Automatic letters to subscribers

AY Mail 2 Professional and Corporate Editions
No special skills required

You can configure AY Track to send address validation or welcome letters every time a new subscription is received.

Address validation letter is sent immediately upon receiving a subscription request, and the subscription request is put on hold until the subscriber receives the validation letter and confirms the subscription.

There are two methods for the subscriber to confirm the subscription:

Subscriber may be asked to click on the address confirmation link.

Subscriber may be required to respond to the validation letter.

We highly recommend using address validation. Even though you may lose some subscribers, the subscribers that you do collect will be of much higher quality. Address validation may be required under CAN-SPAM Act.

Avoid customizing validation letters with the data supplied by subscriber, because such customization may be abused. Enyone who fills in the form may put arbitrary email addreseses on your form with an offensive content instead in other data fields, and if you use some of these fields in the customization, you will be carrying this offensive content through your message. It is safer to use customization in you Welcome letter, which is sent when the addresses are confirmed.

The Welcome letter is sent when the subscription is accepted.

To create or edit automatic letters:

1. Click on the Settings->AY Track->Subscription Forms from the main menu, select the form you want, and then click on the Edit Letters button. The Automatic Letters dialog will appear.

2. Choose mail account, enter your e-mail address and your name. This e-mail address must be processed by AY Track either through a hook or by SMTP Server.

3. If you want email addresses to be confirmed by subscribers, check the box on the Validation tab to turn on validation letter. AY Track will automaticaly sends this letter upon receiving a subscription for this form.

If you want the subscribers to confirm their requests by responding to the validation letter, you do not need to do anything special. AY Track will automatically insert the confirmation id into the subject line and the text of the message. If the subscriber responds to the request, the subscription will be processed. Keep in mind that some people may have autoresponders, and the reply from the autoresponder may be indistinguishable from the confirmation letter.

If you would rather provide a clickable confirmation link, you need to use the Confirm macro.

You may select Message->Default Letter->Web Confirmation from the Automatic Letter menu to display a prototype of the validation letter with the Confirm macro already inserted.

You need to insert a link in place of [put-your-link-here] This must be a link to a web page where the subscriber is going to be redirected after the confirmation.

If you want to write your own letter, you must insert the Confirm macro. Type the question mark (?) at the end of your link, leave cursor there, then select Message->Insert->Confirmation Id from the main menu. You will see the Confirm macro inserted (#/Confirm/#).

When AY Track sends the message, it will replace #/Confirm#/ with a confirmation id, which is necessary to recognize the confirmation click through the link.

4. If you want to send welcome letters, switch to the Welcome tab and turn the Welcome letter on. Enter the text of your Welcome letter.

5. If you use AY Track hook, you need to check email from time to time, preferably several times a day, to let AY Track extract subscription requests and confirmation letters from the mail flow.