Here’s a quick rundown of some of the new features we’ll be launching in mid-July with MailChimp v4.2:
Re-brandable Campaign Reports – Ever need to give someone access to an email campaign’s stats, but you don’t want to give them full access to your MailChimp account? Setup a re-brandable reports page w/your own company logo and color scheme, then send it to them.
Keychain Account Management – Do you manage tons of MailChimp accounts? You’ll be able to setup a “master keychain” account, with “keys” that let you quickly log in to each account w/out digging through all your sticky notes for those pesky passwords.
Twitter Tracking for EepURL – We launched our twitter integration a little while back with our own little URL shortener. The first thing people asked for was a way to track tweets and re-tweets about their campaigns in MailChimp. Done!
Subscriber Activity History – If you’ve got our optional AIM Reports module installed, you’ll be able to drill down to individual subscribers and see every campaign they’ve opened or clicked.
“Hide-this” Merge Tag – We’re introducing a merge tag that you can place around content that you want to hide on your public campaign archives. For example, unsubscribe links, the recipient’s contact or username info, salutations, your CAN-SPAM required address, telephone, etc.
Automagic Table of Contents – If you write really long newsletters (such as through the RSS-to-email campaigns), you can insert a merge tag where we’ll automatically find all your content titles, then build a linked table of contents at the top of your message. No more pesky anchor tag coding!
101 Free HTML Email Templates – We’ll be offering some desktop software with a boatload of free HTML email templates that you can use w/MailChimp. We already have a great template designer, but this is for people who want even more (pre-built) variety. Stay tuned for details!
Easier List Setup – We’ve redesigned the entire list setup process to make it easier and faster. Instead of a 5-step wizard, think more “1-page-done.”
Deeper CRM integration – In response to user requests, we’ve beefed up our integrations with Salesforce and Highrise, so that we pass more data back to those CRMs from MailChimp. For example, you’ll be able to see campaign history and stats in Salesforce for each recipient.
Custom redirect URLs for signup forms – Some of you would rather design and host your own opt-in landing pages rather than customize the MailChimp ones. So we added the ability for you to enter your own custom URL that we’ll redirect people to after signup.
Ecommerce360 Data added to B.A.R.F. – We’ve added some data from Ecommerce360 into B.A.R.F. reports, so retailers can more easily compare results between campaigns.
And that’s not all. We’ve got a few more amazing features we’ll be announcing (some of them in MailChimp Labs) on top of all this. Stay tuned for launch around mid-July!
Sounds cool! Maybe we’re even getting zero-day autoresponders?
Yes, please.
Hey, Kim – if you want to do a 0 day autoresponder, you can already do that by customizing the final welcome email in Lists > Create Forms. More on that over here http://eepurl.com/cgk5.
Hi Aarron,
We’re using the MC API to subscribe / unsubscribe, and unfortunately final welcome mail doesn’t seem to send unless you’re using double opt-in.
Also, the final welcome mail has some static non-removeble text – unless you want to code the template from scratch. I just want to use the templates I previously modified and saved, but that’s not possible – unfortunately.
But thanks for your suggestion.
Kim – since you are using the API, if you can deal with using the lists Welcome Email, you can now trigger that email via the API when you are managing your own optin process: http://eepurl.com/ckUo
If not, a transactional campaign may work for you as well:
http://eepurl.com/Ara
I agree with Kim. 0 Day auto-responders would be great. It shouldn’t have to be a hack.
Also, sending in the late afternoon is a drag. Would be nice to be able to control that.
Just curious – What would be the difference between a 0-day autoresponder vs. importing the list, setup autoresponder for that list, then send a separate campaign to the imported list?
It’s exciting to hear about these new features. I would like to know if you guys can host the user interface on different servers so that users like me who are further in distance can get faster speeds. Currently I am getting very slow response from the admin interface, sometimes it takes 30 or more seconds to load a page, which is very strange because I have never had this slowness with my connection from other websites hosted on international servers. I am currently located in Chile, South America and I host my websites in the United States and they perform very well so I am not sure what could be causing this problem.
Secondly, I would like to see more enhancements in internationalization, something that is keeping us from using the current “Forward to a friend” page since there is no way to translate the text in the e-mail that is sent to other people when forwarding, and also, it’s not possible to translate the page itself where subscribers enter their friends’ information.
In general I like and enjoy the service, but what has made us think of other alternatives is the slow response we are getting from the admin interface.
Thank you.
Hi Cristóbal, we’re growing at a very fast pace, and it’s a challenge to keep up. But we’re trying! To address some of your specific concerns, here’s what we’re doing.
- The interface already is hosted on multiple servers (app servers). Also, our databases, background processing, the public website, image/asset hosting (CDN), and email delivery are all handled by multiple servers, in multiple data centers. At any given time, we currently have to support over 3,500 requests per second (emails sent, tracking opens, etc).
- We are in the process of opening a 3rd data center in the UK. More data centers in more countries will follow. Most of our server upgrades that have occurred over the last few months were not only to handle growth in traffic and users, but to make sure we could scale in a “decentralized” fashion and add more data centers around the globe. The hardest part about this kind of international expansion is actually not the technical server stuff, but the tax/privacy/spam law due diligence.
- In terms of the interface details, like adding more translation to the forward-to-friend area, that’s all provided by vendors and enhanced by users. If you’ve got translations you can contribute, Raul is the person to contact. He runs this group: http://jungle.mailchimp.com/group/internationalchimps
Whenever we get enough of those submissions, we can start enhancing that interface more.
- We made some big changes recently, where clearing your cache and cookies might help you with your speed. If that doesn’t help, please email help@mailchimp. They have diagnostic tools that have worked wonders for people around the globe who have experienced slowness. Many times, it’s something very specific about the ISP.
Cristóbal – slowness could also be caused by the browser you are using as much of our app is JavaScript driven, and contemporary browsers have *much* faster Javascript parsing engines. Consider using Firefox 3.5 (the latest version). It’s new JavaScript engine is super fast.
Re-brandable Campaign Reports! Wow this is so right in time… thanks Mailchimp, this will save me lots of bananas.
Glad you’re improving and adding stuff..it helps Here’s some more things us busy “chimpsters” really need help with….
1. on the left side of Campaigns….being able to “alphabetize” the campaigns by list and
2. “alphabetizing” the Folders
3. in the *|LIST:ADDRESS_HTML|* tag
when published, it says “add us to your address book”
Where do I change this so it reads: “Please add us to your address book. Thanks! ”
New one
Fixing the error in the email that comes from Mailchimp after you update your list
240 emails have been successfully added to your Texa – Texoma Master List list.
1 emails had syntax errors.
13611 emails were already members of the list.
528 emails have unsubscribed from the list.
686 emails have hard bounced from thel ist.
11 emails looked role-based (like info@example.com) and were rejected.
Notice the large space (like 2 lines) and then list is messed up 2nd line from the bottom….I copy and paste this so it would really help is this was fixed…
I too would like to be able to change the “Add us to your address book” link that appears as part of the *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* merge tag. I use MailChimp for personal promotion. I’d it to read:
“Add me to your address book.”
Thanks.
Great improvements. We have our own template, but hoping the template desktop app includes improvements to the MailChimp HTML editor, which I use (and struggle with to get consistent results.)
Any news on auto-responders for bulk added and manually added (via mailchimp interface) email addresses?
Andy, I seriously doubt that’ll happen. To prevent abuse, we’ve restricted autoresponders to only go out to those who’ve double-opted-in to a list, so there’s always proof of opt-in. There may be some small workarounds via the API, though. I can understand why you’d want that (I could use it too), but keep in mind that we constantly have to balance “extremely useful for customers” with “potentially extremely useful for evil spammers.”
I am not sure I understand the logic in your response.
What is the difference between sending auto-responders to new recipients following a bulk upload and sending a campaign immediately after a bulk upload?
This is one feature that practically every other ESP provides.
Andy – in my reply, I assumed you meant “manually added” (by you) vs. “user-opted-in-himself-via-signup-form.” That should hopefully explain the logic. Sorry for the confusion. In terms of your latest question, I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to do. Can you give a specific example?
I am trying to see why you think auto-responders via bulk upload is something that will increase potential for spammers.
At the moment I can bulk upload a list and then immediately send a campaign to this entire list or “users added since last campaign” or “users added since [date]”
But I can not do a bulk upload and then send an auto-responder to the new subscribers. I do not understand why this is more of a spam risk than the above?
This is the feature I would like and is the only feature I miss following my move from another provider.
Since a chain of autoresponders can be setup to go automatically and frequently, there’s a greater risk they can generate more spam complaints and jeopardize our deliverability, so we have to restrict it a little. Like you say, one could send a message immediately to a manually uploaded list, but that’s a more manual and labor-intensive process if you wanted to do evil (and luckily spammers are really lazy people). There are some full-blown autoresponder services out there that are not in the “ESP” paradigm, and do not have to worry so much about deliverability and abuse (yet). I believe InfusionSoft does autoresponders exclusively, and http://www.officeautopilot.com/ seems slick. Our autoresponder is meant for low intensity “tips and tricks” that you’d drip out to new opt-ins. Some power users are employing the API to do some neat stuff with autoresponders, tho. Hope all that backstory gives you a little more insight as to why they work the way they do.
What do you mean? If I look at http://server.iad.liveperson.net/hc/s-31286565/cmd/kbresource/kb-3098132378201996424/view_question!PAGETYPE?sq=autoresponder&sf=101113&st=777097&documentid=361903&action=view it doesn’t say anything about double opt in. Don’t you just add members with a custom date field, and have your autoresponder trigger off of that?
Ben(and chimp crew) these updates seem amazing. I’m especially geeked about the “Hide-this” Merge Tag function. Incredibly useful for communicating with both internal and external groups.
Wishing you all well, this service has saved us from re-inventing the wheel.
Where are the instructions for using the hide-this tag?
Instructions are coming. “I just can’t blog it fast enough captain! I can’t defy the laws of physics!”
Hi Stephem, here are the instructions – http://blog.mailchimp.com/hidden-content-merge-tag/
please mail chimp, if it is not to late can you add a customizable panel for the fwd to friend function…everyone does not like the Dear Bob message or the roger waters graphic, we should be able to tweak this!
You have an option of creating html campaings in outlook or other html programs and which i can then e-mail to my mailchimp secret e-mail add so that i can use them for sending out.
But these campaigns are not available when i want to use them for ‘Auto responders’, in fact for “Auto responders” there is no option for using those mailed campaigns!!
Is there any particular reason why?
Hi Ben,
I use mailchimp for all of my clients and love it. However I’m starting to run into some needs for clients to clean/improve their list by purging those who aren’t truly active (maybe haven’t opened in 6 months, or ever).
Seems like the AIM reports can show all this data, but only a case by case basis – aside from creating new lists/segments and keeping them manually updated, do you think there will be some options in Mailchimp’s future to start using this kind of data?
Thanks for all the great work and new features, and of course the quotes in the top right corner.
Love the idea of Subscriber Activity History, and its about time you heard me about the user templates. I had to design my own but will take a look at yours. I am tired of coding my table of contents. Cant wait to see it work!
hi guys, will we see any news on RSS driven campaigns?
Julio, what kind of news/enhancements were you looking for w/RSS?
Just found out about a few more features that’ll be launching, so I updated the post.
Right time to launch MC 4.2 !!!
I was about choosing another service-provider and now you finally did it.
Custom redirect URLs
Now I know I’ll go with Mailchimp
Thanks,
Lucas
Any word on the ability to send on-demand RSS-driven campaigns? i.e. send a newsletter when I want with items culled from an RSS feed?
Hmm, no but could you cull the RSS items to a web page, then use import-by-URL? http://eepurl.com/yNE
Ben@mailchimp, that’s close to as much work as just copying and pasting each of the posts into an email template.
I agree with BenNOT@mailchimp about the need to “burn a feed now” kinda thing. I use RSS driven email campaigns exclusively and about once a month, something gets screwy and I have to manually create an email campaign (via copy and paste) and send it out. It’s not *that* bad, but it is a slight annoyance and would be a nice feature for you to add.
I’m using Feedblitz right now to send my RSS email campaigns because I often use the “on demand” option to broadcast blog posts that are time sensitive. I love what I see of mailchimp, but can’t switch services until the “send on demand” from RSS option is available. Any ETA on that?
Second that notion; On Demand is the reason why I’m still using feedblitz.
The other reason I need to send “on demand” from RSS is because I don’t want every blog post being sent automatically. Sometimes I post nothing but a YouTube embedded video, which will just send a blank email to subscribers. For those cases, I need to send a custom email with a screenshot of the video instead of automatically sending an email from the RSS feed.
Not sure what blog software you’re using, but some of them allow you to setup new categories, which get their own separate RSS feeds. You could setup a new category on your blog called “email updates,” or “eNews” and use that in your MailChimp RSS-to-email campaign. Only the blog posts under that category would go out.
For the posts you’d need to manually send, you could of course log in to MailChimp and setup a regular old email. But one way you could speed up that process would be to *email* the content to MailChimp, then log in, tweak the videos, etc., and hit send. That’s our “email beamer” feature (http://blip.tv/file/2047688). Hmm, if you have an “email this” button or link on your blog posts, I wonder if you could publish a blog post, hit “share via email” and send it to MailChimp from there.
There are also some really, really insanely complex rules you can setup for RSS feeds at:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/
then, send that feed through to MailChimp.
Anyway, just a few alternatives to ponder.
Wow! This sounds like a great update! Thanks team, keep up the good work!
Ben and Dan
Ok…I give….I’ll donate for your next employee pizza party (how much are 8 Pizza’s?) if we can get the following added for the next update!
1. on the left side of Campaigns….being able to “alphabetize” the campaigns by list and
2. “alphabetizing” the Folders
3. in the *|LIST:ADDRESS_HTML|* tag
when published, it says “add us to your address book”
Where do I change this so it reads: “Please add us to your address book. Thanks! ”
4. Fixing the error in the email that comes from Mailchimp after you update your list
240 emails have been successfully added to your Texa – Texoma Master List list.
1 emails had syntax errors.
13611 emails were already members of the list.
528 emails have unsubscribed from the list.
686 emails have hard bounced from thel ist.
11 emails looked role-based (like info@example.com) and were rejected.
Notice the large space (like 2 lines) and then list is messed up 2nd line from the bottom….I copy and paste this so it would really help is this was fixed…
Hi John, I’ve submitted the typo & double spacing issues to our bug tracker for fixing. Thanks! Not sure if that’ll make it into this weekend’s upgrades tho.
Alphabetizing the folders under /campaigns is something we also want to do ourselves. It’ll happen one day, but I have no ETA.
Does the upgrade to 4.2 happen automatically? How will we know when we’re upgraded?
Thanks,
Randy
@Randy – it happens automatically. The upgrade begins over the weekend, and will happen to each account one at a time. So everyone *should* be live with new features by Monday morning. We’ll post an announcement screen at login when it’s officially live for everyone.
Wonderful. I’m very thrilled about the upgrade of the Subscriber History feature!
MonkeyLove,
A.
Just started using the update, and loving it. Keep it up!