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Before we begin, you may wish to Print this page
for
future reference.
Click Here to have the On-Line Manual sent to
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Download the manual in pdf format by right
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the Adobe image, and selecting "save target as".
This manual covers the FREE and PRO autoresponders.
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The first section deals with the common functions of both systems, and the second section with the functions which are
specific to the Autoresponder PRO account.
Table Of Contents
Section 1 - FREE Autoresponder Accounts
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Logging
In |
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Modify
Autoresponder Message Sequence |
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E-Mail
Personalization Settings |
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Manually
Add A Recipient |
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Delete
A Recipient |
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Subscriber
Reporting
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Database Backup
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Database
Search |
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Configure
Your Autoresponder
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E-Mail
Footer |
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Set-Up
Redirect Link |
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Active
Subscriber List
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Get
Form HTML Code
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E-Mail
Personalization Settings - PRO
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Configure
Your Autoresponder
- PRO
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Set-Up
Demographics Collection Data |
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Set-Up
Tracking Functions
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Set-Up
Custom Personalization Tags |
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Enter
Reject E-Mail Addresses
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Import
Mailing List
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Contact
Customers
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E-Mail
Selected Groups |
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E-Mail
Demographically Selected Groups
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Move
Customers |
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Change
Autoresponder Type
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Once you have received confirmation that your account has been activated, there
are certain features that must be configured before the account is truly usable.
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Logging
In
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First, you'll need to log on to the
Auto-Responders.net
Owner Administration System. You can do that here:
http://www.auto-responders.net/login.html
You will be presented with a screen asking you for your
username and password.
NOTE:
username and password are cAsE sEnSiTiVe.
In case you forget your password, there is a button marked
"Did you lose your password?" on the login page that will take
you to a different web page where you can type in your user
name, and your password will be sent to the E-Mail address
you used when you signed up for your autoresponder account.
After successfully log in, you will be able to access all the
features described below.
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Modify
Autoresponder Message Sequence
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This feature allows you to
set your response E-Mail messages. It gives you room to create up
to 13 follow-up and 1 immediate response messages (Autoresponder
PRO users have 30 follow-up and 1 immediate response messages),
together with subject lines and times to mail each message.
To enter your messages, start with the First Message and
enter a Subject Line in the space provided. Cut or paste
the body of your message in the Message Box below the subject
line. Do this for as many of the messages as you are allowed or
needed.
If the "SUBJECT" is empty, with no title, that message
has not been set up. If you do not wish to use all of the
follow-up messages, leave the SUBJECT line(s) and the message body
blank for those that are not being used.
After the first message, you must enter the delay day's from the
last message. So if you wanted message 6 to go out 3 days
after message 5 then you would enter the number 3 for the
6th message where it asks for the days from last message to
send this one.
Also note that all E-Mails are processed and sent out just once
per day. The true time from the first to the second message
may be up to almost 1 whole day longer than you specified but the
other messages in the sequence will be sent out on the time basis
specified.
The mailing system is handled by a background task that checks for
all E-Mails that need to be processed and sent out. Since this
task is generally scheduled to run once per day, there can be some
disparity in when messages get sent out. For instance, if you
scheduled message 5 to go out 3 days after message 4, it would
probably go out in 3 days and some number of hours.
Note also that each E-Mail keeps track of where it is in the
message sequence by message number, not contents of a message.
Do not skip
messages. This will cause the system to send blank e-mails to your
prospects.
After you have enter all the
messages that you want to use or are allowed, click on the Update
Messages button to save them to the database.
After you have saved
all of your messages, you can come back to the Online Message
Manager and have all of the messages sent to you. This way,
you can check them for any errors before you start using the
autoresponder.
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E-Mail
Personalization Settings |
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You can personalize
each message by using the Fields [FIRSTNAME] , [LASTNAME] , [FULLNAME] ,
[EMAIL] , [DATE] in the SUBJECT line, or anywhere in the body of your TEXT
message(s).
NOTE: These must be
CAPITAL letters.
If you enter: [firstname] it will NOT work!
The program will automatically make the substitutions needed to personalize
the responses that get sent to your customers.
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Manually
Add A Recipient |
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If some request to
be added to your autoresponder and does not wish to go through the subscribe
process, then you can manually add them here.
Fill in the form with as many
details as you can. The only fields that are required are the First Name and
the E-Mail address.
After you have entered the
information, click on the Add Prospect button. You will then be asked
if you want to send the first message to the new addition. Check
the Yes or No box and click on the Submit button.
If you checked the Yes box
the prospect will be added to the follow-up and the first message in your
autoresponder will be sent to them.
If you checked the No
box then the prospect will NOT be added to the follow-ups but will be
added to the archive database only.
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Delete
A Recipient |
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This is where you
can delete a prospect from your autoresponder that did not go through the
unsubscribe process and requested to be removed.
Just enter their e-mail address, click on
the Delete Customer button and they are gone! This will remove them
from your autoresponder sequence.
Their E-Mail address will still be present in the archive database.
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Subscriber
Reporting |
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Detailed
reporting on the number of subscriptions over the last 24 hrs, 7 days,
current total number of archived customers, current total number of active
customers (receiving follow-ups), current total number of unsubscribes,
total number of unsubscribes per message.
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Database
Backup |
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Produces
a comma de-limited backup list of Active Customers (those currently
receiving follow-ups), and Archived customers for export - useful for
advertising separately to your autoresponder account.
We recommend that you Backup your Database at
least 2 times a week to make sure you always have a backup copy of your
subscribers.
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Database
Search |
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Here you can search
the database of your prospects by any of the info that you have collected or
that they provided to you.
Select what to Search By
from the drop down menu.
Enter what to search for in
the Search For box, and make sure it is related to the Search By
selection.
Click the Search Now
button to begin the search.
You will be taken to the Results
Page.
Select the customer you want
to review from the drop down list below.
If the drop down list is blank, then the system did not find any matches to
your search.
Click on the Get Customer
Data button to view the data on the customer you selected from the drop
down menu.
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Configure
Your Autoresponder
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E-Mail
Footer
If you want to include a footer at
the bottom of each message that your autoresponder sends, enter it here. Use
this to advertise your products or services.
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Set-Up
Redirect Link
This is where you set up the
redirect link for your sign up forms. Enter the full HTTP path to the page
you want to send someone who just subscribed to your autoresponder by means
of a form on your site..
NOTE: This is required or
your subscribe form will not work!
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Active
Subscriber List |
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This will give you a
list of all your current subscribers ( Active or Archived). The list will be
in this format:
First Name, Last Name, E-Mail
Address
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Get
Form HTML Code |
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Want to use a form
to collect the subscriber information instead of just having them send a
blank e-mail to your autoresponder?
This section will let you select the
information you want to collect in your customer signup form.
It will then generate an html form page
that you can copy and edit to fit the look and feel of your web site with
all the form fields properly named and ready to be used.
Just check the items you want included in
the form that the system will generate for you.
To save the form that is generated for you,
just copy and paste into your favorite html editor.
Feel free to change anything in the code
except the names of the fields, the variables or the post link. If you
change any of these then the form will not work. Make the form look like the
rest of your site.
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E-Mail
Personalization Settings -
PRO |
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You
can also use any of the 10 custom fields or the answers to your demographic
questions that you have set up in the system. Example [CUSTOM1] , [DEMO1].
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Configure
Your Autoresponder - PRO
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Set-Up Demographics Collection Data
One of the most powerful features
of the Auto-Responders.net Autoresponder PRO
system is the ability for you to collect demographic data.
You can have up to 15 different question
and answer sets as your data collection set.
To set up a demographics question, type the
question into the box labeled Enter Data for Question 1 that you want to
collect, then type or cut and paste the answers that you will accept in
the big entry box labeled Enter Answers for question 1 that you will
accept. (one per line only).
After you have set up all the data
questions for this autoresponder that you want to use click on the Save
Collection Data button to save the data set you just set up.
NOTE: After you have the data you
want to collect set up. The new collection data will not show up in the
current customer list. However you can add more data anytime.
Whatever your customers give as answers for
each question can be used as customization tags in you messages. Example:
[DEMO1] in your messages would be replaced with the answer that your
prospect gave for the demographic question 1. However, if you do not use a
form to have your prospects sign up and enter the answers, you can not use
the demographics data to collect information, and your first message will
not be able to use the personalization fields for the data you want to
collect.
When a demographics collection question is
set-up, the system will store all the answers given for that prospect.
Example of a Demographics Question:
Question: Are You interested in Business
Opportunities?
Possible Answers:
Yes
No
The system will generate the question with
a drop down box containing the answers you will accept, in the Get Form
HTML Code section.
It is strongly recommended that you think carefully before setting up the
demographics data set as it is not something you can easily change once
people start signing up with the dataset you create.
Basically, when someone signs up and selects demographic criteria on the
signup form, this dataset gets stored in the database with that person’s
E-Mail information.
If you change the questions/criteria, you lose the ability to extract the
prior names in a demographic manner.
You may however, make additions to the questions that already exist. In
other words, if one question has three choices a customer can make, you can
add two more choices (as an example) without impacting previously collected
data.
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Set-Up
Tracking Functions
Tired of advertising and not
knowing which ad is working or drawing the visitors to your offer? Well the
tracking function will take care of this for you. You can now track
clickthroughs to any link that you set up here.
Click the Set up Tracking Link radio
button, to set up a tracking link. You will be taken to a page to enter the
Destination URL and a comment that you can enter to help you know what the
link was for.
After you have entered the Destination URL
and the Comment, click on the Add Link button to save the entries.
After you save the entries you will be taken to a screen that will show you
the link you must use. It will also be e-mailed to you.
Write this link down and use it to advertise with. The system will keep
track of all the clickthroughs for you.
You can also edit the tracking links. You
cannot change the link, but you may change comment and the click trough
count by clicking on the Edit Tracking Links radio button.
If you want to delete a tracking link click
on the Delete Tracking Link button, select the link you want to
delete and click on the Delete Link button.
To get a report on all the tracking links
click on the Tracking Reports radio button. You will be present with
a report showing the clickthroughs for each of your links.
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Set-Up
Custom Personalization Tags
This is where you can set up any
questions you want to ask that can be used in your sign up form.
Type the questions that you want to ask in
the form on the page. The system will store the answers that your prospects
give as answers on your sign up form.
The custom personalization fields in your
messages would be [CUSTOM1] through [CUSTOM10]. Whatever your prospects give
as answers for each question will be replaced with the custom tags in your
messages.
NOTE: After you have the data you want
to collect set up, do not change it. If you do, the personalization tags
will change in your messages, possibly causing odd messages to be sent to
your prospects.
You can have up to 10 of these Custom Data
Fields.
To save your entries click on the Set
Custom Data button.
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Enter
Reject E-Mail Addresses
You can set up your autoresponder
to reject any e-mail address from any domain that you want. This means that
anyone trying to subscribe from that domain will not be allowed to do so.
Enter the e-mail address ( i.e. me@me.com)
and click on the Submit button to save. This will reject any e-mail
addresses from the domain me.com.
This function only has effect when a customer signs up for the service
either via email or via form entry.. It does not work with the "Import
Mailing List Data" or "Add Recipient" functions.
The customer will be notified of the the reject with a message.
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Import
Mailing List |
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You can
import your customers into your autoresponder from an existing account or
from another service.
Before you import your list
you must first make a few choices:
1. If you want to import your
list and archive them then check the Enter Into Database only check
box, make sure there are not any other choices checked.
2. If you want to import your
list and start them on the follow-up sequence then check the Add To
Follow-up Sequence box, making sure that no other boxes are checked.
When you import your list and
add them to the follow-up you can also start them on any message you wish.
Just enter the message number you wish to start them on in the Start On
Message box.
Now get your list ready to
import into the system.
The list must be in the
following format:
first name, last name, e-mail
address one per line (i.e. comma separated data)
if no names just use ,,e-mail
Do not put a comma after the
e-mail address.
After you have entered the
entire list, click on the Import List button. You will be taken a
screen which shows the progress of the import. Please wait untill you see
the word Finished before moving on.
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Contact
Customers |
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You
can send a e-mail to all your prospects independently from the follow-ups.
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E-Mail Selected Groups
If you want to e-mail all your
prospects, click on the E-Mail Selected Groups link. Here, you can
e-mail to all of your subscribers ( on follow-up or Archived) or just the
Active Subscribers ( Those still in the follow-up sequence.) Just choose the
group from the drop down menu.
You can also select to send a
Plain Text or HTML e-mail to your selected group.
You can use [FIRSTNAME], [LASTNAME], [EMAIL] and [DATE] as personalization
tags.
Just enter the Subject Line
in the space provided and type, or copy and paste the Message in the
space provided.
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E-Mail
Demographically Selected Groups
If you want to send e-mail to
demographically selected groups then click on the E-Mail Demographically
Selected Groups button.
Choose the Demographics
profile you wish to contact your customers by. The selections you make from
your demographics collection data will dictate who is e-mailed. To select a
profile, choose the answer to your Demographic Question from the drop down
menu for each of the demographic question you have that you want to e-mail.
Only the prospects that
answered the same as your choice will be e-mailed. Example: if you
have a question asking weather they are male or female, and you choose male
above, then only those that answered male would be e-mailed.
You can use [FIRSTNAME], [LASTNAME], [EMAIL]
and [DATE] as personalization tags.
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Move
Customers |
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Previously, customers who had
finished the follow-up sequence ended up in the Archive Database, and could
not be put back into the follow-up sequence.
But now this is possible. Customers from the Archive Database can be
moved back onto the Follow-Up sequence with the click of a button! Not
only that, but you can even program the delay (up to 1 month) before those
customers START to receive their first follow-up message. Of course,
it goes without saying that you can also select which message they are
started on. This is great for re-using your autoresponder and recycling
customers.
Just reload some different messages promoting a different (or the same)
product, and you're in business again.
With the click of a button you
can now remove ALL of your customers who have decided to Unsubscribe
from your list so that you don't accidentally send them emails that they
have not requested.
You can also clear ALL
databases, which will Delete ALL of your Subscribers from ALL
Databases so that you can start from fresh. This is particularly
useful for running Safelists/Daily Mailing Lists.
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Change
Autoresponder Type |
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To change your autoresponder
from Plain Text to HTML or HTML to Plain Text
just click on the "Change Responder" link on the Client Menu
Control Panel. Change it as many times as you like!
The type of autoresponder is indicated at the top of the Client Menu Control
Panel.
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Last Updated 23 June 2003 |
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