Jan 7, 2013
Upgrades Going Live This Week (v7.9)
Every month, we launch new features. This one is a relatively light release because of last month’s holiday break. Still, we’ve got some nice improvements to talk about here. Keep in mind it’ll take until Wednesday for these new features to propagate to all 2.5 million user accounts.
1. My Campaigns and Favorites
In our new drag and drop editor, whenever you create a new campaign, you’ll now begin with these options:
Basic Templates gives you the basic layout options that were there before. “My Campaigns” will show you past campaigns you’ve sent, so that you can easily replicate them and build new campaigns (essentially, use a sent campaign as a “template” for a new one).
Within “My Campaigns” you’ll notice these cute little heart icons:
After you mark a campaign with a heart, it will appear under “Favorites.”
This was all designed to help people who tend to re-purpose the same campaign as a template for new ones.
Tip: The thumbnails under “My Campaigns” and “Favorites” have little magnifying glasses next to them. Hover over that icon to quickly preview a campaign:
People who like to “read between the lines” will notice a lot of these changes we’re making will help MailChimp work better on mobile devices (things are starting to look a little more tap-friendly). We’re making gradual, calculated investments in mobile. First, we wanted to make certain functionality inside MailChimp and Mandrill available to different users as native apps. As smartphones became more prevalent, we worked to make your campaigns as mobile friendly as possible for your subscribers. Now, we’re working to make MailChimp usable on tablets (specifically, mini tablets). We’ve still got some underlying code to change before we get there, but that’s the ultimate goal.
2. New Drag and Drop Modules
We’ve added two new content block types to the drag and drop editor: Footer, and Image Card.
The Image Card is basically a container around an image, with a customizable background color and a caption. Here are two in action:
The Footer block is what you expect: it’s the footer. Previously, footers were hard-wired into our drag and drop layouts. Now, we’ve made the footer a separate element that can be moved around. So instead of the footer being locked at the very bottom of the template, you can move it up and drop text blocks underneath it (you know, for those wonderful 10 paragraph disclaimers that people love to read).
In addition to that, we added the ability to split text blocks into columns. Go to a text block’s settings, then choose the column split type you want:
Remember the Social blocks we added in v7.8? We made it easy to add links to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. In this release, we added the option for linking an icon to an email address:
3. Advanced Search Filters
We added a big search box to the Dashboard a little while back. We started with the goal of making it easier to find subscribers. Then we made it super easy to search for campaigns. Now, we’ve added powerful search filters so you can quickly find that campaign you sent last summer with the word “cat” in the subject line:
Type “ctrl+h” on the Dashboard to see the cheat sheet of all your search options:
4. Setting subscriber language, new language merge tags
There’s a feature in MailChimp that auto-detects when your subscriber’s browser is set to a default language. The idea is to allow you to send targeted campaigns by language (details here). Many people have asked for the ability to manually override and set a member’s language, so we’ve added that. Go to a member’s profile, then you’ll see their Language settings in the side column:
Along with this new language setting, we’ve introduced some new Language Merge Tags.
MC_LANGUAGE can be used to dynamically change content based on language. My favorite example from one of our tech support experts:
The other merge tag is MC_LANGUAGE_LABEL. This is a way to display the current language setting for each recipient. As in:
4. Miscellaneous Release Notes
In addition to those big features, we’ve also made the following improvements behind the scenes and in our API.
- A little while ago, we removed “back and next” buttons from our bottom navigation during campaign creation. That frustrated the heck out of a lot of people. So we added them back.
- Updated “sent” activity in subscriber profiles to include campaign type, A/B Split + Autoresponder campaigns, A/B Split group, RSS parent campaign info, multiple auto-sends if we have them, note about 100 more recent events.
- Mobile tab/options will appear for user-uploaded templates (when applicable) and they’ll get a little “mobile” icon/badge.
- API timestamps: added GMT notation to existing times displayed and the ability to hover and see the time in account default.
- PHP date formatting can now be added to *|RSSITEM:DATE|* and merge tags.
- Added an extra $category parameter in FEEDITEMS merge tags.
- Relabeled the “greater than/less than” options when segmenting by custom date field. Will now show “is after” or “is before” instead.
- More visibility into API error codes in user accounts (hover over the error code to get an explanation)
Posted By
melissa
I’m really disappointed by these updates.
You still aren’t addressing any of the serious concerns or problems we had in the last year with mailchimp… still no integrated facility to print mailing labels?! how many times must we beg and explain… then there’s still the horrible issues of the skipping contacts when you’re trying to choose contacts from lists to add to groups that still hasn’t been fixed.
I think less attention should be paid to getting things pretty for mobile devices until the basics of paying customers needs have been addressed!
01.07.2013
Ben
Please send me details (email ben at mailchimp dot com) about the “skipping contacts” problem you’re having. FWIW, the number of requests to “make MailChimp tablet friendly” vastly outnumbers the requests to print mailing labels. Not saying your request is invalid or unimportant, but it’s rare. Have you tried exporting to CSV, then using Microsoft’s mail-merge functionality? I imagine they’d keep up to date with mailing label and envelope formats better than anyone.
01.07.2013
Michael
Hi Ben, these are great improvements! How about some more segmenting options? Like people who clicked a specific link within a specific campaign…
Keep up the great work!
01.09.2013
Bob
Ditto what Michael said!
01.11.2013
Shai Vure
The drag-and-drop editor just gets more and more awesome. Thank you!
01.07.2013
David
Get out of my head. Seriously. I was just thinking “I wish I could easily replicate a previous Drag & Drop Campaign, and wouldn’t it be cool if I could Drag stuff to the footer. You guys are mind readers.
01.07.2013
imhobson
Likewise! Well done guys
01.07.2013
Andrew Robinson
Relabeled the “greater than/less than” options when segmenting by custom date field. Will now show “is after” or “is before” instead.
YES!
01.07.2013
Ben
Ha! Some of these tweaks seem too obscure to mention, so I’ve usually left them out. Glad I ended up including this. Guess I’ll do a “Miscellaneous” section for every month’s announcement from now on.
01.07.2013
MigFTL
You guys do an awesome job with user friendliness and design. Keep up the good work.
01.07.2013
Joao
Any intention to allow search feature on the Archive?
01.07.2013
Ben
For subscribers to search publishers’ archives? It’s something we’ve discussed for years. But in years past, the conclusion was, “too much to tackle right now, plus it probably won’t be used that much by subscribers (how many people seriously want to search old emails newsletters?)”
Now that we’re tackling search within our app a little more, the challenge doesn’t look as difficult.
01.07.2013
Bobbi O.
Great updates! Love MailChimp!
01.07.2013
Tyler Tervooren
Ben, this is all amazing. Happy New Year!
Now, are we ever going to be able to get lists and groups to talk to each other so that we can send to multiple lists and move subscribers between lists and groups?
I know we’ve only been asking for like 3 years, so I don’t mean to bring it up too soon! :P
01.07.2013
Ben
Ha! Okay, in all seriousness, your question is a little confusing for me to answer. Seems like three requests in one:
(1) “Get lists and groups to talk to each other” doesn’t totally make sense to me. I know I must be missing something obvious here, sorry.
(2) Sending to multiple lists is something we philosophically don’t agree with. If you setup two separate lists, your subscribers have theoretically opted-in under different expectations and pretenses. So they expect different email templates, and different permission reminders, plus different unsub behavior would be required. The only time we’ve seen a valid case for sending the same exact message to different lists is when someone is using lists like we’d expect them to use groups. Would be helpful if you could explain the specific use case scenario you’re going through. Feel free to email me directly: ben at mailchimp dot com.
(3) You actually can move people between lists: http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/can-i-move-a-subscriber-from-one-list-to-another
01.07.2013
Jim
Ben,
We find it occasionally neccesary to send to multiple lists because we can’t use the email beamer to specific segments. Without that functionality I have to keep duplicate groups/multiple lists.
01.09.2013
Ben
Thanks. We plan to make email beamer available for interest groups. Or did you specifically mean another kind of segment? If so, I’m curious to hear about the specific use case you have – ben at mailchimp dot com
01.09.2013
Jim
Ben,
Maybe I’m using the wrong terminology, sorry. I currently have one ‘master’ list that has several groups. My users select which groups they want to subscribe to. I then, have to manually maintain separate l lists that parallel these groups so that I can have domain users beam\e-mail to those groups.
01.10.2013
Ben
Excellent. Email beamer addresses for groups is easier than for segments. So beaming to groups will likely go live before segments. No ETA yet, but know that it’s being planned. Meantime, I appreciate the feedback (from you and everyone else) about sending to multiple lists.
01.10.2013
lisaoka
@MailChimp I logged in today, saw the list of new features going live, and then did this: http://t.co/l2lU4ywi
01.07.2013
mary
any chance there is a feature that permits new subscribers to get an auto-reply that includes an earlier campaign(s)?
01.07.2013
Ben
Yep, in your welcome email, or inside an autoresponder that goes out to new subscribers, include the merge tag: *|LIST:RECENT|*
That’ll list as many of your most recent newsletters that you want. Details: http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/all-the-merge-tags-cheatsheet
01.07.2013
Michele
Cool I didn’t know you could do this. I’ve been going in and manually sending a copy.
01.09.2013
Lisa
I agree David. Previous D&D campaigns as templates = love!! Now I can make an A/B campaign out of a previous Reg ol’ campaign. woot
One question – will there be/is there a way to make a three column/grid design in the D&D editor? If not, is this infinitely impossible or not done for a good reason, or…? I don’t think the features have rolled out on my particular account yet, so I can’t check, but I really want to know.
01.07.2013
John
Hi Lisa, There’s not a way to make a three column design in the drap and drop editor yet. In talking with the devs, it seems this is due to a rendering issue with how Outlook would render it. That being said, you could choose a template that offers two columns, and drag a text block into one of the columns. Once it’s there you can just choose to make it a two column text block and you’ll be left with a larger column and two smaller columns created by the text block. You can also add images to each side of the two text columns. It’s not as nice as having a 3 column design, but might be a way for you to make things work in the mean time.
01.07.2013
urbanfly
Hi, have you removed the ability to add subscribers one at a time to lists?
Previously you’d click the Geardrop down and select Add under the Subscribers header but the option to Add has gone; it’s just Import, Subscribe and Unsubscribe.
01.07.2013
urbanfly
Ignore that, I found that the option is Subscribe now rather than Add :)
01.07.2013
Ivan
Please, please, please make either a) text blocks where the padding can be changed (and set to zero) or b) allow images to be inserted into text blocks (like they could in the old school editor).
01.07.2013
Jason
Hey Ivan,
a) We’ve experimented with allowing padding to be changed on blocks but it breaks things pretty quickly. Having an “edge to edge” option for text blocks to make it 0 (like we have on the settings tab for image blocks) seems like something for us to consider though.
b) You can add images to text blocks by clicking the little image button (next to the numbered list button) in the editor toolbar.
01.08.2013
Ivan
Right. Thanks for considering. Another option that would solve my issue is allowing multiple images to sit side-by-side within a single image block. Basically, I’m trying to simulate a menu bar across my email width, with background color, so I need to add multiple images abutted (as links) in an image block, or without any padding in a text block. Thanks again.
01.08.2013
Jason
I see. It sounds like you have something very specific in mind. The text block is essentially an HTML block, so for a custom element like a menu bar that won’t change very often, you could always create it with HTML and paste it into the source view in the text editor.
01.08.2013
Ivan
I don’t think it’s very specific. In fact, pretty general. Having clickable menu/image links in a line is maybe even standard. A look at a few emails on the inspiration page shows several sites with this. All it would take is either letting images be put side-by-side in an image block, or allowing us to set padding to 0 in a text block. I’ll try the html method you’ve suggested, but I’m not optimistic about it. (I use Mailchimp so I can avoid html…).
01.18.2013
John
Hi Ivan, Thanks for the feedback. I’ve gone ahead and shared it with the developers, but if you do get tripped up, our support chimps can be reached at: http://mailchimp.com and they’ll be happy to help you out.
01.21.2013
Juliet
Hey Ivan,
I’ve been wanting something similar – to simulate a website headings bar – and can’t get my head around this either! if you find a solution it would be good to hear it.
Thanks,
Juliet
01.10.2013
GenuineAmyHall
Yay! Now I can use the drag and drop as a template!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
01.07.2013
Katherine
Just love the new, mobile friendly drag and drop email template editor. I far prefer this over the pre-formatted options. It’s easy to get the hang of. So, pleased not to have to resize images before uploading to Mailchimp anymore. Great work team!!!
01.07.2013
Sandra
Hi,
if a user unsubscribes from one of your lists, how can you make it so that user automatically unsubscribes from ALL your lists. We have our subscribers split into different lists (as some campaigns don’t apply to all and are segmented) and so far I’ve had to manually remove each user from our other lists because they unsubscribed from one..
I just realized how bad my explanation was so here’s an example:
Let’s say I have John who is a subscriber to our General, nationwide mailing list. Then I want to do a campaign that will only go out to people in his city, I split the list up and create a new one that is targeted at John’s city. John unsubscribes from that list but how do I make sure he automatically unsubscribes from the general, nationwide list?
01.08.2013
Ben
Hi Sandra,
When you want to send a campaign to people in John’s city, why not just use our segmentation tool to send to that portion of the list?
http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/how-can-i-segment-my-list-based-on-my-subscribers-location
Are you generating the criteria outside of MailChimp? For example, maybe you run a query in some other database outside of MailChimp, and generate a small group of people in a city. You can still send to that segment inside your “General” list by using our “static segment” feature:
http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/can-i-save-a-segment-of-my-list-in-the-list-area
instead of creating lots of lists.
01.08.2013
Fabrice
How do I translate the “forward to a friend” button in my dialect :) ?
01.08.2013
John
Hi Fabrice, In the social sharing group there’s not currently a way to change that text. You could however drag a button element over and style it however you wish including the text of “Forward to a Friend” in the language of your choice. In the URL you’d just need to place the *|FORWARD|* merge tag and you’ll be all set.
01.09.2013
Kamrul Islam
I am very glad to know that you have added new features in this version. Waiting eagerly until it is Wednesday!!!
01.08.2013
Lasse Stilvang
This one is very useful for me:
*) PHP date formatting can now be added to *|RSSITEM:DATE|* and merge tags.
I had to figure out the formatting myself though, so for any others in the same situation this is how you do it:
*|RSSITEM:DATE:d/m-Y H:i|*
01.08.2013
Jeff
Thank you! I really like these new updates :)
01.08.2013
Giles
Nein, das ist mein. Und so ist die katze.
I’d like to see more complex operators when it comes to segmenting lists. We have several designations for people and there are times I need to select this type and this type but not this type. I tried that standalone segmenting program, but didn’t really do what I need it to do. So I have to upload temporary lists.
01.08.2013
Nancy
All these upgrades are great. Will you be adding YouTube to the social follow list at some point?
01.08.2013
Tom
Changing the pre-header to be a text box with columns by default is a really good idea as it lets me do loads more things with my pre-header.
Outlook 2010, however, disagrees: http://i.imgur.com/el3JO.jpg
I hate you, Outlook 2010.
(seriously though thanks for adding the justify text button, that’s actually fantastic)
01.09.2013
Katya
I’m very excited about drag and drop features: MailChimp is becoming easier and easier to work with!
There’s one problem. In drag and drop sidebar, when the text is too long (e.g. a long email address), the whole box shifts down below the main box. Right now the only way to fix that is to recreate the campaign. Any other way around that?
01.09.2013
Miguel Gomez
I love these updates (specially the drag and drop modules!)
Mailchimp: You rock!
01.09.2013
britt
These new features are incredibly helpful. I’m going to use the new Favorites template right now, and I’ve been wanting the footer flexibility. Have been playing with the drag and drop modules and LOVE them. Thank you!
01.09.2013
Molly
Love the drag and drop feature.
01.09.2013
danedaniels
Any chance we’ll see a youtube graphic in the social follow block?
I’d also love to be able to recolor the chain link graphic, or better yet, upload a custom graphics.
01.09.2013
Gerry Reid
What about simple “Drag the edge” ability to change the shape of text boxes?
01.09.2013
Stephanie G.
Finally! We can now save templates of our drag-and-drop campaigns. Thank you and keep up the great work. :)
01.09.2013
Carole Asselin
I LOVE those new changes. I LOVE the visual drag and drop and i also LOVE the option to save the previous campaigns as templates. I still have one list using another provider; i might switch to MC soon!
01.09.2013
Frances Proctor
I’m really loving the new drag and drop editor! being able to re use my favourite campaigns is great! Is there a way to use an image as a button in the drag and drop editor?
01.09.2013
Jason
Sure thing. You could either drop it in to a regular “Image” block and add a link or insert the image into any text area and add the link there.
01.10.2013
Jonathan
I’m still desperately waiting for you to allow a single campaign to be sent to multiple lists. Segmenting within one list is too laborious, and resending to multiple lists is a pain. Is this on the drawing boards?
01.09.2013
Bernd
Das ist mein Kommentar. MEIN
01.09.2013
Marie Chandler
Thank you so much! I just played with the new templates and it was so quick and easy to set up a really nice looking email that worked so well on computer and mobile. I am a Virtual Assistant and so create emails for a number of clients and this has just made things so much more professional looking & efficient. Some of the things others complain about, I can do very quickly outside of MC, so am not upset. One thing I would ask though – can I really get a hat for my cat like in the pictures?! She would look so adorable LOL! Well done guys – keep up the good work!
01.09.2013
Duane
Marie,
I saw your post about the new changes in Mailchimp, and that you are a Virtual Asst. Since you are familiar with the system, and I am needing some support for email and mobile campaigns, would you be interested in a new client? You can reach me at 404.925.3986. Thanks
01.10.2013
Michele
Oh yay. I have been waiting for the templates! Replicating my last letter was a pain! I tolerated because I knew this great update was on it’s way!
Also glad the back and next buttons are back on the bottom! :)
01.09.2013
Timon
Automatically posting campaigns to facebook seems to work now (it never worked correctly for me before). One shortcoming is that the image that gets tagged to be displayed in the facebook post is the mailchimp logo (rather than one of my images from the campaign). Any way to provide greater control over this? Thanks
01.09.2013
John
Hi Timon, Depending on how your creating your campaign there’s a couple ways it can be done. Here’s an article and short video that describes the process: http://eepurl.com/QokP If however, you’re using the new Drag and Drop editor you’d follow nearly the same procedure, but you’d need to place an image in a text block and add the small bit of code there.
01.10.2013
Kevin
Hi, in the editor, when we switch from design to html editor view, the horizontal scroll bar will moved to the right…we have to always drag to left to continue our editorial work…can you ensure the horizontal bar will not move to right once the view is switch from design to code view?
01.09.2013
mark
I like the updates I’ve seen so far to the new D&D editor. FWIW, I would like to see in the Social Follow block the ability to add a link to a You Tube channel.
01.09.2013
Jim
HI Ben, Could you please add more social networks to the list in the drag and drop editor such as YouTube? Thanks!
01.10.2013
Kokako
Can one create a campaign on an iPad yet?
01.10.2013
John
Campaign creation on an iPad isn’t supported yet, but it’s definitely something we’re looking into.
01.10.2013
Apprendre Dessiner
Thanks for those new features.
I used to duplicate previous but not anymore i suppose ;)
01.10.2013
Paul
Great updates !
Thank you from France
01.10.2013
James
This past year is the first year that I’ve been using MailChimp and I do like what I’ve seen so far. Would it be possible for future updates to include conditional subject lines or would that bog the system down too much?
01.10.2013
John
Hi James, I’m glad you’re enjoying MailChimp. I’m not sure if conditional subject lines is something we’re looking to do or not, but we’re always listening to feedback so I’ve passed it along. Thanks.
01.10.2013
Nikki
hi ben,
Love the updates. Something to consider in the text editor would be to freeze the toolbar to the top, I find it difficult to add links, Colour etc. to a word(s) when I have to select it, scroll up, make the change, and than scroll down to ensure it took effect. basically make it like the editor in the basics version. Hope that makes sense. :S
Also, I don’t know if it just an outlook glitch, but i find when i have used the drop and drag with the right sidebar, everything that i put in the side bar drops to the bottom in a test.
Thanks and keep up the good work!!!
01.10.2013
Andrew
I am seeing the same problem in Outlook in regards to the sidebar.
01.29.2013
John
Hi Andrew, I think you’re describing a known issue in Outlook. We’re actively trying to find a way to make it work better, but want to make sure the cure isn’t worse than the disease. One of our UX devs recently wrote a good explanation of what’s going on and it can be found here: http://blog.mailchimp.com/upgrades-going-live-this-week-v7-9/#comment-130861 We’ll keep working on it.
01.31.2013
Eric
Have you found a work-around yet for your mobile friendly 2-column templates to display properly in Outlook?
01.10.2013
Jason
We’re experimenting with new ways of coding responsive, multi-column email templates but don’t have a fix yet. The problem is that Outlook inserts a destructive page break every 23.7in (~1,790px) causing any columns that exist at that point to stack. In the mean time, if you have an email that will be more than a few pages, I’d recommend selecting the single column (basic) template and 2 column text or image caption blocks. If a 2 column block happens to fall on that 1,790px line, the 2 columns may stack but it’ll only affect 1 block and not the whole layout.
01.10.2013
Laurena
I built a template with the drag and drop editor, and want to export it to provide to another account holder. Can I do this?
01.10.2013
John
Hi Laurena, It’s something were working towards, but saving/exporting templates in the new Drag and Drop editor isn’t available yet.
01.10.2013
Reinhard Schumacher
Nice changes
01.10.2013
CHPSO
One tweak I’d love to see–could you add “date last changed” to the autoresponder field list? I’d like to send out reminders to people who haven’t updated their profile in a while to ensure we have up-to-date info. I can use date subscribed, but that will unnecessarily annoy those who have been updating their info.
Thanks
01.10.2013
Gemma
One of the frustrations we had withthe drag and drop editor was that side-bars didn’t work properly with Outlook. So it was beautifully mobile ready… but not pretty for most of our list! Has this been fixed now?
01.11.2013
Jason
The side bar templates should work fine in Outlook unless your email gets longer than a couple pages (1,790px). I described the cause in more detail above but after that point, a bug in Outlook causes the columns to stack. It affects all responsive email templates – not just in the drag and drop editor but the classic editor and templates from other ESPs as well. We’re diligently experimenting with new ways of coding responsive mobile templates but don’t have a production-ready fix yet.
01.11.2013
Lorrie Watts
Love the favourites feature.
01.11.2013
Justine
I am so excited about the drag and drop updates, but I’m really just posting to say how much I love the fluffy kitten with the watermelon. <3
Keep it coming, MC!
01.11.2013
Erin C.
Great stuff! Just today my team asked me to segment our list based on language. Is it possible to designate more than one language preference?
01.11.2013
John
Hi Erin, If I’m understanding that you’d like to send to a segment that included say Spanish AND English you sure can. When segmenting your list you’d just select that the segment meets any of the conditions and choose a segment where language is Spanish and then repeat for where the language is English. Here’s a link to an article on this and other segmenting options: How to Segment to a Language.
01.15.2013
Erin
Hi John, the situation that I am thinking of actually deals with subscribers who speak more than one language. i.e. we have a subscriber in France who we should definitely tell about the teaching module released in French, but because he’s a fancy pants and speaks Spanish too, he might want to know about the new Spanish version release. Does that make sense?
01.16.2013
John
Hi Erin, Ah… I understand what you’re saying. This wouldn’t be really able to handle all those “fancy pants” polyglots, as it’s really meant to help you deliver email in their preferred language. That being said, in your above example it might make sense to offer some language options as Groups so they could choose to be a part of the French and Spanish group at the same time. If you’ve never used groups, here’s a short video explaining them a bit more: http://eepurl.com/t-oFv and here’s an article from our knowledge base that will help walk you through as well: http://eepurl.com/gOGM Lastly, if you really wanted to get fancy, you can use smart merge tags to alter the content of the very same email depending on groups (or other variables) they belong to: http://eepurl.com/BZv3
01.17.2013
Carolyn Crossley
Hi is the update automatic? Is it due this Wed Jan 16 2013? I am a free account user. Thanks the upgrades look great and I am looking forward to using them. I have embedded the archive in my web site and it is working well.
01.13.2013
John
Hi Carolyn, Yes, when we release updates they are automatic and occur over the course of a few days so they can make their way to all our users. Enjoy!
01.13.2013
DEnise
I think it’s time for Mail Chimp to broaden fonts that are available. It would be great to be able to add more distinctive header text.
BTW Your customer support is wonderful!
01.14.2013
John
Hi Denise, The font selection is really guided by what is supported across multiple operating systems to make sure that all your subscribers are seeing what you sent the way you wanted it to look. On the web, @font-face would allow for a lot of nice options, but sadly it’s not supported well within email at this time.
01.16.2013
Nick Gregan
This drag and drop feature is awesome, user friendly and easy to use. Thanks guys.
01.16.2013
Chrysti Hedding
We still have the beta version of the drag and drop editor. :( When are we going to get the new one? Or am I missing something and this is the new editor that we have?
01.16.2013
John
Hi Chrysti, These changes are to the current version of the Drag and Drop editor, but it is still listed as Beta at this point. Sorry for the confusion.
01.16.2013
Jason
Thanks for the updates. We continue to love using MailChimp and it seems you are staying in tune with what improvements continue to make MailChimp so great.
One question related to the new drag and drop and mobile editors though. Have you addressed the issues with rendering in IE. We saw a couple issues where the right column would break and appear below the left column along with a couple other rendering issues.
Thanks!
01.16.2013
Alia Melissa Hall
Thanks for everything guys, you provide a top-notch product and service. I have a question about videos in emails – tell me if I missed an update but the last time I tried this I could only put the hyperlink in the email but the video did not populate. This is probably my biggest issue with you guys because video is definitely the hot thing right now for those of us that are internet marketers and people are way more inclined to click when they can see your pretty mug. :-) Are you planning on adding this functionality soon? Please say yes!
01.17.2013
John
Hi Alia, Embedding video directly within the email is a bit problematic. Besides being a potentially huge file and killing your chances of delivery, the code that would be required to make it work often triggers spam filters. That being said I can say yes to using what we call video merge tags. They’re a simple way to share Youtube, Wistia, Vimeo, etc videos within your email and they grab a screen shot and present it along with what looks like typical video controls. The end result, is the image looks like a video, they can click and play the video on another tab in their browser, and you can get your video in front of them in a much prettier way than a link. Speaking of links, here’s one that shows you how to do what I just described: http://eepurl.com/gYZj about half way down the page you’ll see the Video setup.
01.17.2013
jen
My campaigns are not added to the drag and drop editor, can you explain what I am doing wrong
01.17.2013
John
Hi Jen, Hrmm, if I’m understanding the question right, the campaigns that show up under “My Campaigns” are going to be campaigns you’ve previously created using the drag and drop editor. Due to the built in responsive design and other differences, campaigns you’ve sent in the past from the regular editor will not import like this. If you’re creating campaigns using the new drag and drop editor and they’re not showing, you might want to contact our support team at http://mailchimp.com/support so they can take a closer look.
01.17.2013
jen
ahh I see now! OK thats a pity, I was hoping to be able to edit past campaigns the new way. Will just have to work out a way to copy my footer and headers etc that were set up for me. Thanks for your quick reply
01.17.2013
John
Sorry about that Jen. If you have headers and footers that are just images you might be able to go to the header area, click browse, and look in the images we have stored for you from your prior campaigns and just select it from there.
01.17.2013
Franc
Great job. We are improving our newsletters everyday. Thank you all.
01.18.2013
Jim Koscs
I guess it’s not possible to have text wrap around a photo in the new drag and drop interface? It looks like you have to create a photo + text box, then when text reach bottom, start a new text box.
01.22.2013
Ben
You can use a big text box, then inside the text box, insert a photo (like the old way of doing it in MailChimp). Then adjust alignment appropriately.
01.22.2013
jessica
What does ‘adjusting the alignment’ look like, I can make my text appear before or after the image and it can be centered, right or left aligned, or justfied. But I can’t find anyway to make it wrap around the image. What am I missing
01.25.2013
Ben
Ah, sorry – you need to adjust alignment of the image, not the text. If you align the image to the left, all the text will flow to the right of it. Align the image right, and text will flow around its left.
01.27.2013
jessica
Thanks Ben. You are a hero!
01.29.2013
Jim Koscs
Thanks Ben. I was doing something wrong. Works great!
02.01.2013
Kaysie
Is there a way to save these new drag and drop templates so I can export them? I have two different databases and need to export the templates for a consistent campaign.
01.23.2013
John
Hi Kaysie, There’s not a way to export the new drag and drop templates yet, but if you’re just sending to another list within MailChimp you can choose “My Campaigns” in the layout section of the design step and use a prior campaign as a starting point for your additional campaigns. If you find there is one particular style you consistently use, you can just click the “heart” next to the campaign in that same section and it’ll show in your “Favorites” of the layout section.
01.24.2013
jessica
Love the drag and drop functionality! Is there a way to have an image with text wrapping (so that text as appears beside an image and when it gets to the bottom of the image continues across the whole of the text box). It didn’t seem possible, but it may be user error.
01.24.2013
Chris
Love so much of it.
Can we focus on improving things that already exist; Chimpadeedoo for example. Make it universal and support retina.
More information /detailed on how to better serve our lists by drilling data. Better forms, emails and face-to-face experiences.
01.25.2013
Ben
Heh, your requests sound an awful lot like what’s already in the works for Chimpadeedoo v3. But what exactly do you mean by “make it universal”?
01.25.2013
Chris
Thanks Ben. Look forward to v3. Universal, as in the App Store’s, universal apps: scaling, features for both the iPad and the iPhone/iPod Touch.
It’s all about communication and gathering that quick response, so I understand the limitation to the number of fields. It’s not to reinvent the form. But allowing us to choose at least two more fields to display/ask for could be helpful.
Your new Gather, looks incredible too. But I could see not only the request to join going out prior, via email, but also at an registration table, via an iPad. Or in the hands of one of your many helpers, via aniPhone. Could put a join group function within Gather for those face-to-face scenarios.
Well it’s what Chimpadeedoo does already. Allow it to let people join a group for SMS at an event (within settings parameters), with there email sign up from Chimpadeedoo.
01.26.2013
Matt
It would be great if you could add your own icons and links to the social follow – this would get rid of the great problem in that I need a you tube link on the social follow section and I am not able to do this. I also would like to use some different icons for Facebook etc than the ones on there. Are there any workarounds at the moment so that I may add in a link? Also, I don’t suppose there is a way to view the source code of the whole e-mail? If I could do that then this would enable me to add in a link?
Otherwise, I am very excited by the editor – it really is awesome! Great work!
02.06.2013
Nikki
I agree Matt – I would really like to add a Blogger button to my Social Follow. My other gripe is that three columns (in a row) of images and images with caption would be a really useful option in the drag and drop content section. Otherwise, great job!
03.05.2013
Stella
Bug spotted. I drag’n dropped a single-image section in the template, uploaded one image and wanted to replace it with another. But this section keeps showing me the previous image even after I have uploaded a new image and deleted the previous one.
02.13.2013
John
Hi Stella, Thanks for the heads up. I’ve not yet been able to replicate that problem, but if you have a minute or two, a short chat with our support chimps might be able to shed some light on what’s going on. You can reach them at: http://mailchimp.com/chat
02.13.2013
Jason
Thanks Stella! To add to what John said, if you deleted the previous image and the old one was still showing, it sounds like a browser caching issue. It’s rare, but I’ve seen it happen before. Clicking refresh on the browser window should straighten everything out.
02.14.2013
Umer Rock
This upgrade looks good, let me try this new features.
02.16.2013
Linds
Why can’t I see the heart in my account? Do these features apply to the free accounts as well? I need to make a design I made in the Drag and drop editor into a template for later use. It would be really great to be able to import and export these as well.
02.18.2013
John
Hi Lindsay, If you’ve sent any campaigns using the drag and drop editor and go back to create a new campaign with the drag and drop editor you should see options for “Basic Templates” and “My Campaigns.” If you click “My Campaigns” you’ll see past drag and drop campaigns and an outline of a heart next to each one. If you have a specific campaign you’d like to use as a starting point for future campaigns and you want to keep closer track of it, you can just click the heart and it’ll be added to your “Favorites.” Once you have favorites you’ll be able to access them in that same step where you previously saw “Basic Templates” and “My Campaigns.” We don’t currently have a way to import and export the campaigns as templates, but hopefully this will get you started.
02.19.2013
Linds
Awesome. Thank you! The editor is really a great feature and I cant wait to see what else you guys come up with in the future :)
02.19.2013