Bug Fix: SendTransactionalEmail

Previously, the SendTransactionalEmail API method was not rejecting domains that have been unsubscribed in an account and system-wide unsubscribed domains. For example, the domain antihotmail.com is a domain that is in the JangoMail system-wide blocklist.

This has now been corrected.

Now if you use SendTransactionalEmail to send to xxxxx@antihotmail.com, the following exception will be thrown:

JangoMailNamespace.SystemDomainAddressException: Web Service Exception SystemDomainAddressException: Email address is on system-wide domain block list.

Similarly, if you unsubscribe the domain abccompany.com within your individual JangoMail account, and then you attempt to send an email to xxxxx@abccompany.com via SendTransactionalEmail, this exception will be thrown:

JangoMailNamespace.UserDomainAddressException: Web Service Exception UserDomainAddressException: Email address is on account's domain block list.

HTML Editor Upgraded to EditLive Version 6.7.1.17

We have upgraded the HTML Editor that JangoMail uses on the Send Email page. The upgrade is to the latest version of Ephox's EditLive Java-based HTML editor, version 6.7.1.17.

Bug Fixes Included in Version 6.7.1.17

• Merge Inline Styles did not merge with the first P tag
• Table corruption when merging between rows in the last column
• Word Count did not exclude removed text
• Inserting an image next to another image copied the attributes of the previous image
• Proxy servers specified by IP address were resolved to a hostname, which can cause issues with local servers
• Spell Checker did not automatically load the correct dictionary when using the Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian or Dutch interface translations
• Address tags with inline styles crashed the editor
• EditLive! corrupted cookies with spaces
• Inserting new rows into a table with the inline table toolbar present caused the editor to move focus above the table

PDF Document now available on Trackable SMTP Relay feature

The official PDF guide is now available:

http://www.jangomail.com/documents/Public/JangoMail-Tutorial-SMTP-Relay-Tracking.pdf

Read this step by step guide to learn how to track every single person to person email that you send. The new SMTP service has lots of benefits over your existing SMTP service:

• Open Tracking
• Click Tracking
• DomainKeys/DKIM Signing
• Easy web-based access to SMTP Logs
• Categorization of different types of transactional emails
• API methods to retrieve Reporting data

Use it with Outlook or any desktop email program. Use it with your web page scripts that send email (ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, JSP, all web platforms are supported). Use it anywhere you designate an outbound SMTP server.

Two new API methods to delete Group members

Tonight we have launched two new API/web service methods that allow for mass deletion of Group members. These two methods and their descriptions are below. Click each method to go directly to the API test form.

Groups_DeleteAllMembers
Deletes all members of a Group.

Groups_DeleteBulkMembers
Deletes all specified email addresses in a Group.

The Groups_DeleteAllMembers method is analagous to the Delete All Members button within the JangoMail web interface. The Groups_DeleteBulkMembers is analagous to the Delete Group Members In Bulk button in the web interface.

Feature Enhancement: The Email List Importer can now handle multi-GigaByte files

We are happy to announce that we have enhanced our Group Import algorithm such that even super-large files can be uploaded for import. Previously, files over 150 MB would not process correctly and our data team would have to manually import the email list. Now, multi-GigaByte files can be uploaded through the web interface or via FTP, and JangoMail will begin to instantly process the file.

For more information on importing data into JangoMail Groups, see this tutorial.

For more information on how to FTP data files for importing into JangoMail, see this blog post.

New Feature: Geo Tracking Phase II (segment by location data)

In addition to being able to see geo tracking location data for Opens, Clicks, and Web Page Conversions on your email marketing campaigns, you can now segment your data by location or by a distance from a particular location.

Let's say I want to know who opened my email campaign within 100 miles of downtown Chicago (zip code 60610). I simply enter the data in the distance box and filter my data down:

Instead of filtering by distance, I can also choose a specific location by which to segment by using the Location dropdown menus:


Here is the sample filtered report for all Opens within 100 miles of zip code 60610. Note that actual email addresses have been blurred:

What's next?

Our final phase III rollout of Geo Tracking will include a spectacular visual overlay on Google Maps showing you graphically where Opens, Clicks, and Web Page Views/Conversions came from. Additionally, you'll be able to export any segemented data into a new JangoMail Group with a single click. This will make sending followup email campaigns to geo targetted segments a snap!

New Feature: Trackable SMTP relay now in beta

Today we have launched a feature into beta, that no other email marketing service provider has -- an SMTP relay service built specifically for email marketers. Any JangoMail active account holder can test it right now.

You can now send all of your person-to-person and transactional emails through the JangoMail SMTP relay at relay.jangosmtp.net.

The benefits of relaying your individual email messages through relay.jangosmtp.net instead of your corporate email server or your ISP email server are:

1. Open Tracking
2. Click Tracking
3. SMTP Logging
4. DomainKeys/DKIM signing
5. Automatic plain text and HTML message generation
6. Grouping of different types of emails into different categories for ease of reporting

We will soon be publishing a detailed document on how to use the SMTP relay service, but for now, follow these steps:

1. Login to your account and go to My Options and Settings --> SMTP Relay.

2. Review the settings and setup an authentication scheme, either by IP Address or by From Address.

3. If you choose to authenticate by From Address, then your email system will have to authenticate into the SMTP relay service with your JangoMail account username/password. Additionally, all of your emails must come from the From Address(es) that you specify under My Options and Settings --> SMTP Relay --> From Addresses.

4. After you've setup your authentication and tracking preferences, start relaying your email through relay.jangosmtp.net. You can connect on port 25 or port 2525.

5. All Reporting is in real-time under Reporting --> Transactional Emails.

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Update on 6/15/09: Official PDF document now available at http://www.jangomail.com/documents/Public/JangoMail-Tutorial-SMTP-Relay-Tracking.pdf

New Feature: Geo Tracking is here (Phase I)

We're excited to announce the availability of Geo-Tracking data for Open Tracking, Click Tracking, and Web Site Activity Tracking reports. JangoMail is one of the few email marketing service providers to provide Geo-Tracking data.

The following data is now available along with the email address of the subscriber that took the action:

• City
• State
• Zip Code
• Country
• ISP
• Latitude
• Longitude

To view these additional columns, click the "By Location" tab on any of the Open Tracking, Click Tracking, or Web Site Activity Tracking reports.

Here is a sample Open Tracking with Geo Tracking Report data from our client, Popcorn Palace:


Here is a sample Click Tracking with Geo Tracking Report from JangoMail's own JangoMail account:


A similar Web Site Activity with Geo Tracking Report is available if you implement Web Site Activity Tracking on your site, which allows you to see what web pages your subscribers are visiting after clicking on and leaving your email campaign. We're not showing a screenshot of that report, since the above two clearly illustrate the Geo Tracking columns.

What's coming ahead?

1. The ability to segment Geo Tracking data based on any of the above parameters, and then send a new campaign to just those subscribers.
2. The ability to do distance based segmentations. For example, send my second campaign to everybody that opened the first campaign within 100 miles from Chicago, Illinois.
3. A visual overlay of geo tracking data over Google Maps.

New Feature: Autoresponders now work with Triggers

Want to setup triggered emails to fire based on recipient activity on an autoresponder email? Now you can do that. Any triggers associated with an email campaign used as an autoresponder, will now have those same triggers fired when action is taken by the recipient upon the autoresponder email.

For more information about Triggers with JangoMail, see http://www.jangomail.com/documents/Public/JangoMail_Tutorial_Triggers.pdf.

For more information about Autoresponders with JangoMail, see http://www.jangomail.com/documents/Public/JangoMail_Tutorial_Autoresponder.pdf

New API/Web Service Methods: Web Page Views and Mailbox Full Data

We have just released six new API methods for the JangoMail Email Marketing API.

These three methods allow you to retrieve web page view data for a particular email campaign if you're using JangoMail's Web Site Activity Tracking feature:

Reports_GetPageViews_Dataset
Retrieves all web site page views from an email campaign that is using JangoMail Activity Tracking. Returns a .NET DataSet.

Reports_GetPageViews_String
Retrieves all web site page views from an email campaign that is using JangoMail Activity Tracking. Returns a String.

Reports_GetPageViews_XML
Retrieves all web site page views from an email campaign that is using JangoMail Activity Tracking. Returns an XML document.

These three allow you to retrieve "mailbox full" soft-bounce data for a particular email campaign:

Reports_GetMailboxFull_Dataset
Retrieves the "mailbox full" soft-bounces for a particular email campaign. Returns a .NET DataSet.

Reports_GetMailboxFull_String
Retrieves the "mailbox full" soft-bounces for a particular email campaign. Returns a String.

Reports_GetMailboxFull_XML
Retrieves the "mailbox full" soft-bounces for a particular email campaign. Returns an XML document.

New JangoMail website is LIVE

After 8 years of thinking about it, it's finally live - http://www.jangomail.com

New JangoMail website design coming in next few days

Within the next seven days, we'll be launching a new website design. The login form that you're used to seeing in the upper-left will now be in the upper-right corner of the screen. Click the purple LOGIN button, and the login form will instantly appear. See the below image for a preview of the new website and the new LOGIN button.


We're excited about our new website design. It's the first re-design in our company's 8 year history. Additionally, after the new website is live, I'd love to hear your feedback.

New Feature: Determine Size of Email Before Sending

You can now determine the size of your email message using the Spam Check tool on the Send Email page.

Why would I care about the size of my email message?

JangoMail measures both number of emails sent and total data bytes sent from your account. Both are a factor in your account's pricing. Now, the Spam Check tool will include the exact size of your email message in bytes, taking into account the HTML/Plain Text parts, any attachments, and embedded images, if you choose to set your email marketing campaign that way.

Here's a live example from our customer, Popcorn Palace:


And here is the result of the Spam Check:

The size of this email at 191 KB is bigger than the average email marketing message, and that's because it's using the Embedded Images feature, which encodes the content of each image within the actual email content, rather than referencing the images off a web server.

If this email did not use the Embedded Images feature, the total size would be around 1,500 bytes, or 1.5 KB, for a size savings of over 99%!

New Feature: Pause/Resume an email marketing campaign in progress

Did you hit Send by mistake? Did you just notice that your Subject line is spelled wrong, but you already hit Send?

You can now Pause and Resume an email marketing campaign in progress.

Go to Reporting, find your campaign, and click the red PAUSE link. You may also click the status message to the left in parentheses to see the sending progress of your email campaign. Click the parenthetical status and the popup will show you many messages in your email campaign have been sent and how many remain to be sent.

Here is a live example from our client, Popcorn Palace:

Click the red PAUSE link to pause an email marketing campaign.

After clicking PAUSE, the email campaign is paused and the text changes to RESUME. If you made a mistake in the content of your email, you can go back to the Send Email tab, and make any necessary edits. Click the RESUME link to continue the sending of the email campaign.

Click the (sending) or (paused) status to launch a popup displaying progress statistics of the email campaign, including how many emails have been sent and how many remain to be sent.

Email Notifications:

If you pause a campaign, JangoMail will email you daily email reminders alerting you that you have a paused email campaign, and that you have 7 days after the Pause date to Resume your email campaign. Here is a sample email notification:

Dear Michelle:

This is a reminder that you have a PAUSED email campaign in your account:

Subject: Mother's Day Popcorn Specials
Mass Email ID: 233288445
Total Recipients: 46781
Pause Date: May 9 2009 5:51PM

You have SEVEN DAYS after the Pause date to resume your email campaign, otherwise you will not be able to resume it. You can resume your campaign by finding your campaign in Reporting and clicking the green RESUME link.

Please direct any questions to https://www.jangomail.com/Support/.

Sincerely,

The JangoMail Administrator
https://www.jangomail.com/Support/
http://www.jangomail.com
1-888-709-4099 or 614-343-3864



API / Web Service Reference:

ResumeMassEmail
Resumes a paused mass email campaign

PauseMassEmail
Pauses a mass email campaign

New Feature: Inbox Shadow

Tonight we have released a new feature called the "Inbox Shadow", which allows you to filter out recipients from an email campaign that have received a previous email campaign from you in a designated number of past days.

Sample Scenarios:

1. You wish to send an email campaign, but make sure you do not send to anyone that has received a campaign in the last 30 days.

2. You may want to schedule a daily recurring email campaign to go out to a Group, but upon each daily send, have those recipients that have received any email campaign in the last 7 days filtered out.

To use this feature, simply set the proper field on the "Send Email" page:


You can also set a recurring schedule for an email by filling out the Recurring Scheduling section:

New Feature: Email Deliverability Diagnostics Tool

There are cases when a customer, using a desktop email package like Outlook, Thunderbird, or Windows Mail sends a test email message, only to find that the email message is automatically routed into the Junk Mail folder rather than the Inbox. Many times, there is something in the content of the email message that is triggering the Junk Mail filter, and often times it is hard to isolate the exact content issue due to the black box nature of desktop spam filters.

JangoMail has introduced a Deliverability Diagnostics Tool, which will send variations of your email campaign to a given email address, so that you can see which emails end up in the Inbox versus the Junk Mail folder. Based on this, a customer can easily determine what factor of the email message is resulting in it being perceived as Junk.

What kinds of test email messages will the tool send?

You have the option of sending variations of a generic system email, and/or variations of your own email campaign. Each test will be varied, with open and click tracking turned on versus off, with a different From Address, with a different Tracking Domain, and other variances.

How do I use the Deliverability Diagnostics Tool?

If you are a new customer prior to May 5, 2009, you must turn the feature on in your account. Customers after May 5, 2009 already have the feature turned on.


Turning this feature ON will allow the "Delivery Test" button to appear on the Send Email page:


When you click the "Delivery Test" button, a popup will be launched asking you for your email address and the type of test(s) you want to send:


Checking the "custom" checkbox will send variances of the email campaign that you're currently working with. Checking the "generic" checkbox will send variances of a generic system message from "John Smith".

After choosing your test options and clicking the button, the test emails will be sent. Seven total emails will be sent, each with different tracking, from address, and domain properties to help you isolate which tests are going into the Inbox versus the Junk Mail folder. The subject line of each test email message will be labeled accordingly.


Summary:

The Email Deliverability Diagnostics Tool is just one more tool in JangoMail's arsenal of email delivery solutions. To further optimize your email deliverability, be sure to apply for the Sender Score Certified program and sign your emails with DomainKeys/DKIM and run your email campaign through the Spam Score tool. Additionally, most JangoMail emails are sent through Habeas Safelisted senders.

API/Web Service Enhancement: Two choices for error messages

Users of JangoMail's API / Web Service now have two choices for the format of error messages. Typically, errors thrown by the API result in a plain string, or a .Net exception for those programming on the .Net platform.

As a result of a request of a current client, you can now choose to have XML formatted errors instead. Because we anticipate that this feature will be rarely used, we have not added a screen in the web interface to toggle between the two settings. However, if you do wish to change your API error formatting, just contact Support and we'll make the change to your account for you.

Example of standard .Net-based exception:

JangoMailNamespace.InvalidEmailAddressException: Web Service Exception InvalidEmailAddressException: E-mail address is invalid.
at JangoMailNamespace.JangoMail.GetFailureMessage(Int32 UserID, String MethodName, Exception ex)
at JangoMailNamespace.JangoMail.SendTransactionalEmail(String Username, String Password, String FromEmail, String FromName, String ToEmailAddress, String ToHeader, String ContentType, String Subject, String MessagePlain, String MessageHTML, String RawMessage, String Options)
at JangoMailNamespace.JangoMail.SendTransactionalEmail(String Username, String Password, String FromEmail, String FromName, String ToEmailAddress, String Subject, String MessagePlain, String MessageHTML, String Options)

Example of XML-based exception:

Enhanced redundancy for transactional email marketing

Those clients using the JangoMail transactional email platform can now send their transactional emails with greater confidence, because we've added a layer of redundancy to the sending process for these transactional emails.

Previously, all clients were assigned a single email sender through which transactional emails were routed when calling the API method SendTransactionalEmail. Non Sender Score Certified clients would have their transactional emails routed through sender bombay.jangomail.com, while Sender Score Certified clients would have their transactional emails routed through castle.jangomail.com. But, if that single email sender was down, then calls to SendTransactionalEmail would result in an exception, due to the API being unable to transmit the email message to the designated sender.

Now, all users are assigned two transactional email senders on two separate networks, and if the primary sender is down, the email is automatically routed through the backup email sender.

This is another small step in our goal of building the most powerful, and easiest to use, transactional email messaging platform available. For more information on JangoMail's transactional email platform, see this web page.

New Feature: Only pre-process an email marketing campaign, but never send it

You can now set an email marketing campaign to pre-process only, and never actually send. Just check the box in the Miscellaneous section at the bottom of the Send Email page.


What is "pre-processing" anyway?

There are two steps to processing every campaign in JangoMail: pre-processing and sending. The pre-processing refers to generating a final recipient list, and assigning various email senders to the recipients based on configured rules specific to your account, like whether you're a participant in the Habeas Safelist or the Sender Score Certified programs. In generating the final recipient list, your original recipients are filtered for unsubscribes, bounces, and possibly duplicates. Pre-processing generates the final "send to" list for your campaign. Checking the above checkbox will make it so the "pre-processing" happens, but the actual "sending" never happens.

Why would anyone ever want to use this?

There are several reasons why this feature may be useful:

1. You may want to see what the final recipient list looks like, after all unsubscribes, bounces, and duplicates have been removed. This feature will allow you to see the final recipient list while not actually sending the email to the recipient list.
2. You may want to see how long JangoMail takes to do the pre-processing, so you can time your actual send in the future accordingly.
   

New Feature: Send personalized previews/test messages to a Group

We have expanded the functionality of the Preview/Save button on the Send Email page to allow sending a personalized preview message to an entire Group that has 100 members or fewer. Additionally, a designated Test Group will have a corresponding one-click "send" button on the Send Email page.

1. To designate a Group to be a Test Group, the Group must have 100 members or fewer, and you must check the box as shown below. Go to the Groups and Email Addresses tab, select the Group, and then click the Change Group Name / Test Group button.




2. Check the box and click the button. Now that the Group is designated a Test Group, go to the Send Email page. In addition to the Preview/Save button, you'll see another button for each Test Group in your account. Clicking one of these buttons will send an immediate test email to the Group indicated on the button.


3. Clicking the Preview/Save button will launch the popup as normal, but a dropdown will appear listing the available Test Groups.