Product Tips - Opting Out

Giving people the opportunity to opt-out is more than just good business practice, it is also a legal requirement for all commercial emails.

In Clicktools, you can place an opt-out question in an email simply by adding a link to another 'one question' survey in which the user is asked to confirm their wish to opt-out. This is how most unsubscribe actions are implemented.

The opt-out option could also be achieved by inserting a question into the survey itself. However, people that do not want to complete surveys are unlikely to open the email in the first place.

The unsubscribe 'survey' has one hidden question to capture the participant's email and tick box asking them to confirm opt-out. This is then mapped back to an opt-out field, such as a checkbox, in your CRM environment.

If you'd like more information on how to create an opt-out in your emails, check out this webinar:

http://www.clicktools.com/help/webinars/ct4aeoptout/player.html

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips - Start and End Dates

If you need to schedule a specific start and end date for any type of registration or competition entry landing page, it's easy to do so in Clicktools. You just simply create an instance within the deployment page to ensure that your URL is only active during a set period of time.

When the start date is checked, anyone clicking on the URL link before midnight on the specified date will see a message explaining that 'the survey does not start until <start date>, please try again after this date.’

The same principal applies to the close date. If the close date box is checked and dated, anyone clicking on the survey link after midnight on the specified date will get the message, 'Unfortunately the survey closed on <close date>. Thank you for your interest.’

Of course if you are using language variations then the message is translated into the appropriate version.

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips - Clean Email Addresses with Clicktools

When entering information into your CRM, it is important to make sure that it is clean and valid. For example, if you were to enter just 'Rose.Cruse' as an email address, your valuable message will not reach my inbox.

Clicktools allows you to validate correct email address formats whenever you ask for the information on a form. This is done by utilizing the validation options on any ‘text’ type question when building a question.

Just simply select the 'validation' tab and pick the validation type you want from the provided list.

If you add a validation rule, you should also provide an error message to explain what has happened when someone enters something in the incorrect format. For example, you could have a response that says something like, "Please enter a valid email address."

This validation type and many others are available for Clicktools editions Personal+ and above. If you need something a little more tailored to meet your needs, you can also build your own custom validations.

Stay in touch for more hints and tips

Rose Cruse
Product Manager

Product Tips - Using Clicktools for Marketing Newsletters

Did you know that you can use Clicktools to send out monthly newsletters or marketing stay-in-touch emails? You can! And if you've been a Clicktools customers for a while, you've probably seen a newsletter like the one on the left. It was created in Clicktools.

You can create your own email template or copy and paste the HTML from a template that you like. You'll need to upload any photos you plan to use in your newsletter to the images folder under the templates menu prior to creating the email.

If you want to see which stories and links generate the most interest in your email, you can set up instances to track clicks and map that information to be automatically updated in your CRM.

Make sure when creating emails such as this that you include an opt-out link. If you are synching to your CRM, this is a great way to keep your lists up-to-date and you can even direct the person who wishes to unsubscribe to a landing page asking them for feedback as to why they no longer want to receive communications from you.

Although, if you create a great looking newsletter that's full of useful content and "helpful hints," who would possibly want to unsubscribe?

Stay tuned for more product tips.

Rose Cruse

Product Manager