Newsletter audience: consent, signup and import
On this page
Only people who agreed may receive your newsletter. Under Newsletter › Audience you add people with the reason they agreed, readers can sign up themselves, and you can bring over the subscribers of another newsletter tool.
Who may receive it
A person receives your newsletter only after agreeing to news and offers by email from you. WrkLst keeps what they agreed to, when and how, as proof. It is not enough that someone is a contact or a buyer: the agreement is what counts. This includes measuring whether a mail is opened and which links are clicked; whoever does not want that unsubscribes.
Audience lists everyone who receives or has received the newsletter, whether or not they are a contact. Filter by status, source, topic or segment; a person's Consent history shows what happened and when. The status is Subscribed, Waiting for confirmation, Unsubscribed or Proof missing.
Someone who unsubscribed stays out. You can add them again only if they have agreed anew, and you confirm that.
The contact mark Don't reach out only concerns personal outreach by your team; a reader who agreed still receives the newsletter.
Topics and segments
Under Newsletter › Topics & segments:
- Topics are what readers can choose from, at signup and on their preference page. One topic is the default. While you only have the default topic, readers see no choice and simply subscribe to the newsletter. Add a topic to let them choose.
- Segments are groups only your team fills, to reach selected readers; readers never see them. A segment only narrows who receives a newsletter, it never adds anyone.
- A dynamic segment is worked out from a Contacts filter each time a newsletter is sent, so it is always up to date. Set the filter in Contacts, choose Add to topic or segment, then Save as dynamic segment.
Archive or delete what you no longer use.
Adding people
By hand
Choose Add people in Audience. Enter one address or paste a list, one per line — a guestbook list as it is, also in the form Anna Berg <anna@example.com>. For each person say Why may they get the newsletter?:
- Signed our guestbook — counts only when your guestbook says the addresses are for news or your mailing list; tick Our guestbook says so.
- Signed up at an opening or event
- Asked in person
- Asked by email or phone
- Other — in your own words, for example "left a business card at the art fair"
You can add where and when. The reason is kept as proof. For handwritten addresses, tick Send a confirmation email first: a typo or someone else's address never gets your newsletter, and each person is added when they click the link in the email.
From your contacts
In Contacts, choose Add to topic or segment for everyone the current filter shows or for the contacts in your basket (up to 500,000 at once). It uses each contact's main email address. Blocked addresses, confidential contacts, contacts without an address and people who left or were erased are skipped and listed.
The signup page and the form for your website
Under Newsletter › Topics & segments you find your Signup page, where anyone can sign up for your news and offers. Each topic has its own link and code.
- Copy the link with Copy link, or copy the code to place the page on your website with Copy embed code.
- Script opens Signup form for your website: choose the topics to sign visitors up for (none = visitors choose), the language and whether to Ask for a name, then Copy code and paste it where the form should appear. It takes the font and colours of your page and is shown only on pages served over HTTPS.
- The form on other websites is off until you turn it on in Settings › Newsletter (Show the signup form on other websites). Under Allowed websites you can limit it to certain websites. The link to your signup page works either way.
- The newsletter block of your WrkLst website can use the WrkLst newsletter too: choose it under Settings › Website › Forms & newsletter.
The signup page needs your imprint link, a consent wording and a verified sending domain first; until then it and the form are "not available" and nobody can sign up. The page tells you what is missing. Readers can always unsubscribe through the links in mails they have received.
Confirming
People who sign up themselves confirm their address. Under Settings › Newsletter › Confirming on the page you choose how: a six-digit code from the email typed on the page (recommended; the email also carries a link) or only a link in the email. People are on your list only after they confirm.
What readers can do themselves
Every newsletter ends with Manage preferences and a way to unsubscribe. On the preference page readers choose their topics, or Unsubscribe from all news and offers. A reader who leaves one topic stays on the others; unsubscribing from all ends everything. Mail programs' own unsubscribe button works too. Readers can also subscribe again themselves.
Importing from another tool or a file
Under Newsletter › Import, choose where your subscribers are now: Mailchimp, MailerLite (both with an API key, which also tells WrkLst when and how people agreed) or A file (CSV or Excel, or the ZIP that Mailchimp exports; up to 10 files, 100 MB in all). Import before you close your old account: once it is closed, its record of how people agreed is gone.
The import runs in steps: Connect, Read, Check, Import, Done. WrkLst reads first and shows you the numbers; nobody is added until you confirm.
- People whose consent the old tool recorded join and get your newsletters from now on. You say what they agreed to.
- Where nothing records how people agreed (a plain file), they are imported but get no newsletter until you confirm their consent. Tick only the groups you can vouch for; you can do it later.
- People who unsubscribed, bounced or complained there stay out.
- WrkLst warns when many addresses never opened or clicked anything in over a year: mailing them risks complaints and bounces. Leave out the addresses that never opened or clicked is optional and never ticked for you.
- Nobody receives an email from the import itself.
Checking addresses
Optionally, Check addresses with MailerCheck under Audience finds addresses that no longer exist before your newsletters bounce. See Check email addresses with MailerCheck.
Coming from Mailchimp or MailerLite? See Moving from Mailchimp or MailerLite.
Their data
On a person in Audience you can Export data (Art. 15) (a copy of what is stored about them), Change address (the new address gets a confirmation first) and Erase: this removes them from the newsletter, and cannot be undone. Export CSV exports the audience.
If a reader asks you to delete everything you hold about them, or to tell them what it is, use Privacy request… on the subscriber: see Privacy requests.