Author Topic: Mass Mailing from search results confusion (Read 9142 times)

Dave Greenberg · January 27, 2012, 02:37:48 pm

Boris and Xavier - I reviewed the current and suggested text for the field help, and also tested the current behavior. I definitely agree that the current help text is quite confusing. For now, I think we'll keep the field title as is, but I've rewritten the help (see below). I've stayed away from the double negatives ("add and remove from unsubscribe group ...." language seems really hard to understand - and used a less technically accurate but I think more understandable concept of "tracking unsubscribe requests". I did not mention 'opt-outs' because they aren't connected to this "feature" (opt-outs are global at the contact or email level, and are not connected to a mailing or mailing list / group).

The issue tracker item is: http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-9560

I do agree that going forward, it would be nice to give folks a "Manage Subscriptions" type interface in the "unsubscribe page" where they can see all the mailing lists they're on and unsubscribe selectively. Maybe a sprint project or ??

Quote

Search-based mailings require an "unsubscribe tracking" group.

Because this mailing is using the results of a search to provide the recipient list, you need to specify a group to track people who unsubscribe in response to this mailing.

If a recipient unsubscribes from this mailing, they will be excluded from future mailings which use the same "Unsubscription Group". If a contact in your search results has already been recorded in the selected "Unsubscription Group", they will be excluded from the recipient list.

If a recipient clicks the unsubscribe link they will see the "Unsubscription Group" title on the unsubscribe page. The selected group should have a title that corresponds to the content / type of mailing being sent.

NOTE: Contacts who are in the "Unsubscription Group" but do not match your search critera will not be included in the mailing regardless of their status in that group. This is a change from previous versions which used the term "Base Group".

obiuquido144 · January 27, 2012, 03:42:33 pm

Thanks Dave, that's much clearer.

However I think this sentence should be either dropped or updated:

Quote

If a contact in your search results has already been recorded in the selected "Unsubscription Group", they will be excluded from the recipient list."

It's now saying the exact same thing as the preceding sentence just in another words.

I believe the meaning of the original text was to point out what happens to contacts that are at the time of unsubscription full members of the Unsubscription Group - that they are unsubscribed/removed from the group.

But we could generally say something like:

Quote

This is achieved through actually marking the contact as "unsubscribed from the Group".

, getting rid of the word "recorded" which can mean opposite things in this context.

Dave Greenberg · January 27, 2012, 04:07:18 pm

Hmm - What I want to cover with that sentence is this situation ...

* My search results include Dave Green.
* I select the "CiviCRM General Information" group as my Unsubscription Group
* Dave Green has previously unsubscribed from a search-based mailing the used the same Unsubscription Group

... I'm not sure your replacement explains this, but I like the phrase "marked as unsubscribed" as a way of avoiding the add/remove mess. How about this:

Quote

If a contact in your search results has already been marked as unsubscribed in that group, they will be excluded from this mailing."

obiuquido144 · January 27, 2012, 04:14:22 pm

That situation is covered by the preceding sentence

Quote

If a recipient unsubscribes from this mailing, they will be excluded from future mailings which use the same "Unsubscription Group".

The question is whether to add that 'extra credit' information about the underlying system technique of 'marking as unsubscribed from Group'. IMO it's worth it because it can avoid someone thinking that there's some hidden positive mailing-unsubscribes group property independent of group membership/subscription.

Dave Greenberg · January 27, 2012, 04:26:27 pm

I think there's value in describing what happens for "this mailing" vs. "future mailings", AND I think your "extra credit" sentence also adds value. We'll go with this:

Quote

If a recipient unsubscribes from this mailing, they will be excluded from future mailings which use the same "Unsubscription Group". This is achieved through actually marking the contact as "unsubscribed from the group". If a contact in your search results has already been marked as unsubscribed in that group, they will be excluded from this mailing.

obiuquido144 · January 27, 2012, 04:43:56 pm

I agree. Not requiring the reader to imagine that now can be an iteration of the "future" from the preceeding sentence can save important brain cycles needed elsewhere. Thanks!
I'd however write "unsubscribed FROM" instead of "in" in the last sentence, for consistency. Sorry for being a nitpicker...

xavier · January 27, 2012, 04:54:16 pm

Really impressed by your work. Damn, explaining is hard to do right.

SUGGESTION: create this unsubscribed group by default

obiuquido144 · January 28, 2012, 12:46:43 am

Thanks for the kind words.

I wouldn't go as far as creating an unsubscription group automatically if none is selected - IMO that would support sloppiness, people would just ignore the field and 10s or 100s or groups would be created and the effect of having an Unsubscription group functionality would be lost.

But it would be great to provide the UI to create such a group directly from this page (a plain text input field) and also have a selector listing the last 5 groups used as Unsubscribe Group to speed up selection (that would also help the understanding - if a newbie user would see groups named like "Mailing Newletter Weekly", "Mailing Newsletter Monthly" in this 'Recent' list they'd be right at home).

xavier · January 28, 2012, 03:04:24 am

Hi,
meant during the install, not every time.

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Author Topic: Mass Mailing from search results confusion (Read 9142 times)

Dave Greenberg

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

obiuquido144

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

Dave Greenberg

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

obiuquido144

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

Dave Greenberg

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

obiuquido144

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

xavier

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

obiuquido144

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion

xavier

Re: Mass Mailing from search results confusion