New Security Feature: Restrict account access by IP address

You can now restrict access to your JangoMail email account by IP address. You can specify a range of allowable IP addresses or a single IP address.

To restrict access by IP address, go to Settings --> Security --> IP Addresses. Simply enter in a single IP address or a range of IP addresses and designate whether the restriction should apply to the web interface, the API, or both.

In the above screenshot, the IP address range 64.56.108.99-105 can access the web interface for this account, while the single IP 72.45.45.8 is the only IP address that can access the API for this account.

If there are no IPs entered, as is the default on accounts, then there are NO restrictions on which IP addresses can access your account. As soon as you enter at least one IP range, then that becomes the range from which your account must be accessed.

If a user attempts to login to the web interface from an unauthorized IP address, then the user will see the following message:


If the API is called by a node outside of the authorized IP addresses, then an exception will be thrown, as shown below:

New Feature: Use Our Google Maps Integration to Create and Send to an Email List

You can now use our Google Maps report to create Follow-Up Email Lists and send Follow-Up Email Campaigns.

Earlier, we launched a series of new reporting features that allow you to create and send to an Email List from an Open, Click, and Page View report, as well as from an Unsubscribe, Bounce, and Transactional Email report. We have added to this feature set to allow you to send Follow-Up Email Campaigns or create Follow-Up Email Lists from a Google Maps geo targeting report.

There are two new icons in our Google Maps geo targeting report that allow you to Create and Send to an Email List. Click on the image below to see the two new icons.

Send more relevant marketing emails quickly and easily with this feature.

• Notify recipients who are within a geographic area of a new store opening.
• Send a sports-themed email featuring a team local to the recipients' area. 
• Create a weather or outdoor-themed email relevant to the recipients' geography.

How to use a Google Maps Report to Create and Send to an Email List

1. Go to the REPORTS tab and click on the data point that you would like to use to create an Email List. In this example, we are clicking on a Unique Opens report.

2. Click on the (map) link next to the Recipients count.

3. Narrow down your report by using the navigation on the left side of the report, or by clicking on areas in the map and clicking Select.

4. Once you narrow down your report, you will see a list of recipients below the Google Maps geo targeting report. Click on the Create Email List Icon or the Send to Email List Icon to turn this report into an Email List or to send directly to the email addresses in the report.

More Resources

For more information on this feature set, visit our previous blog posts:

Create and Send to an Email List from an Open, Click, or Page View Report

Click on Almost Any Data Point, Filter and Send Instantly

New Reporting Features: Click anywhere, filter instantly

We have launched a major reporting enhancement that makes it much easier to segment reporting data and send on-the-fly email marketing broadcasts to segmented data with one single click.

The instant segmentation applies to data in these reports:

• Mass Email Opens
• Mass Email Clicks
• Mass Email Web Site Activity Tracking
• Mass Email Unsubscribes
• Mass Email Bounces
• Transactional Email Opens
• Transactional Email Clicks
• Transactional Email Unsubscribes
• Transactional Email Bounces
• All Bounces
• All Unsubscribes

Clicking almost any data point in one of these reports will result in an instant filter being created. The filtered data can then be used to send a new email campaign right away, or to create a new Email List.

Example 1, Filtering Click Tracking

For example, in our customer Popcorn Palace's account, here is a recent click tracking report:

After clicking on a URL in the click-tracking report, the filter is created, and a new report is generated:


Example 2, Filtering Web Site Analytics

In this example, we'll create an instant filter on the Web Site Activity Tracking report, a report that tracks a user's movement through your web site after clicking a link in an email campaign. In this example, we're going to use our own JangoMail account -- the one we use to email our own customers and prospects.

From the main Reports screen, click the number under "Page Views".

This gives you a list of all recipients and the web pages on your site that they visited. To filter down to just the recipients that created a Free Trial Account, or landed on https://www.jangomail.com/FreeTrial-Action.asp, click the URL anywhere in the report.

More Resources

For more information on the two new icons, Send new campaign, and Create Email List, available throughout Reports, see this blog post.

You can also filter an Email List directly from within the Email Lists tab. For more information, see the tutorial Advanced Filtering of List Members.

Why eNannySource came back to JangoMail

eNannySource is a former email marketing client who recently came back to us because of JangoMail's technological advantages. We got a chance to catch up with Steve from eNannySource to learn more about his decision to return to JangoMail.
 
JM: Steve, we are excited to have you back. Could you tell us a little about eNannySource and how you use JangoMail?
 
Steve: Yes, eNannySource has been around since 2001. It's a 100% online business that matches nannies with families. We have a database of families and nannies and they use our service to find each other.
 
I have a series of emails that go out to new members on a daily basis. They tell families various things to look for when they hire a nanny. I also send out periodic seasonal email newsletters to past members. For example, I just sent a blast out to families for back-to-school time. Fall is here and there's a big scramble to hire part-time nannies.
 
JM: So what was most important in your decision to come back to JangoMail?
 
Steve: Most important for me regarding JangoMail is that it has direct database connectivity, so it's really, really easy to integrate with my back end.  The email newsletters I send out are triggered by database events, so it takes the developers no time at all to set these things up. Also, when I want to send out an email myself, I'm not a programmer, but if I have a template, I can modify the code to change dates, etc. myself.
 
JM: So the major advantage that JangoMail brings you is the ability to immediately send emails?
 
Steve: Yes, I have to do absolutely nothing. The company that I used to use and the others out there are designed for either companies that have very small lists or static lists. So if you have a church or synagogue website and you want to do a weekly mailing, the list doesn't change much from one week to the next. My list is constantly changing. My whole system is based on events that happen in the database on a daily basis. With the company I was using, it took my developers forever to integrate. We had numerous calls with their developers and ultimately there were so many restrictions on things that we wanted to do that were never restricted in JangoMail.
 
On balance, you guys are head and shoulders above the rest. You really are. I haven't told my developers yet. They will love it. For a brief example, it took weeks of going back and forth with my developers and the email provider's developers just to set up the API interface to send out an email to a new member. There was also no way to deactivate emails when a customer deactivated their account. The emails kept going out due to the lack of direct database connectivity.
 
JM: So if someone was to unsubscribe or bounce, they would not automatically be taken off the list?
 
Steve: If they unsubscribed through the email service, then yes, they would be taken off the list. But, if they terminated their membership on our side, the customer would not automatically be unsubscribed.
 
JM: Can you tell me more about what features you use the most and find the most valuable?
 
Steve: What we use the most is the part I never even saw: the database connectivity. JangoMail seamlessly integrates with us. I can just tell my developer to send this email based on this event for this number of days to these particular members and it was done without having to connect with other developers.
 
Also, if I wanted to go in and send an email I could learn how to use it in a jiffy. It's really easy. I spent days trying to figure out how to use the other email system. They have no way to import and reuse templates. The templates basically have to be designed by the company. Either you as a user have to do some serious HTML modification or the developer has to go in and do an email send. I shouldn't have to get my developers to go in just to send an email.
 
I like your reporting. The way my other company displayed the information in reporting was in such an unusable format that I was constantly having to export it into Excel and then manipulate it so that I could use it. I didn't realize how good Jango's reporting was until I went to this other company.
 
JM: Steve, we are excited to have you back. It's always great when someone returns to us.
 
Steve: I'm glad you appreciate it. You guys will have me back for a while.

You now get more bandwidth, for free!

JangoMail users sending mass emails with large attachments or otherwise bulky HTML content now get a higher bandwidth allotment, for free. Historically, we've only allowed 20 KB per email message you send before you were hit with bandwidth overage fees. We have now bumped that to 100 KB per email message.

For example, if you're on our 12,000 emails/month plan:

Before - you could send up to 12,000 emails and 240 MB of data
Now - you can send up to 12,000 emails, and 1.2 GB of data

This change will lower many users' monthly bill and will allow more flexibility in HTML design options and file attachment options.

All new accounts get the higher bandwidth allotment upon account creation.

All existing accounts will see the higher bandwidth allotment on their next monthly renewal.

New SMTP relay service feature: Authenticate a Class C IP block

Our customers using the SMTP relay can now add a full class C IP block to their list of authenticated IP addresses, instead of adding single IPs at a time. To add a class C block of IP addresses (255 IP addresses), contact our support team, and they can do this for you, as the feature is not yet available through our web interface.

Why would I need to allow 255 IP addresses to relay email?

Most customers will not need to do this, but we have some customers that are ISPs, web hosting companies, and cloud computing services. These organizations often need to allow larger blocks of IP addresses in order to serve their own customers.

New Feature: Use a Report to Create and Send to an Email List

We just launched a new feature that makes it easier to send Follow-Up Emails and create Email Lists from previous campaigns. In the past, to send an Email Campaign to recipients who responded to a previous campaign, users had to visit the EMAIL LISTS section. Here users had to write SQL in the Advanced Query Editor to create a list of recipients who opened, clicked or viewed a certain page from a  past email.  Now users can immediately create an Email List or send an Email Campaign from a report. JangoMail users can filter Opens, Clicks and Page Views reports down to any level to create an Email List or to immediately send an Email Campaign to the recipients in the report.

We have two new options in reporting that will pull the data in a report to:

1. Create an Email List
2. Send an Email Campaign to the email addresses in the report

These icons are available in our Opens, Clicks, and Page Views reports for our email broadcast campaigns.

Create an Email List from a Report
1. Go to Reports.
2. Pull up an Opens, Clicks, or Page Views Report by clicking on any number in those columns.

3. Use the Filter to narrow down your report to the recipients who you would like to add to your Email List. In this example, we are creating an Email List that includes recipients who clicked on a certain link.

4. Click on the Envelope Icon and select Create a List.

5. You might be asked to allow scripted windows. If not, proceed to step 6. Otherwise, click on the message on the top of the screen and chose to allow scripted windows. Then click on the Create a List link again.
6. There will be a short wait while JangoMail creates your Email List. When it is ready, it will appear in the section under the Lists tab.

Send an Email Campaign from a Report
1. Go to Reports.
2. Pull up an Opens, Clicks, or Page Views Report by clicking on any number in those columns.

3. Use the Filter to narrow down your report to include only the recipients who you would like to email. In this example, we will use a list that includes customers who clicked on a certain link.

4. Click on the Envelope icon and click Send Email.

5. In a few moments, JangoMail will upload an Email List from the report and direct you to the Messages Page so that you can begin composing your message.

New method to specify Transactional Group using the SMTP service

We've introduced a new method to assign a transactional email to a Transactional Group. Along with specifying the Transactional Group in the Subject line, you can now also specify it in a custom X-Header.

If you're using the JangoMail SMTP server to send transactional email, you're likely familiar with the concept of Transactional Groups -- categories to which you can assign various types of transactional emails. For example you may have the following Transactional Groups set up in your account:

1. Order Confirmations
2. Renewal Reminders
3. Thank Yous

Previously you could assign an email to a particular Transactional Group by specifying the Transactional Group's name in the Subject Line surrounded by curly brackets. For example, if I sent an email with the Subject:

Subject: Thanks for your purchase {Thank Yous}

...then this email would get assigned to the Transactional Group called "Thank Yous", and the email would be sent with the curly brackets and the part in between stripped out.

Now, there's an alternate way to assign an email to a particular Transactional Group...you can specify an X-header with the Transactional Group's ID. If you're sending emails through relay.jangosmtp.net programatically, such as through .Net or PHP code, and if you have the ability to add an X-header to the email message, you can use this method. The format is as follows:

X-TransGroupID: TransactionalGroupID

For example, if the Transactional Group "Thank Yous" had an ID number of 78929, then you would add the header:

X-TransGroupID: 78929

Specifying an X-TransGroupID header overrides any Transactional Group designation in the Subject Line.

You can retrieve the ID number of a Transactional Group by going to the Transactional Reporting section of your account, where the various Transactional Groups are listed, along with their delivery statistics and their ID numbers.

New Report: Email Address Delivery Diagnostics

Email marketers often have questions about their email delivery and why a certain email address isn't receiving emails. We launched a new report to answer these questions and to provide the most transparency possible to our users. The new Delivery Check report runs a diagnostic check on an email address. If you are having a delivery issue with a certain email address, this report will perform a number of checks to help you resolve your delivery issue.

To use this report, click the REPORTS tab and then the Delivery Check link.

Enter an email address to diagnose and click the Diagnose button.

The Delivery Check report checks the following:

*Is the email address correctly formed?
*Is the email address on the unsubscribe list?
*Is the email address on the bounce list? If so, a details link will appear to provide you with more information.
*Does the email address appear on the recipient list of a recent email campaign? If so, you can view the log file.
*Does the email address appear on the recipient list of a recent transactional message? If so, you can view the log file.

The JangoMail Support Team is also available to assist you with any issues you may be having. If you need help, contact us via the Support Contact Form.

User interface updates - users switched to new interface

Tonight, all users still on our old "frames" interface have been switched to the new "no-frames" interface. Most recent features and all future features will only be available in the new "no-frames" interface.

Should you have a specific need to use the old interface, you can still manually switch back by clicking the "Switch to Old Interface" link in the top blue area.

Additionally, those users that had setup Reporting-Only logins will now notice that the Reporting-Only dashboard has also been updated to the new no-frames interface.

New Feature: Social Sharing Links

We have added Social Media Sharing Links to our Enhanced HTML Editor. You can instantly add buttons to your emails to Share via Facebook, Twitter, Google and  MySpace.

There are two ways to add social media buttons:

1. Click on the new Facebook or Twitter icon in the Enhanced HTML Editor to instantly add a button.

2. Click on the Social Links popup under Message Tools to add HTML code directly to your email.

To add sharing buttons directly to the HTML code, copy and paste the provided HTML code into your email.

  

How do social media sharing links work?

The buttons in the email will look like this:

When recipients click on the Twitter button, they will land on this Twitter page, which includes a link to the web page version of the email:

The Facebook button will bring recipients here and link to the web page version of the email:

The Google button brings recipients here. Recipients must fill out the details and Google will automatically link to the web page version of the email.

Recipients land here when they click on the MySpace button:

New Feature: See what device your recipients are opening emails with

We've added a new column to open-tracking reports -- you can now see what browser or device, known as the "email client", your recipients are opening your email with, including the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and many other platforms.

Use this data to further personalize email campaigns. For example, use your open tracking reports to send a new email campaign with the Subject "Save 20% on next brownie order - for iPad users only" to just the people that opened your last email campaign with an iPad.

To access "email client" reporting data, to Reporting and then go to Opens from either your broadcast email campaign reports or your transactional email reports.

From the Raw Data view, you can see what email client each individual recipient opened the email with. Or, click the By Email Client tab to get aggregate totals on how many emails were opened per email client.

Transactional Email Opens Sample: See how many of each email client type was used to open emails in a specific Transactional Email Group.

Broadcast Campaign Raw Open Tracking Data: See exactly what email client was used to open the email for each recipient. Includes the technical Browser-Agent as well as the friendly name of the email client.

How to use JangoMail as an Email Discussion List service

Over the years, we've had many inquiries about whether JangoMail can be used as an email discussion list, also known as a "listserv". With some features we've recently added, it is possible to use JangoMail this way, and it's quite convenient.

First, what is an email discussion list?

1. You setup an Email List of people in your organization.
2. Using your regular email program like Thunderbird, Outlook, or GMail, you send an email to your-username@init.jangomail.com, and that email then gets propagated to everyone in the Email List that you setup in step 1.
3. When people reply to your email, it can either go to everyone on the Email List, or just the person who wrote the original email. It's up to you, based on you have your account set up.
4. Get open tracking, click tracking, DomainKeys/DKIM signing on all emails and replies sent to the entire Email List.

Email discussion lists are useful for organizations that want to have large group conversations over email. JangoMail is one of the few ESPs (Email Service Providers) to offer this feature.

This article assumes you know how to setup an Email List, but the basic steps are:

1. Click on Lists tab.
2. Create a new Email List.
3. Define fields for your Email List.
4. Import your email addresses and other fields into the Email List.

Using an Email List as an Email Discussion List

Once you've setup your Email List, now it's time to set the list up to be used as an email discussion list. Go to the "Settings" section and click on the edit icon next to Sending and Receiving --> Externally Launched Emails.

Here you will make appropriate changes such that your Email List can be used as an email discussion list. There are several settings that must be made:

1. Leave From Display Name blank. If you enter a value here, then this will be the name that all the emails in the discussion will be "from" rather than the name of the person who wrote the email. If you're going to have an email discussion within your organization, you likely want each response to show as being from the person who wrote it.
2. Set From Email Address to Of Email List. This will make it such that anytime someone starts or responds to the discussion, the From Email Address always be username@init.jangomail.com, forcing all replies to that address as well, which will make it so that each reply is propagated to everyone on the list. Note: If you want replies to the initial sender to go just to the sender, rather than to everyone on the list,then set this to Of Just Sender.
3. Set List(s) to Send To to the Email List that you wish to be the discussion list.
4. In the Tracking & Authentication tab, set Authenticate using to From Address, and choose the same Email List from the multi-select that you chose in step 3.

Your Email List is now setup as an email discussion list. Anyone in the list can send an email to everyone else in the list simply by composing and sending an email to username@init.jangomail.com, from any external email program, like Thunderbird, Outlook, or GMail for example. All replies will also go to the entire list, since replies will be directed to username@init.jangomail.com also. Only members of the Email List may send an email to username@init.jangomail.com for propagation to the rest of the list. If a non-member sends an email to username@init.jangomail.com, the email will be discarded.

Why use JangoMail as your Email Discussion List Service?

Using JangoMail over a traditional "listserv" service offers these benefits:

1. Each message, from the original email to the list, to all replies, is tracked as an individual campaign, so you can get analytics, such as open-tracking and click-tracking on each email and each reply.
2. All emails can be DomainKeys/DKIM signed.
3. Verify delivery to recipients via SMTP Logs.
4. Automatically have bounce-backs and removal-requests handled.

Try it now - Sign up for a Free Trial.

Better design for API homepage

We have re-designed the homepage of the API to be cleaner, more organized, easier to use, and easier to access documentation for each individual web service method. You can see the difference between the new and the old versions below.

Each method is organized into its proper category, has a link to a test form to call the method, and a link to the detailed documentation for the method.

New API homepage design

Old homepage design

Improved email list segmentation performance

We re-wrote some code tonight that allows campaigns sent to segmented email lists using the "Filter/Send" feature process about 10x faster than normal. Additionally, our capacity for handling complex and very large segments is much greater now.

Previously, segmenting a list of 2 million email addresses, where the resulting segment was 1.5 million email addresses would cause memory errors on our end. But now, you can segment your very large email lists to your heart's content, and JangoMail will handle it fast and efficiently.

Screenshot of email list segmentation process

For more detail on JangoMail's advanced email list segmentation capabilities, see this PDF tutorial.

HTML Editor Updates

Our HTML editor has been updated. The following fixes have been made:

• Table cells incorrectly inherited rowspan and colspan from parent tables
• Pasting rich text did not work on OS X 10.4
• Custom attributes on tags were lost
• Editor did not save
  tags at the end of a paragraph correctly so they did not appear in browsers
• NullPointerException when cleaning up spelling errors

User interface enhancements to Send Email page

Tonight we've enhanced the usability of the main Send Email page. The screenshot below outlines the improvements:

1. There used to be two dropdown menus, one for re-sending an old message and another for editing an existing message. These two dropdowns have now been cominbed into one single dropdown with two buttons.
2. You now have the option to enter a campaign ID manually rather than choosing from the dropdown. The dropdown has always only showed the 500 most recent campaigns. This was limiting to some of our users that needed to work with a much older campaign. Now, you can enter the ID number of any campaign in your account.
3. Our new contextual help system shows a tooltip when you hover your mouse over the question mark. Look for more tooltips throughout the application as we adopt this system across all of the main tabs.
4. You can FTP HTML files to client.jangomail.com/HTMLTemplates, and those HTML files will show in the last dropdown, and can be chosen to create an email campaign. Additionally, if you're using the High Impact Email for JangoMail desktop template management software, those templates will also appear in this dropdown. Note that this dropdown will only show if there is at least one HTML file in your FTP folder.
   

New password change process

In an effort to beef up security, we've enhanced the password-change process for an account. Previously, you could update your password on the same page under the Account Info page that you update all of your other contact information.

Now, there is a separate Change Password function, which requires you to enter your old password and enter your new password (twice) before a password change can take place.

New Feature: 101 new templates and editing software

I am happy to announce that a new email template set and a tool to manage these templates is available for download here:

http://www.jangomail.com/downloads/HIE5_JangoMail_Setup.exe

The download is over 100 MB, so it may take a few minutes to retrieve this file, depending on your Internet connection.

This software is called "High Impact Email for JangoMail". It is an email template management tool that comes with 101 email templates, and it works directly with your JangoMail account. During installation, you'll be asked for your JangoMail username and password, so have that handy.

Once you've downloaded and installed "High Impact Email for JangoMail", this is what the application will look like:

The software shows the categories of email templates on the left, and the actual email templates on the right. Select the email template you wish to use and hit the "Next" button on the lower-right.

The email template software will have already stored your JangoMail account username and password when you installed it. After you've selected and edited the template click the "Save to JangoMail" button in the lower right.

To find your new template in your JangoMail account, click the Messages link, click Compose New Message, then click With an Uploaded Template. Click the new template that was created in High Impact.

After selecting your email template, you can edit it within the JangoMail editor to make any final changes, before sending your email campaign:

We hope you find this new email template software useful.