Contacts

From arpReach 1.8.001 and #V2.0.8, contacts can be updated in bulk using the Trigger Action For Matching Contacts feature.

To access the feature, choose Trigger Action for matching contacts from the I want to… drop-down menu on the Contacts list screen.

Using this feature, you are able to do the following to multiple/all contacts at the same time:

• Add/remove a tag/category
• Add to/remove from the suppression list
• Add a new subscription to specific autoresponders
• Drop/delete a subscription or all subscriptions
• Setup custom field values
• Send the contacts data via HTTP post to a specified URL (this would allow you to export bulk contacts into a third party software)
• Run a user function (#V2-exclusive feature)

Reminder: When your contacts list has no filter/segment in place (i.e., the Filter drop-down menu is set to [No filter]), the “triggered action” will affect ALL your contacts. Be very mindful of the filter settings before proceeding, as you cannot remove a “triggered action” that’s been scheduled or undo a “triggered action” once it’s been processed.

Creating the action to trigger

If you want to add a category, work with the suppression list, add an autoresponder subscription (and so on) in bulk, you need to have the appropriate action for it.

To avoid confusion, you can create actions that will be used specifically for this feature and label it strategically. The Event setting doesn’t matter, but it is recommended to select an option that you do not normally use (e.g., Remote call) so it doesn’t get triggered unintentionally. For example:

See Actions and Events for instructions on how to create an action.

If you want to send contacts data via an HTTP request, you have to create an action with the desired URL and POST/GET method.

Setting the target contacts

A triggered action will be applied to all contacts that match the filter in place when it was scheduled.

You can apply any of your segments or use any of the predefined filters on the Filter drop-down menu on the Contacts list screen.

To apply an action to an existing segment, use the In segment filter. See Segmenting Contacts for instructions on how to create a segment.

Reminder: Again, when your contacts list has no filter/segment in place (i.e., the Filter drop-down menu is set to [No filter]), the “triggered action” will affect ALL your contacts. Be very mindful of the filter settings before proceeding, as you cannot remove a “triggered action” that’s been scheduled or undo a “triggered action” once it’s been processed.

Once your desired filter is in place, you may now choose Trigger Action for matching contacts from the I want to… drop-down menu.

Scheduling the action to trigger

On the Trigger Actions For Matching Contacts page, you can see the filter applied and the number of matching contacts.

This feature doesn’t create new actions but rather schedules existing ones, which will be applied to the matching contacts at the time it was triggered/scheduled.

The Choose actions to apply checklist contains your existing, enabled actions.

Select the action/s to apply to the current matching contacts by clicking in the appropriate checkbox/es.

Once selected, click the Trigger Action button.

The scheduled actions on the queue will be processed during the next run of the arpReach script.

Important note: You can choose to trigger multiple actions in just one schedule (i.e. selecting multiple actions from the Choose actions to apply checklist), but the order of the actions that will be applied is not guaranteed.

If the order of the actions does matter, schedule the actions separately — one at a time. In this case, the actions will be applied in the order they were scheduled (i.e., the first action scheduled will be applied first, then the second action scheduled, then the third action scheduled, etc.).

What is customer segmentation?

Customer segmentation is a process of dividing and sub-dividing a list of contacts into smaller groups based on similar or common characteristics. This allows you to target and contact each group more efficiently and effectively leading to higher profitability and ROI.

Why segment your contact list?

Taking a one size fits all approach to your marketing does not address the specific needs of all of your customers or prospects. In some cases, you can annoy and upset your contacts by sending irrelevant messages which could lead to them not reading further messages or even unsubscribing. This in turn, specifically with email marketing, can harm your delivery rating to the point where active contacts do not receive your emails.

It is generally accepted that if you have a list of 30,000 contacts, it is better to target and send 500 emails to the 500 people most likely to be interested in a specific offer than to send a message to the whole list.

How does segmenting with arpReach work?

arpReach has one of the most powerful and flexible segmenting engines available in any autoresponder software. You can create an unlimited number of segments that filter contacts into or out of a segment based on one or more of the available data elements you have for each contact.

These include (but are not limited to):

• Standard Form Fields
• Custom Form Fields
• Tags
• Categories
• Links Clicked
• Messages Opened

… and much more.

A segment is simply a list of criteria that determine whether or not a contact will be a member of that segment.

You can create as many segments as you need and save them for ongoing use.

Creating / Editing a Segment

To create a new segment, go to Contacts / Segments / Create New:

… or choose Create a segment from the I want to… menu on the Segments list screen:

The options are the same for both defining a new segment and editing an existing segment definition.

• Name – enter a name for the segment.
• Description – enter a description for the segment.

To manage existing segments, go to Contacts / Segments / Show list:

Each segment has one or more criteria. Hovering over the Choose action… drop-down gives access to each segment’s options.

You can edit an existing segment by choosing Edit from the actions column on the Segments list screen.

Defining Segment Criteria

When you have saved the name and description, choose Set Criteria from the actions column on the Segments list screen or click on the number under the Criteria column to define the criteria for the segment.

This will display the criteria list for the segment.

To add a criterion to a segment, select Add a criterion from the I want to… menu located at the top right of the screen.

• Match type – choose the type of match for the criterion. The choices are:
  — Standard field match (various options)
  — Added today
  — Added yesterday
  — Added this week
  — Added this month
  — Added last month
  — Added this year
  — Added last year
  — Date added (before / on / after)
  — Date added (between)
  — Autoresponder (is / is not subscribed)
  — Follow-up (sent / opened / bounced)
  — Subscription (various options)
  — Broadcast (sent / opened / bounced)
  — Tracking tag (has / does not have it)
  — Category (is / is not a member)
  — Clicked link (clicked / did not click)
  — Custom field match (various options)
  — Unsubscribed (to an autoresponder)
  — Imported subscribe date/time (on or after / on or before)
  — Tag (has / does not have tag)
  When you have chosen the match type, choose the Condition (e.g., equals, contains, etc.) and enter or choose the data to search for. Note that the available conditions will vary depending on the Match type you select. In the example image above, the Value to match is an option where you will type in the criteria you require.
• All contacts must match – if this box is checked, every contact in the entire segment must match this criterion no matter the other criteria that are defined in the segment. Adding more criteria to a segment will include more contacts. But if the All contacts must match option is set for a criterion, then any contacts who match other criteria in the segment but not that one will be excluded from the list of matching contacts.

Viewing Matching Contacts

From the Segments list screen, choose Apply from the Actions column. You will be taken to the Contacts list screen with the segment applied.

Another way to apply a segment to your contact list is to choose In Segment from the Filter drop-down menu on the Contacts list screen, then choose the segment to be applied.

If the result of the segment is not what you expect, you can quickly get back to adjusting the criteria by clicking the ‘people icon’ to the right of the Filter below the I want to drop-down.

Actions and events provide some of the most powerful, unique, and flexible capabilities of arpReach as they are at the heart of your email marketing automation capabilities.

They allow you to create an unlimited number of triggers that automate one or many actions or events when activated.

Example: When a contact clicks a single trackable link within an email that you send, arpReach can automatically add a contact tag, remove a different contact tag, change the contact category, update a custom field value, drop one subscription, and add a different subscription.

As you can imagine, this gives you virtually unlimited options to manage your contacts list to build trust and maximize your profitability.

In this section, we provide a basic overview of how to create triggered actions and events and the options available to you. You are encouraged to read this section thoroughly to understand your basic options and then experiment with actions and events.

Creating / Editing an Action

Actions are simple to manage but do require some thought about what you want to do/achieve when they are triggered.

For any action, the name and description can be changed at any time without affecting anything else. However, once an action is created and in production, we do not advise you to change the Event type or triggered Action as this could lead to unpredictable results.

When creating and editing an action, the settings are the same.

To create a new action, go to Contacts / Actions / Create New:

… or choose Create an action from the I want to… drop-down menu on the Actions list screen:

To edit an existing action, choose Edit from the Actions column on the Actions list screen:

Settings

• Name – the name for the action. Every action has its own unique name for easy management.
• Description – a description for the action. This is never displayed to contacts.
• Enabled – check this to enable the action.
• Event – choose the type of event that will trigger this action.
  — Link click – when selected, all of the available links will appear. Check the box for one or more of the trackable links that when clicked should trigger the action.
  — Broadcast open – when selected, the subject line of all of your broadcasts will appear. Check the box for one or more that when opened should trigger the action. Note: This does not work with text only messages.
  — Follow-up message open – when selected, the subject line of all of your autoresponder sequence messages will appear. Check the box for one or more that when opened should trigger the action. Note: This does not work with text only messages.
  — Single email open – when selected, the subject line of all of your single email messages will appear. Check the box for one or more that when opened should trigger the action. Note: This does not work with text only messages.
  — Subscription form submit – when selected, the name of all of your forms for all of your autoresponders will appear. Check the box for one or more forms that when used should trigger the action.
  — Remote call – this is an advanced function triggered by a custom code or webhook.
  
  — Subscription created (#V2-exclusive) – when selected, the name of all your autoresponders will appear. Check the box for one or more of the autoresponders that when cancelled should trigger the action.
  — Subscription cancelled (#V2-exclusive) – when selected, the name of all your autoresponders will appear. Check the box for one or more of the autoresponders that when cancelled should trigger the action.
  — ‘Cancel All subscriptions’ requested (#V2-exclusive) – a ‘Cancel All subscriptions’ request should trigger the action.
  — ‘Do not mail’ requested (#V2-exclusive) – a ‘Do not mail’ request should trigger the action.
  — Soft bounce received (#V2-exclusive) – a soft bounce should trigger the action.
  — Hard bounce received (#V2-exclusive) – a hard bounce should trigger the action.
  — Spam complain received (#V2-exclusive) – a spam complain should trigger the action.
• Action – choose the type of action that will be triggered when the event occurs.
  — Add/remove tags
  — Add/remove contact categories
  — Add subscription
  — Drop subscriptions
  — Drop all subscriptions
  — Delete subscriptions
  — Delete all subscriptions
  — Send email
  — Send HTTP post
  — Add to suppression list
  — Remove from suppression list
  — Add to ban list
  — Remove from ban list
  — Delete contact
  — Change standard field value
  — Change custom field value
  
  — Run user function (#V2-exclusive) – call your own PHP functions by putting them in the user_functions.php file in your installation’s /user_functions directory.

Important Note: Prior to using an action in your production environment, always test it to ensure that what you expect to happen does.

Use Case Example

Let’s suggest that, as part of a campaign targeting prospects who like shoes, your contact makes a purchase and clicks a link to confirm a purchase order.

When your contact performs the event Link click – “Offer – N#02 M#03”, the automated action will then remove the contact tag “Likes Shoes” and add the tag “Bought Shoes”.

Because you can stack multiple actions to events, you can create a second event that is actioned when the same link is clicked. For this example, you can also change your contact’s category from “Prospect” to “Customer”.

Contact tags and categories are the backbone of your contact segmenting capabilities. The better you understand the needs of your contacts, the better your results will be.

By associating your contacts with tags and categories, it will be easier for you to create highly targeted segments which will allow you to send focused messages to the right people at the right time.

In this section, we look at and detail the three main segmentation options available to you within arpReach.

• Contact Tags
• Contact Categories
• Tracking Tags

Contact Tags

A contact tag is a function that allows you to collect and store a piece of information or data about your contact. It is totally up to you what that information is. Using tags allows you to filter your whole contacts list down to one or more contacts that have one or more specific tags so that you can send specific messages to contacts with a specific interest.

Examples: You can create contact tags to identify things such as:

• Product purchases
• Contact interests
• Contact likes or dislikes

You can create and use unlimited contact tags.

Tip! When deciding the names for your tags, keep them simple and always follow the same naming convention so you can easily locate and use them in other functions (e.g. likesCats, likesDogs, interestSocialMedia, interestSEO, interestEmailMarketing, etc.).

To create a new contact tag, go to Contacts / Tags / Create New:

Contact tags are very easy to manage because they only have two settings — name and description. For any contact tag, both of these settings can be changed at any time without affecting which contacts the tag is assigned to.

To manage your existing contact tags, go to Contacts / Tags / Show List:

The Tags list screen shows the number of contacts with the tag and you can click the number to view those contacts.

Contact Categories

Contact categories are essentially the same as contact tags, but arpReach has both to give you greater flexibility.

By having both, you could chose tags to store the interests of your contacts and categories to store types of contacts such as Customers and Prospects. Again, the choice is up to you.

You can also create and use unlimited categories.

Examples: You can create contact categories to identify things such as:

• Customers
• Prospects
• Gender
• Location

To create a new contact category, go to Contacts / Categories / Create New:

Categories are very easy to manage because they only have two settings — name and description. For any category, both of these settings can be changed at any time without affecting which contacts the category is assigned to.

To manage your existing contact categories, go to Contacts / Categories / Show List:

The Categories list screen shows the number of contacts in the category and you can click the number to view those contacts.

Tracking Tags

“Use tracking tags to monitor the success of your subscription forms and websites”

Tracking tags are used with the subscription forms that you place on your websites. They allow you to track which forms and/or websites generate subscriptions. Using this facility, you can see which of your forms and/or websites are performing best because you can segment your list by tracking tag on success criteria such as the open rate of your messages.

Another important function of tracking tags is to allow you to display custom pages to your contacts when they perform actions such as subscribing, unsubscribing, or confirming a subscription. You can set the URLs of the pages you wish to be displayed to your contacts for each action under the Custom Pages tab when creating or editing a tracking tag.

To create a new tracking tag, go to Contacts / Tracking Tags / Create New:

Settings Tab

• Name – the name of the tracking tag. Every tracking tag has its own unique name for easy management.
• Description – a description for the tracking tag. This is never displayed to contacts.

Custom Pages Tab

Subscribe Section

• Subscribe success page – the page to be displayed when the contact successfully subscribes.
• Subscribe failure page – the page to be displayed if there is an error when the contact submits the subscription form. For example, if the email address is not valid or the subscription is a duplicate.

Unsubscribe Section

• Unsubscribe success page – the page to be displayed when the contact successfully unsubscribes by clicking an unsubscribe link in a message.
• Unsubscribe failure page – the page to be displayed when there is an error when the contact clicks an unsubscribe link in a message. For example, if the contact has already unsubscribed.

Confirm Section

• Confirm success page – the page to be displayed when the contact successfully confirms their subscription by clicking a confirm link in a message.
• Confirm failure page – the page to be displayed when there is an error when the contact clicks a confirm link in a message. For example, if their subscription is already confirmed or if the autoresponder no longer exists.

Next Section

• Next success page – the page to be displayed when the contact successfully requests to be sent the next message in a subscription by clicking the next message link in a message.
• Next failure page – the page to be displayed when there is an error when the contact clicks the next message link in a message. For example, if there are no more messages in the sequence or if the autoresponder no longer exists.

To manage your existing tracking tags, go to Contacts / Tracking Tags / Show List:

The Tracking Tags list screen shows the number of contacts who have each tracking tag assigned to one or more of their subscriptions. Clicking the number shows those contacts.

One of the powerful and very useful features of arpReach is that it allows you to import your existing contacts.

You can import your existing contacts from either a CSV file or a tab delimited text file.

The Import Process

To access the import facility, choose Contacts / Import Contacts from the menu bar:

Upload the file

Choose the correct file type (Comma or Tab) from the Field delimiter dropdown menu.

Click the Choose file button to open a file dialog on your device.

Navigate to the file you want to import, select it, and click Open. The name of your file will now appear beside the Choose File button as seen below.

Click on the Upload Import File button.

Map the file data

A new screen will appear once the file has uploaded. This will allow you to “map” the columns in your file into arpReach and indicate which autoresponder subscriptions and contact tags/categories to assign to your contacts.

Fields Section

The field information on the left of the screen will show the data gathered from the first row of your file (Important Note: Always remove the header row). This will allow you to easily map each field accordingly.

Use the dropdown menu for each field to select the correct and corresponding field within arpReach (e.g., Subscriber = First name field).

If you do not want to import a column from your file into arpReach, choose the [Do not import] option.

Tip! The email address column will automatically be recognized and mapped as the Email address field. If the system is unable to do so, then there is a problem with the format of your file (e.g., has extra/unnecessary spaces before and/or after each field) that will cause issues with the import process and you need to re-do your CSV/TSV file.

Once you have mapped the contact information you wish to import, you can move on to the other options you have available.

• Format Preference – choose what format your contacts should receive their emails in. In virtually all cases, No Preference will be suitable as you can choose the format each email you send is sent in.
• File entry for confirmed – enter the value from your file that indicates confirmed status. Importing the confirmation status is not mandatory and you can just opt to use the built-in Confirmation setting field under the Autoresponder subscription section below.

Segmentation Section

Providing that you have created Contact Tags and Contact Categories prior to attempting to import your contacts, you will be able to choose which tags and/or categories are assigned to every batch of contacts you import.

To do this, simply click on the appropriate check boxes.

Autoresponder Subscription Section

When importing contacts into arpReach, you should always choose an autoresponder to add those contacts to.

While it is possible to import contacts into arpReach without associating them to an autoresponder, it is not recommended as your contacts cannot remove themselves from your list and this may be considered a breach of anti-spam legislation.

From the dropdown, select the primary autoresponder you will be adding your contacts to.

This will expand your screen to give you additional options.

• Starting message – choose the message number of the autoresponder sequence that they will be starting their subscription from.
• Status – choose the status of the autoresponder subscription.
  — Active
  — Paused
  — Cancelled
  — Dropped
  — Finished
  — Failed
• Tracking tag – choose the tracking tag to assign to the autoresponder subscription, providing you have previously set up tracking tags.
• Confirmation – choose the confirmation status of the autoresponder subscription. This is only applicable to autoresponders that require subscriptions to be confirmed.

Additional Autoresponder Subscriptions Section

The settings when assigning additional autoresponder subscriptions to the contacts you will be importing are the same as the settings when assigning the primary autoresponder subscription.

If you do not wish to assign them to additional autoresponders, you may just disregard this section.

Start the import process

After mapping your file data and assigning the autoresponder subscriptions and contact tags/categories accordingly, click the Continue button at the top left of the page.

On the next screen, click the Start Import button and wait for the system to complete your import. This acts as a final stop-check for you to make sure you are importing contacts with the correct settings.

The duration of the import process would depend on the amount of data the system will be importing from your file. You will see the panel updating as the import progresses. (Important Note: Do not close your browser or move to another page while import is running.)

Import Complete

Once the import process is complete, you will be redirected to the Contacts list screen with this temporary notification message at the top:

Congratulations! You have successfully imported your contacts into your arpReach system.

“Create categories and tracking tags before adding contacts so they are available when you are ready to add contacts and subscriptions”

All of the options for managing your contacts are available from the Contacts option on the menu bar.

• Show list – view your contacts list.
• Add a contact – add a single contact.
• Quick add – paste a list of email addresses to add.
• Quick find – find a contact by name or email address.
• Import contacts – import from a CSV file.
• Quick remove – paste a list of email addresses to remove.
• Reports – view reports about contacts.
• Tags – manage your contact tags.
• Tracking tags – manage your tracking tags.
• Actions – manage your marketing automation actions.
• Categories – manage your contact categories.
• Segments – manage your segment definitions.

The Contacts List

Click Show List in the Contacts menu to display your list of contacts.

The total number of contacts and the number of contacts matching the current filter appear at the top left of the list screen.

• Total – the total number of contacts in your system.
• Matching – the number of contacts that match the current filter in place. Filters allow you to find a smaller group of contacts that meet a specific criteria.

The list may be sorted using the options available on the Order by dropdown menu at the top left of the list table.

Contact Filter

You can quickly filter your contacts list using over 20 predefined criteria by selecting a filter from the Filter dropdown menu at the top right of the list table.

You can remove the filter and return to a list containing all your contacts by choosing [No filter] from this menu.

List Paging

If your list contains more items than can be shown on one screen, the page selector appears at the top right. Use this to navigate through the pages of your list.

You can set the number of items that appears per page in your personal preferences by going to Setup / Personal Settings / Preferences.

On the Contacts list screen…

… for each contact, you can see:

• Email address – the contact’s email address.
• Name – the contact’s name.
• Company – the contact’s company name, if provided.
• Date/time added – the date/time the contact was added to the system.
• Subscriptions – the number of subscriptions the contact has.
• Emails sent – the number of emails sent to the contact.

Clicking on the number of subscriptions or the number of emails sent takes you to the Subscriptions or Send Log screens for the contact.

Choose action… Menu

Every contact has an action menu where you can view or change information for the contact.

• View detail – to view detailed information about the contact.
• View send log – to view detailed information about every email sent to the contact.
• Edit – to edit the contact’s information.
• Subscriptions – to manage the contact’s autoresponder subscriptions.
• Clear logs – to clear the send logs for the contact.
• Delete – to delete the contact and all related information. Use this with caution, there is no undo!

“List items such as subscriptions and emails sent are clickable and drill down into the contact’s information”

I want to… Menu

The I want to… menu for the contacts list has options for adding and deleting contacts and working with contacts that match the filter currently selected from the Filter dropdown menu.

“Check the I Want To… menu to see what else you can do on the current screen”

• Refresh this page – to update the number of subscriptions and the number of emails sent.
• Find a contact – to find a contact by partial name or email address. This is the same as choosing Contacts / Quick Find from the menu bar.
• Add a contact – to add one contact. This is the same as choosing Contacts / Add a Contact from the menu bar.
• Edit matching contacts – to make changes to all the contacts currently selected by the filter you chose from the Filter dropdown menu.
• Export matching contacts – to export in text format all the contacts currently selected by the filter you chose from the Filter dropdown menu.
• Delete matching contacts – to delete all the contacts currently selected by the filter you chose from the Filter dropdown menu.
• Clear logs for matching contacts – to clear the email send logs for all the contacts currently selected by the filter you chose from the Filter dropdown menu.
• View segment list – to jump to the segments list where you can manage your segment definitions. This is the same as choosing Contacts / Segments / Show List from the menu bar.

Add/Edit a Contact

The screens for adding or editing a contact are the same. The options available are split across five tabs, some with multiple sections. Click on the blue section to expand and see your options.

• Details – basic info of the contact.
  — Email address and name
  — Preferences
• Contact info – more detailed info of the contact.
  — Company
  — Address
  — Alternative email address
  — Phone numbers
  — Mobile phone numbers
  — Fax numbers
• Segmentation – categories and/or tags to assign to the contact.
• Custom fields – covered in the Custom fields section.
• Notes – freeform text with notes on the contact.

Important Note: When you make any changes, always remember to click the Save Contact button. You can switch between tabs and open and close sections within those tabs, but you must click the Save Contact button before you leave the page.

Clicking the Cancel button returns you to the list screen without saving any of your changes.

“Create/add and edit screens are laid out the same for easy management”

Quick Add

From the menu bar, choose Contacts / Quick Add:

Here you can paste a list of email addresses to be added to the contact list. There should be one email address per line.

Email addresses that already exist in the contacts list or those that are on your list of banned email addresses or domains (see Setup / Ban Lists) will be ignored.

Providing you have created Contact Tags and/or Categories prior to attempting to add contacts, you can also select how to segment the contacts you are adding by checking the appropriate boxes for contact tags and/or categories. As an example in the image above, you could add one batch of “Customers” who “Bought Jackets“. You could also add a different batch of “Prospects” who “Like Shoes” or “Like Jackets” or both.

Remember to click the Save Contacts button to save the process.

Quick Remove

By pasting a list of email addresses, you can quickly remove contacts from your contacts list. This facility is available from the menu bar by choosing Contacts / Quick Remove:

Paste the list of email addresses that you want to remove in the Email addresses box and choose the desired Remove action from the dropdown menu. There should be one email address per line.

• Unsubscribe – the contacts remain in the contact list but all their autoresponder subscriptions are cancelled.
• Delete permanently – the contacts and all related information are removed entirely from your arpReach system.

“Choose Quick Find from the Contacts menu when you need to find a contact quickly”

Quick Find

You can quickly find one or more contacts if you have a full or partial name or email address. To use the facility, from the menu bar, choose Contacts / Quick Find:

As you start to type into the email address or name box, arpReach will offer possible suggestions in a dropdown box. If the contact you are looking for appears in the dropdown box, select it and click the Find Contact button to go to the Contacts list screen with only that specific contact on the list. Note that the Filter dropdown menu has changed to Quick find result.

However, as you are typing, if the contact you are looking for does not appear in the list of suggestions, enter as much of the name or email address as you know. Ignore the suggestions dropdown box and click the Find Contact button. You will be taken to the contact list screen and all contacts matching the partial name or email address you entered will be shown. You can then manually look for the contact you seek in the list displayed.

Contacts Reports

To view your contacts reports, from the menu, choose Contacts / Reports:

Available data type are:

• New contacts today
• New contacts yesterday
• New contacts this week
• New contacts last week
• New contacts this month
• New contacts last month
• New contacts this year
• New contacts last year

Available graph types are line chart and bar chart.

Your contacts are the heart and soul of your business. arpReach allows you to collect details about your contacts and manage your communication with them in many ways.

Contact details can be sourced in various ways.

• completing a form on your website
• sending a “subscribe me” email
• adding individually within arpReach
• importing from CSV files (such as those produced by Excel)
• added automatically by other software (e.g., a shopping cart)
• added using the powerful arpReach API

Every contact is uniquely identified by its email address and no two contacts can have the same email address.

In this section, we discover how to use arpReach to add and manage your contacts, add them to autoresponders, create categories and tags, and how to segment your contacts into highly targeted micro-lists for better return on investment.

You can access all of the contact functionality from the menu bar by hovering over Contacts.

Each of the options available is covered in greater detail. Use the navigation links in the Contacts Section to the left of this page.

Contact Tags and Categories

You can create as many tags and categories for your contacts as you need. Each contact can have as many tags and belong to any number of categories.

For example, you might choose to have four categories:

• prospects
• customers
• interested in mountain climbing
• interested in dogs

You can assign as many of these categories to each contact as you wish or contacts need not belong to any categories – the choice is yours.

Assigning tags and categories to contacts is a great way to segment or group them so that you can target them with your messages.

For example, you might wish to send a discount offer to your “prospects” but not to your “customers”. By correctly assigning contacts to these categories, sending that message is straightforward.

Discover more about Tags and Categories

Subscriptions

A subscription is created when a contact is assigned to an autoresponder and each contact can have any number of subscriptions to one or more autoresponders.

Contacts do need to have any subscriptions and they can happily reside within your contact list without being subscribed to any autoresponders.

Most of the time, a contact will be subscribed to an autoresponder because you want the contact to receive that autoresponder’s follow-up message sequence.

“Categories, subscriptions, tracking tags and segments are all ways of grouping your contacts for easy targeting”

Tracking Tags

A tracking tag is a way of keeping track of the source of your subscribers. Suppose you have multiple websites with their own subscription forms with all of those forms feeding contacts into one autoresponder. By assigning a tracking tag to a form, you can track which form a subscription came from.

Tracking tags are assigned individually to a contact’s subscriptions and you can segment your list based on tracking tags.

Discover more about Tracking Tags

Segments

Segments are a very powerful feature of arpReach that allow you to select or group contacts based on a huge variety of criteria. Think of applying multiple “filters” to your entire list to either include or exclude contacts from the segment.

Segments are covered in a separate section of this guide.

Discover more about Segments

“Create categories and tracking tags before adding contacts so they are available when you are ready to add contacts and subscriptions”