Feed Subscription Chicklets and Links
    If you have RSS feeds set up, you can get the code to add subscription chicklets and links for some of the most popular RSS aggregators. This can be found in Support & Information > Code Support > RSS Syndication.
     
15. View RSS Activity Reports
    Open and click data is tracked separately for RSS feeds from the message tracking because they are different elements. This RSS tracking data can be found in Reports > RSS Feed Activity.
     
16. Create and Use Message Templates
    Do you have a standard email layout that you use repeatedly? Use the template system to create and save an email template by going to Authoring > Content & Media > Templates. To show the template selection on the author page, select the “Yes” radio button for the “Enable Template selection within Author page?” option.
     
17. Use Profile Segments Instead of Multiple Lists
    Listrak has always been very list-centric for a reason… it allows for better list management, unsubscribe, abuse, and bounce management, it reduces the chances of multiple receipts of a message, and much more. Rather than importing contact lists into multiple lists, create a new field to identify the specific segment to organize your contacts. When sending messages, set up a Profile Filter to send to your targeted segments only.
     
18. Send the Same Message to Other Lists
    So going against what I’ve stated above, there are many Listrak users who use multiple lists. In this case, if you would like to send a duplicate of a message that has been sent from one list to another, you can use the Reports > Message Reports > Message Summary report to do this. The message summary report will show all lists and all messages sent. If you have already sent the message, select the new list you would like to send it to.  Go to the Message Summary report and find the message in this report. Click the subject line of the message in this report and it will now open the message in the author page within the new list that is selected. There are some things to be aware of here though. Any profiling/personalization tags or filters will need to be the same in both lists for those tags to work properly. Also, when working with multiple lists, a suppression list should be used so that if an email address happens to be on more than one list and they unsubscribe, they are removed from all lists.
     
19. Set Up and Send Double Opt-In, Welcome, and Goodbye Messages
    To edit the double opt-in, welcome, and goodbye messages content and layout, go to Authoring > Automated Messages> and choose the message you wish to edit. In order for these automated messages to be sent, you need to enable them before generating the form code for your website. For the double opt-in and / or welcome message, go to Support & Information > Code Support > Subscribe Contact Form and select the checkbox for the items you would like to enable before clicking the “Show Code” button. For the goodbye message, go to Support & Information > Code Support > Unsubscribe Contact Form and select the “Send Goodbye Email:” check box before clicking “Show Code” button.
     
20. Use the Media Library to Host Images
    The Listrak Media Library makes it easy to upload and organize images to be used in your messages. It can be found in the Authoring > Content & Media > Media Library and can also be accessed from the Listrak WYSIWYG editor on the Author page. When using the media library, you should make sure you set up a Media Domain so that the default Listrak images domain is switched out with your branded domain. For more information watch the Media Library Walkthrough video.
     
21. Link to Files Instead of Attaching Them
    Because of the size of attachments such as PDFs and Word documents, linking to these files instead of including them in the email as an attachment can improve your deliverability. If you do not have access to your site’s server, you can use the Authoring > Content & Media > Media Library to host these files and insert the link into your message.
     
22. Be Careful of “Suppression Spider Webs”
    Suppression lists should always be used when using multiple lists so that if a contact unsubscribes from one list they are unsubscribed from any other lists connected to the suppression list. There are times though where different lists are being used for completely different reasons and you don’t want a contact removed if they unsubscribe from another list. Because you have the ability to use multiple suppression lists with multiple lists, you can end up with a cascading effect where a person is unsubscribed from a list and moved to a suppression list that is connected to a different list that is connected to that suppression and another suppression, it will then be added to that suppression and removed from any lists connected to it. Try to avoid these webs of suppression lists by limiting them to as few as possible.
     
23. Use Dynamic Content to Target Your Messages
    Setting up a dynamic content message can take a lot longer to set up than your normal email, but the results from the relevancy that is generated can be extraordinary. To read about dynamic content in action and the kind of results that can be seen, take a look at the DiscountBeautyCenter.com Dynamic Content Case Study or check out these whitepapers: “Email Marketing Best Practices: Creating Relevant Email Campaigns with Dynamic Content” and “Dynamic Content Strategy Guide: Five Essential Email Campaigns“.
     
24. View Data On Each Dynamic Content Combination
    By clicking the dynamic content container icon in reports like Message Activity and Message Delivery, you can see these reports for each recipe or combination of dynamic content containers that have been sent.
     
25. Use Dynamic Content for A/B Split Testing
    Dynamic Content can be used to test specific segments of your message. For an in depth overview of how this can be accomplished, see my previous post “Using Dynamic Content for Email Campaign A/B Split Testing“.
     
26. Attend Listrak University
    All of the whitepapers, case studies, and tutorial videos that we have published are available for direct download to Listrak users by going to Support & Information > Listrak Resources. Here you can access this information and download the PDFs without having to fill out a form. We are continually adding new content, so check back often!
     
27. WYSIWYG Tip: Code Snippets
    By clicking on the “Insert Code Snippet” icon in the WYSIWYG editor, you can choose to insert the following tags: 
    1. Recipient Email Address - The email address of the recipient would automatically be inserted to replace this tag
    2. List Name - Inserts the Listrak List Name
    3. Date Stamp Long Format - Thursday, January 03, 2008
    4. Date Stamp Short Format - 1/3/2008
        
28. WYSIWYG Tip: Custom Links
    Using the WYSIWYG editor, you can easily insert code that you would normally need to retrieve from the code support area in the custom links drop down. These links include the browser link, unsubscribe link, pass-along link, and the double opt-in link.
     
29. Use Links or Email Addresses as Personalization Tags
    There are many creative uses for personalization tags, but one you may have not thought about is using the tags to show a link or email address. An example of this could be a specific sales rep that is assigned to a segment of your list. A profile attribute reflecting the email address of the sales rep could be both displayed as text and passed through in the HTML code so that the email address is linked.
     
30. View Your Billing Information
    You can view invoices from previous months as well as the current month’s activity from Manage > Account > View Invoices and Manage > Account > This Month’s Invoice Activity.
     
31. Set Up Your Credit Card for Auto Billing
    To set up automatic monthly credit card billing from Listrak, you can store and modify your billing information within the Manage > Accounts > Account Settings area.
     
32. Remove Abuse Complaints from All Lists
    Abuse complaints usually result from a contact clicking the “report spam” button in their email client. To improve your deliverability, it’s a good idea to remove abuse complaints from all of your lists. This option can be enabled in the Manage > Account > Account Settings Subscription Management area.
     
33. Remove Bounces from All Lists
    In the same manner as the abuse complaints, making sure bounces are removed from all lists can help to improve your deliverability. This option can also be enabled in the Manage > Account > Account Settings Subscription Management area.
     
34. Import Your Excel 2007 Files
    In case you missed the announcement, in addition to .txt, .csv, and .xls files, Listrak now also supports the .xlsx Excel 2007 format. You do not need to save as an older version any longer.
     
35. Let Listrak Fix Bad Addresses
    There are many common email address mistakes and misspellings (like yahoocom instead of yahoo.com) that Listrak can attempt to fix automatically for you. To enable the List Hygiene feature in the Manage > Lists > List Settings Subscription Management Settings area, select the yes radio button for the “Enable bounced email list hygiene for this list?” option. You can see the results in the Reports > Contact Reports > Contact Hygiene area. This is a Listrak Pro and Enterprise level feature only.
     
36. Find A Specific Contact
    Looking for an email address but not sure what list it’s on or if it’s even subscribed? Use the Contacts > Search For A Contact page. If you need to look everywhere, select All Lists and check the Subscribed, Unsubscribed, and Banned check boxes.
     
37. Change an Email Address Across Multiple Lists
    If an email address has been changed and you need to do it across every list, use the Contacts > Change A Contact’s Address page. Here you can select to change it on only the selected list or across all lists.
     
38. Tie Listrak Into Your Custom Application
    Enterprise level Listrak accounts have access to the Listrak API. This SOAP compliant API exposes Listrak data for direct integration with custom applications. For more information, see the Listrak Integration Services site.
     
39. Manage Other Users in Your Account
    If you are the administrator for your Listrak account, you can create other user accounts with their own login and password by going to Manage > Account > User Manager. Here you can choose the specific lists and templates they should have access to as well as grant access to specific Listrak functions. If you have a team member that should only see reports and not have access to any other functions, simply only check off the “Report Access” option in this area.
     
40. View Opens, Reads and Clicks on a World Map
    The Listrak Geo Tracking feature allows you to see geographical details on contacts that have opened, read, or clicked on a message. By going to Reports > Message Reports > Geo Tracking, you can click on the “View” icon in the map column to graphically view this data on a United States, Europe, Canadian, or World map.
     
41. Multiple Report Export Options
    In addition to the plain text export, we recently added the ability to export as a Microsoft Excel file or an XML file. The Excel export retains collapsible campaign groupings.
     
42. Export Reports as PDFs
    By clicking the “Print” icon on any Listrak reports, you can generate a clean PDF of the report in it’s current state that can either be printed or saved to your PC.
     
43. View Visual Overlay of Click Data
    You can view the layout of your message with overlay boxes showing the click percentage and amount over each link. This is an great visual way of seeing the click through data in relation to the email layout. Keep an eye out… we have some new data visualization features coming soon!
     
44. Evaluate Message Activity Data Over Time in a Graph
    From Reports > Message Reports > Message Activity click the Graph icon to see delivered, opened, read, and clicked counts in a graph. You can change the date range and choose to only see data on messages in specific campaigns. This can assist you in visually identifying trends in your data that can help you to evaluate your message activity results.
     
45. View Click Data as a Graph
    Another way to visually identify click information for a specific email is to view the Message Tracking Chart. You can navigate to this graph by going to Reports > Message Reports > URL Tracking then click the URL icon to take you to the Message Tracking Report. From here, click the “Graph” icon in the Report Functions. You can change the chart type to doughnut, area, or column graphs.
     
46. View a Comprehensive Report on All Lists, Campaigns, and Messages
    While most Listrak reports are limited to the selected list, the Message Summary report is an exception. By navigating to Reports > Message Reports > Message Summary, you can view all lists and campaigns as roll up rows containing all messages that have been sent as well as message activity data on each message.
     
47. Detailed Contact Reporting
    Two of the more hidden reports in Listrak are the ability to view campaign history (open, reads, and clicks) and click history for individual contacts. You can access these reports by clicking on the email address of the contact you wish to view in any of the contact reports, from the view subscribed, view unsubscribed or search for a contact areas. In the popup, you can choose the “Campaign History” or “Click History” tabs to view these reports.
     
48. Pull in Content From a Web Site URL
    By using the tag #Listrak\Content URL=”http://www.yoursite.com”# to point to a page on the web, you can pull the HTML from this location directly into an email. The content will be pulled and used in the email at the time of the send through the Listrak system.
     
49. Questions? We’ve got answers…
    The Listrak Help System contains in depth details on every Listrak feature. It can be found under Support & Information > Help System. For easy navigation, it is organized by menu location and most pages have a help icon that will link directly into the area of the Help System for that specific page.
     
50. Need More Help?
    You can always contact our Listrak support engineers or begin a live chat session from the Support & Information > Listrak Support area.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or use this trackback link from your own site: http://creative.blog.listrak.com/wp-trackback.php?p=29