Intelligent Emailing?
Contents
1. which comprises the Business Edition with a portfolio of email tracking statistics and analysis modules The Business Edition BE includes all of the features within the Personal version but provides a portfolio of features intended for the corporate environment It is capable ofin terfacing for example with all of the popular database systems to speed up the building of the lists or groups to which the messages will be sent More specifically it supports the address book formats of most of the email agents en countered on PCs today that inevitably in cludes Microsoft Outlook and Exchange along with GroupWise Notes and other Enterprise Level email tools The same version of GroupMail support higher throughput rates than the Personal prod uct It can connect to the Internet through up to 256 connections simultaneously though 6 to 12 such connections are likely to prove suf ficient for most business applications which don t involve mailing to every business in the Yellow Pages in the space of 24 hours Installation and configuration Installing and configuring the system is rela tively straightforward once the one off pay ment has been made online for the GroupMail 5 Business Edition licence a user name and 31 Pat Ge ff Gee j Gere emailing application Cra berth eT reer Adda Ajabe iaie Po techs 4 faker E F GROUPMAIL Pete 2 be oe T pan heey Ca eee ere el ee ibia HrpkEN F opighn Sobor g2. as their core features are concerned but are differently advantaged in the way that they handle specific aspects of an email campaign Accurate product description It would be fair to observe from the outset that GroupMail does exactly what it says on the tin it manages the delivery of email mes Sages in a variety of formats to lists of email addresses created for that purpose One hosted counterpart GroupMetrics monitors open rates and click throughs while the Subscriber add on module to GroupMail keeps track of bounce reports and unsubscribe requests and can be configured to maintain data lists up to date GroupSurveys is the other web based service module handling not unsurprisingly Surveys sent out to recipients infacta groupmail Itwould be fairto observe that GroupMail doesexactly what it says on the tin it managesthe delivery of email messages ina vanety of formats to lists of email addressescreated for that purpose GroupMetncsmonitorsopen ratesand click throughs while Subscnberkeepstrackof bounce reportsand unsubscnbe requests and can maintain data lists up to date The version of the product that The Informed Executive took on board for review was spe cifically the GroupMail 5 Business Edition the third of four tiers which start with a re stricted free version to which many technical features are added when customers purchase the Personal edition The top tier is the Mar keting Pack
3. la likey Mindir ia ae Fei Lanchaas TA e a ee Pdi a Tet i password are issued to provide access to the customer area from which the application is downloaded Whatever the technology involved every email campaign consists of two essential steps assembling a list of target email addresses and preparing the email message to be sent out to each of those addresses There are other con siderations not to be ignored of course such as configuring the email accounts which display sender details on each email and the servers through which the traffic will be directed Those core activities and the system configurations are handled by the GroupMail product which forms part of the GroupMail Marketing Suite As indicated earlier this is effectively the Business Edition with many additional statistical features added on How many of the outgoing emails are opened which addressees click on to links and whether they choose to unsubscribe all fall within GroupMetrics Using the GroupM ail Marketing Pack involves a payment based on the volume of tracking handled by the system How these services are priced is considered later in this assessment How many ofthe emailsare opened which addresseesclickon to linksand whetherthey choose to unsubscnbe allfall within GroupMetncs Using the GroupMail Marketing Packinvolves a payment based on the volume of tracking handled by the system Core components of system The core com
4. against a set of rules As might be expected of such a product GroupMail 5 BE allows mailings to be scheduled Scheduling is one of the features supported in the Business Edition but not in the Personal Edition It is invaluable to a marketing team that wants to send out emails early in the morning so that they are near the top of the recipients inbox when they switch on for the start of the day Building campaigns Life would be very simple for marketing departments if all they had to do was write a piece of text and mail it out to everyone on alist To be used effec tively as a marketing tool the message needs to be turned into a campaign in which every statistic can be tracked and analysed Building a campaign and creating the mechanism for tracking open rates and click throughs on HTML links requires that the GroupMetrics package has been installed The first steps in creating a campaign are straightforward entering aname optional information about the number of data records and bounces which will be used later to help generate statistics 35 tracking campaigns Life would be very easy if marketing departments only had to write a message and mailit out to everyone ona list To be effective the message needsto be tumed into a campaign in which every statistic can be tracked and analysed Who opens youremal Beyond that building a campaign in Group Metrics becomes far more complicated It does not require programming skil
5. e complicated the user is given four different monthly options Two are intended for busi nesses running their own email campaigns the other two are for emailing bureaux with much higher throughputs The Business tariffs are 24 95 a month 25 000 clicks and 49 50 a month 100 000 clicks with the option to purchase additional clicks for virtually the same monthly rate on a one off basis if required to top up capacity Paying annually for the two business tariffs would save the user 20 At the top end a bureau could pay 499 each month for an unlimited number of clicks final thoughts GroupMetncsisnow being rebuilt and willinclude a one click route to inserting tracing links This isa major step forward in what isalreadya very powertul piece of software In concluson Six months of using GroupMail 5 Business Edition should be long enough for faults and omissions to have become apparent The ques tion ofthe user manual forthe core product fades into insignificance immediately a sound work ing knowledge of the system has been secured To be fair there are features of GroupMail which come to light all the time when mailings are being produced And there are some tasks such as embedding the tracking links to extract campaign data which require the same meticulous attention detail after six months as they did on Day 1 when the appli cation was unfamiliar The reviewers were given access to devel opments at Infacta the owne
6. e system has to keep track of the email copies sent out and the occasions when an email is opened by those on the list How easy is it to extract that information Testing out the Business Edition of the GroupMail system from the Irish developer Infacta Ltd was never going to bea five minute job With all of its optional modules and add ons it is a complex solution There is a core mailing engine which inter acts with systems intended to monitor email open rates for example manage opt in forms for subscribers and conduct reader surveys If such a product were at first to appear heavy to drive to achieve the desired results how much of that could be attributed to over familiarity with an entirely different system that simply works in a different way while delivering most of the functionality Before switching to GroupMail the review ers had been using the EShip mailing system which had delivered a wholly workable solu tion for two years but had approached the task from a different perspective EShip operates on the vendor s host with web access to any user authorised to access it GroupMail in contrast runs on the user s PC with only the tracking mechanisms being hosted by Infacta Comparisons between such products are in vidious unless one supports much greater func tionality or delivers a superior performance In today s parlance of the politically correct most mailing systems operate to a similar standard so far
7. e user simply pairs offthe relevant input field for each of the fields in the group The steps needed to create a mailing are immediately obvious through a user would have to deduce that the word Group is Infacta s term for a list of recipients Messages is self explanatory however 33 preparing the email Preparing a message fordistnbution is extremely simple A message Created in text mode orHIMLisimported by browsing to the source of that file and clicking on the file name The text appearsin a new message window where it canbe furtheredited and the modified file updated Apart from keying in a subject line the file isready to be emailed Creating the message 34 Preparing a message for unmonitored distri bution is extremely simple A message cre ated in text mode or HTML is imported by browsing to the source of that file and click ing on the file name The text appears in a new GroupMail message window where it can be further edited and the modified file updated Apart from having a subject line keyed in the file is ready to be emailed On the grounds that virtually every email letter needs some small adjustment before it is sent the prepared message should be mailed out under test conditions to atest ad dress one which the sender can access rap idly then make corrections That ensures that nothing is left to chance when that single email turns into a batch run of perhaps 30 000 GroupMail al
8. ed through one or more of the HTML links 36 From an original mailing list of 3 000 the task now becomes one of calling the 300 to 500 people who had shown sufficient interest to secure additional information Phone or personalised mailing to Say 500 people is a less daunt ing task than picking up the phone to all 3 000 In itself the open rate from a mailing is of limited value given that many modern browsers can prevent the read flag being passed back to the sending host Whatever information can be obtained from the system about open rates however is still a broad indicator of response and its timing Unique Spens O Opens D O S E S S S S S E D E S E B O S S S S S E TT RE FISSE ee ee A E H E E a a Date Cost of using GroupMail 5 Infacta GroupMail 5 Business Edition is currently priced at 174 95 a figure which reflects the high level of functionality in the system This is a one off charge which includes technical support usually by email to the company s base in Sligo Ireland Adding the web based components of the Marketing Suite brings the one off cost up to 349 95 effectively double the price Use of the web based services such as GroupMetrics is charged by the unit where an email recipient opening an email clocks up one unit clicking onan HTML linktakes another unit Units are pre paid and added to the user s account with Infacta How those credits are purchased is mor
9. he first Stage data has either to be keyed in or more likely drawn in from existing data tables of some description Importing data files is straightforward so long as the source is held in a compatible format such as Excel or CSV text Records can also be imported straight from the clipboard if necessary But GM 5 Business Edition does provide an extensive range of options for linking rather than importing a group directly to an external mailing list assembly Experience hasshown that userstend to create broadly similar types of data list each time GroupMail assumes that the previousgroup to have been created contained broadly the comect number type and size of field and usesthese as the default when a new group hasto be built It is relatively simple to add orremove whateverfieldsare required to match the exact structure of the source data Creating malling lists Create a Hew Group Lrf Pe Geek ee eed be el ee TAT F ae FER Hr skh mT Eire a source an Excel spreadsheet or Access da tabase for example Setting up the path to the database however requires careful planning and confidence in keying in the exact path there is no browse facility here as there is with data importing As the field names of the source file do not have to match those of the data group being populated the process of preparing a group foramailingis remarkably simple At the point when the external file is about to be imported th
10. lows the user to select any part of a data group fora mailing if the whole list is not required The criteria can be set by refer ence either to the characteristics of the data record eg Send where fieldname from list is equal to greater than etc a given value or by reference to the record number in the group For many applications this simple nu merical selection will prove sufficient allow ing a large group to be mailed out in much smaller batches that will keep the task below the radar of ISPs which monitor incoming traf fic for evidence of bulk email On the subject of flow control GroupMail provides a useful facility in the sender account set up the process by which the from ad dress is determined along with the address of the SMTP server For each unique email ac count the user can specify the number of emails to be sent out before taking a pause of a pre determined length A batch of mail mes Sages could therefore be set up to be sent in short runs of 100 at a time with an interval of 60 seconds between them This has the effect of reducing the visibility of a mailing cam paign still further Delivery Console The physical output of emails is controlled through a feature known as the Delivery Con sole an unanchored window which floats over the main GroupMail page It shows the state of play at any time the number of messages waiting to be sent the number that have been queued the total sent a
11. ls but an eye for detail Failure to create the right link and in sert it with additional parameters at the cor rect place in the mailing letter means that a mailing will provide very little by way of ana lytical data however successful the mailing itself might have been in generating sales Creating tracker links To set up all of the trackers needed to manage a campaign letter containing perhaps HTML links would need a string of coding to be en tered in the source file of the message These links can be inserted directly into the Mes sage before it is mailed out but many users would prefer to work within the familiar do main of their Web development tool Each HTML link is converted online by GroupMetrics into a string that replaces it with a routing that diverts the link through the GroupMail host where it is counted before reaching the intended destination Unlike some mailing systems which report just on the total number of opens GroupM etric can Failure to create the nght link and insert it with additional parametersat the corect place in the lettermeansthata mailing will provide very little analyticaldata however successful the mailing might have been in generating sales Create Compaiga Teer Erir assemble a list of opens with an event time against each one Each time the recipient goes back to the original message or forwards a copy of it around the organisation for example the rel evant co
12. nd the number of fail ures These are specifically the failures re ported at the transmission stage rather than any which have left GroupMail but failed to Ps em E as ie rii a Li DroapHa i Delivery Condes ee oe ji SE Rag el oo Ld el ir es Ce FT I Checking out addresses be delivered And the screen displays an ap proximate time to completion of the mailing The Delivery Console has encountered a number of irritating inconsistencies in the past creating problems for the user when a list had to be stopped and re started It did not always function exactly as planned giving rise to anomalies such as re starting mailings at the incorrect point within a group The problem which had been identified by the GroupMail development team has now been rectified Delivery Console now keeps track correctly of the addresses in a batch which had not been despatched either be cause they failed for a technical reason or the queue had not reached them Checking out email addresses There can be few things more frustrating in running a campaign than discovering that a higher than expected proportion of the emails sent out are being returned as undeliverable either because the user is not known at the domain or the domain itself does not exist It is wasteful of mailing time if there are large Groups to be mailed out to in a limited amount of time But high levels of bounces in traffic can also tell the ISP that a spammer migh
13. ponents of GM 5 Business Edi tion are laid out on the Home page in a way that any user with even a vague understand ing of what might be involved in an email cam paign could follow The developers were probably relying on that intuitive process when they conceived the basic user documentation for the applica tion it could not be seen as the strongest fea ture of BE The F1 Help file is probably less well fleshed out than for most products of this com plexity though the very elementary Getting Started help files provide the minimum amount of detail needed to get the user started More comprehensive information on usingthe product is available however but this is obtained through a collection of tutorials of which there were 61 available at the time of this review These do not form a co ordinated manual but are standalone documents addressing a different question that a user might raise They are arranged not in the order of opera tion or even alphabetically but simply in the date order of being added to the site This means that the user has to scroll through the entire list of tutorials to locate what is required At least the titles of the tutorials are reasonably self explanatory as in How to Process Opt Out Re quests in GroupMail Subscriber Add On This has been recognised as confusing by Infacta the company is currently reviewing its documentation and intends to streamline the material Infacta the Gro
14. product review 30 Becoming a car driver is not the same thing as learning to drive and passing the tests It is something that happens probably months after the paperwork has been handed down It happens unconsciously it happens the day before you realise you are on autopilot turning right safely across a stream of traffic Becoming a competent user of a sophisticated software product fits into a similar mould One day you are still clicking through the on line user manual the next day you are flying the system as though it were the most natural thing to be doing Analogies can be dangerous however What happens if the motor car is clunky and difficult to get Started How much is that down to the inexperienced driver or poor mechanical design on the part of the car manufacturer Intelligent Emailing Putting Infacta s GroupM ail mailing system to the test over six months Systems for managing a company s electronic marketing campaigns are inevitably going to be complex and need careful driving At the very least they have to be able to handle an email message in all its incarnations from HTML with graphics down to simple plain text How they handle mailing lists is the next point for examination What format must the data be in before it can be handled by the system for example and how easy Is it to personalise an email letter through the contact details stored in the mailing lists And no less important th
15. rs of GroupMail during the course of this analysis Most im portant perhaps is that GroupMetrics is now being rebuilt and will include a one click route to inserting tracing links Customers with a cur rent licence will be able to upgrade This facil ity will represent a major step forward in what iS already a very powerful piece of software Summary GroupMail 5 Business Edition and Its associ ated Marketing Suite taken together create an incredibly powerful tool for the marketing manager Except on a very few counts using the system rapidly becomes easier with ex perience It really is worth having to proceed slowly along the learning curve to understand GroupMail despite its occasional foible Would the magazine s marketing team switch back to Eship The answer is most certainly no Not because the hosted Eship application has major shortcomings it doesn t but GroupMail seems to reflect more fully the needs and aspirations of the market ing process www infacta com tel 00353 71 9156996 37
16. t be at work GroupMail 5 BE has a particularly useful facility called Email Inspector which can check out a Group in two different ways The first is DNS checking which establishes both that the syntax of an email address is correct and then that the domain exists This is a much faster option than the second which involves verifying individual recipients email ad dresses This more detailed scrutiny can be run overnight if required and yields a detailed list of the problem emails A second set of tools is provided under the banner of Tweaker It handles the kind of data improving performance GroupMail5 BEhasa particula ry useful facility which can check outa Group in two different ways The first isDNSchecking which establishes both that the syntax of an email addressiscorectand then thatthe domain exists This isa much faster option than the second which involves ventying individual recipients emailaddresses This more detailed scrutiny can be run ovemight if required and yieldsa detailed list of the problem emails manipulation task which is slow to process by hand and quite complex to write as a piece of code The four components of Tweaker are name splitting breaking a composite name into separate fields for personal title the first name and a surname capitalisation of text in a field the ability to update the contents of fields against a set of user defined rules and formatting the data in each record
17. unter trips and the picture builds up That gives the team sending the message a better idea of when its messages are being opened so that for example the timing of the mailing can be more finely tuned to recipi ents opening and reading the message The tracking tools which GroupM etrics pro vides greatly increase the effectiveness of GroupMail as a marketing system The objec tive might be to send outa promotional news letter to perhaps 3 000 customers or prospects The message might contain two links into the sender s website and two more PDF files to be downloaded If tracking links have been inserted correctly at each of those points the campaign man ager tool in GroupMetrics would be able to detect when the email letter was opened by each recipient the links which were followed and the number of times that this occurred Rather than attempt to follow up all 3 000 addresses with a phone call it would be a simple task to produce a downloadable file of the recipients who had opened the email fol lowed by a list of those who had clicked on one or more of the links to create a high prior ity hit list to be phoned Cross referencing responses Cross referencing of that information once it has been re imported to the original data file would identify those recipients who had opened the letter the first level of interest which might account for perhaps 750 recipi ents but more importantly the individuals who had click
18. upMail developer has pro duced a more conventional printed manual but this comes with a 20 95 price tag Whatever the technology involved every email campaign consists of two essential steps assemblinga list of target email addresses and preparing the email message to be sent out to each of those addresses 32 Intuitive layout of home page This critical observation about the free versions of the documentation should not detract from the intuitive layout of the application on the home page The steps needed to create a mail ing are immediately obvious through a user would have to deduce that the word Group is Infacta s term for a list of recipients Messages is self explanatory relating to the email content Since no two data lists are likely to contain the same number and type of data fields it might be reasonable to assume that the user would have to construct the record structure of a group from first principles for each new mailing task Experience has shown however that users tend to create broadly similar types of data list each time GroupMail assumes that the previ ous group to have been created contained broadly the correct number type and size of field and uses these as the default when a new group has to be built It is relatively simple to add or remove whatever fields are required to match the exact structure of the source data Populating data groups Designing the email shuttle is just t
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