Command Center: Triggers with Bob

By: Dave Walker

Technical Support Engineer

Bob wants to take his email marketing to the next level. He's been sending out his marketing emails, and they've been getting good results. There is, however, a lot of manual follow-up that is required. Bob's sales team spends a lot of time analyzing open and click data, and sends follow-up emails to those folks, to continue the conversation.

Bob wants to automate the process of sending follow-up emails to his customers. If a customer clicks on a link to visit the website, he wants to send them an email a little later in the day to follow-up on that visit. If they open, but don't click, he wants to send a different message a day or two later.

Bob is using JangoMail's “Triggers” feature to automate his follow-ups. He creates his follow-up messages, and saves them to his account. He then creates a trigger in his account for “Message Opened.” He links the appropriate follow-up message to that trigger. He does the same for “Link Clicked” to catch the clickers.

Now Bob's done. When his customers receive a message and open it, JangoMail will trigger the sending of a follow-up message. Bob can have this action apply to only a single message, or to all messages. He can time the follow-ups so they're sent a few minutes, hours, or days later.

Bob has used JangoMail's simple “Triggers” feature to revolutionize his customer communication, and free up sales team time for more productive things. The force is strong with this one.

Take a look at JangoMail's Trigger features for yourself. Click here for more information on how to revolutionize your own email communications.

On Track With Jack: Reconsider Email Attachments

Hello JangoMail Users!

Jack here reporting from the JangoMail headquarters. Today's tip comes from our support team:

Reconsider Email Attachments

When you have a large file to send, you may want to think twice about sending as an attachment. Ask yourself, "Is there a better way to get my message across?" Size and security are the two main deliverability issues that will prevent your subscribers from receiving your attached message.

There is a better way to incorporate files into your email marketing plan. Upload your assets to JangoMail and embed them within your email. For larger files, post to your website and create links within the body of your email. Encourage readers to click for more information.

Embedded links will not only increase traffic back to your site, but will also provide you with click tracking data throughout your email to see what your audience is interacting with the most.

Emails without attachments are also easier to access since downloading is not required. It sounds silly, but subscribers are usually on the go and this saves them a step. Convenience is key!

To recap:

• Attachments could cause deliverability issues.
• Email links encourage users to visit your website, which will increase traffic.
• You can track clicks throughout your email to see what your audience is interacting with most.
• Messages without attachments are easier for your recipients to access.  Your message is just a click away instead of taking additional steps to download.
• Are there times when attachments are needed? Of course. That's why we support them. Just remember to think twice before you send any attachments to make sure it's the right message for your audience!

If you need help with anything, like installing click tracking, please Contact Support.



Sincerely,

Jack the Jangolope
Department of Awesome
JangoMail

About Jack

Jack the Jangolope is our JangoMail mascot.  Each week, look for Jack's emails for marketing advice, trends, and quick tips on how to grow your email marketing plan to the fullest!  Hop into email marketing each week with Jack's helpful tips!

What is a Jangolope? Find out HERE

We want to hear from you. Remember, at JangoMail it's your email, your way.  Have a topic you would like Jack to cover?  Email us at marketing@jangomemail.com with the subject line: On Track With Jack.  Follow Jack on Facebook

Secure click-tracking with base-64 encoded URLs and MD-5 hashing

We have introduced two new settings that control how click-tracked URLs appear in your email campaigns.  The new settings, base-64 encoding and MD-5 hashing, make click-tracked links look more professional and operate more securely. When an email campaign has click tracking on, the URLs are converted into trackable URLs that typically look like this:

http://x.browniekitchen.com/y.z?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.browniekitchen.com&e=1&j=269829603

This URL is problematic because it exposes the destination URL and is subject to alteration by a malicious phisher.  We've introduced two new settings, the ability to base-64 encode the URL so that it doesn't reveal the destination URL and another to add an MD-5 hash, such that the redirect to the URL will fail unless the hash matches the URL.

A click-tracked URL that is both base-64 encoded and includes the MD-5 hash will look like this.  Notice the addition of the h= parameter and that the l= parameter is now a base-64 string:

http://x.browniekitchen.com/z.z?l=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5icm93bmlla2l0Y2hlbi5jb20%3D&e=1&j=269829534&h=6f5c4e957783bf712c74f80f1fb083fa

A click-tracked URL that is NOT base-64 encoded but includes the MD-5 hash will look like this:

http://x.browniekitchen.com/z.z?l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.browniekitchen.com&e=1&j=269829571&h=6f5c4e957783bf712c74f80f1fb083fa

Base-64 encoded URLs look more professional and give recipients greater confidence when clicking. Un-encoded URLs clearly show one URL that has another URL as a parameter, and the appearance of this structure can prevent a recipient from clicking it. The addition of the MD-5 hash prevents tampering with the destination URL.  If the l= parameter is altered, and the link contains the hash, then the user will NOT be redirected to the destination URL.

To set click-track settings, go to Settings --> Tracking --> Click Tracking

Note that this setting applies to click-tracked links in both broadcast email campaigns and transactional email messages. Also note that in the examples above, a branded tracking-domain, x.browniekitchen.com, is used.  We recommend that all of our users setup a branded tracking-domain based on their organization's domain.  To read why, see this blog post on tracking domains.

All new JangoMail accounts will have both of these settings on by default.  We recommend that you enable both settings on your own, but in case you don't, all existing accounts will have these two settings enabled automatically over the next few weeks..