Feb 12, 2010
New Quick Poll Merge Tag
We’ve implemented a new merge tag that allows you to quickly gauge subscriber sentiment about a question or issue, using a rating scale of 1-10. This is a great little addition for all sorts of different users. Imagine you’re a restaurant that just launched a new lunch menu. Why not ask people how they’re enjoying it? Or if you’re an auto shop, you could ask how likely your subscribers are to recommend you to a friend. The possibilities are virtually endless.
You’ll add the quick poll merge tag when you get to the third step of the campaign builder and are populating your template with content.
The syntax for the merge tag is as follows:
*|POLL:RATING:H| *
How likely are you to recommend our service to a friend or coworker?
*|END:POLL| *
H is for horizontal
V is for vertical (if you want to place in your template's side column)
As you’ll notice, you can use this merge tag more than once. Just be sure to close each * |POLL:RATING:H| * tag with a corresponding *|END:POLL| *
Once you’ve sent your email and are ready to take a look at your poll results, you’ll find them on the Reports page.
As you can see below, you’ll get a grid of answers for each of the poll questions you ask, including the number of votes, the overall percentage of answers, and a time stamp for the last time someone selected that option.
A couple caveats to be aware of:
- you must be a subscriber to vote, and you can only vote once
- you’ll only be able to vote by clicking 1-10 in the actual email; this merge tag will not work on the campaign archive page
- polls will still work regardless of whether or not you’ve enabled click tracking
Michael
Fantastic! This truly is an ingenious idea.
02.12.2010
Johan Rhedin
Great news!! What about translations? Can I show the “lowest/highest” in Japanese?
02.13.2010
Andy Gambles
Just tried this in an RSS campaign.
Edited the template to include
*|POLL:RATING:H|*
Please rate this email newsletter.
*|END:POLL|*
All I got when I sent a test was 1 to 10 numbers and the rest of the email cut off after the END:POLL line :(
02.13.2010
Blogger Den
Cool stuff guys. I would give MailChimp a huge thumbs up, love the work you do and have to say service is excellent!
02.13.2010
Greg DeVore
Just an FYI – your code examples above have an extra space between closing | and *. You have to remove this space for the merge tag to work.
02.15.2010
Ben MailChimp
Greg, thanks for pointing that out to our readers. That space is our way of “commenting out” the merge tag so that they don’t get parsed when MailChimp delivers our blog via RSS-to-email tool.
02.15.2010
Cub Scout Pack 532
This is GREAT! Any chance of providing a simple YES/NO (and possibly MAYBE) Poll in the future?
02.17.2010
Amanda
Interesting idea but not currently in the works. I’ll pass the suggestion along to the developers though.
02.18.2010
Nick Thacker
Great job on this one, guys–this is awesome! I’m about to try it out!
02.26.2010
Andy Gambles
Is this actually working?
Whenever I put this in an email the question never gets displayed.
*|POLL:RATING:H|*
Please rate this newsletter
*|END:POLL|*
Simply shows
lowest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 highest
With no title :(
02.27.2010
Ben MailChimp
It was when we last checked! We did make a few tweaks to it recently. Will pass this on to the guys. Thanks Andy!
02.28.2010
Reed
Can the tag be setup on the list setup so it is available in the step 3 campaign builder drop down?
03.02.2010
Long Lam
Would it possible to make the poll open to the public? Forwards and mails to smaller listserves don’t seem to work well.
03.08.2010
nyhedy
I just tried this and it appears fine, BUT.
I can’t click the responses in my email and don’t get a report about it.
Any ideas?
03.09.2010
brad s.
I would like to be able to have a poll WITH results in my e-mail (i.e., vote 1-5 and then see overall results after voting). Is this possible?
03.14.2010
Ben MailChimp
All within your email? No. Mainly because we can’t dynamically pull the poll results into the email as the results change. Also, when you send an email, it can take many days before people open and click. That’s why in our campaign reports, you’ll see a stat called “most recent open.” It always boggles my mind to see how long after a campaign is sent some people will open. So showing results inside your email is not too practical.
03.15.2010
Alissa
I love this idea! Would there be any way to tell which person clicked on which number? For example, I could see asking people how interested they are in trying our “X,” and then adding a subgroup of subscribers who picked 8 or higher. Or, if someone rated customer service lowly, it would be nice to be able to follow up with them.
03.31.2010
Michael
Hi Amanda, this looks really useful but like a previous poster I would prefer a Yes / No / Maybe option rather than the 1-10 scale. I think those type of questions are slightly easier to answer and would probably improve response rates to the polls.
Is this something that is in development at all? Thanks!
04.26.2010
Cameron
I’d like to add my vote for a YES / NO poll option too.
05.11.2010
joe
well, too little too late, other ESPs offer much more robust survey tools, for much longer,
The saddest part is that I get the feeling from the mailchimp guys comments here, that even a simple yes/no is not even planned.
Sometimes i like mailchimp, but more often I wonder why its taking you so long.
BTW this AIM reporting feature, MOST ESPs that I checked, dont charge extra for these few additional tidbits of info.
Same with this closed system mentality you are having, y cant stuff be a little more customizable, its pathetic that at so called version 5.1 mailchimp still feels so raw.
I dont want to criticize, actually I am a paying customer, I just wish you would have a roadmap and try to be ahead of the curve, not following from behind 2 years apart. kind of reminds me of Microsoft.
I would appreciate a answer.
06.04.2010
Ben MailChimp
Hi Joe,
There are extremely robust survey tools out there, like SurveyGizmo and SurveyMonkey. We just don’t feel the need to reinvent the wheel and build survey tools when you can easily use them. We do integrate with them, so you can go use the best survey product out there.
Not sure how you came to that conclusion from our comments. In fact, internally, we do discuss simple poll functionality (nothing that would rival the big survey tools) to enhance MailChimp a little. But other feature ideas take priority because we don’t get much demand for polls. Until now. So thanks for your comments!
Well, technically most ESPs don’t have free plans like MailChimp, either. We’ve actually made parts of AIM free (the parts that other ESPs offer free).
What exactly do you want to be more customizable? Our interface? Templates? Not sure what you mean.
(Appreciate your business)
I don’t think one can look at the innovation and powerful features we provide (free of charge), like our patent-pending A/B testing, and especially the recently launched geo-targeting and timewarp, and say we’re not ahead of the curve. But I really do appreciate the feedback, and we’ll consider adding more poll functionality to MailChimp.
06.04.2010
joe
Hello Ben
Thank you for your quick response.
I have really researched a lot of ESPs lately, thats why I am so concerned, I used to believe that we are the best. but obviously its not so. but I must admit that you are successful in keeping morale high, its quite an accomplishment. your PR architects have created a remarkable environment. I am not kidding.
Its interesting your argument about providing a free plan, It really doesn’t help or even matter to your paying customers, or does it?
You do provide integration with survey gizmo, but their lowest plan is 20/month, other provide this functionality for no extra charge.
You mention Survey Monkey, they do have a free plan, and are much more economical, do you provide integration with them too? I didnt see it anywhere.
About AIM, your statment is not true, go out there and see for yourself, others do provide for FREE EVERYTHING AIM offers, like who didnt open, who clicked what, view each users click and open history, if AIM provides more then that I am not aware of it.
I also forgot that others provide the ability of sending attachments and embedding images. (of course the real reason mailchimp doesn’t offer it, is cost, as you say so yourself, that it would hog bandwidth, cause you can have a virus scanner scan all files)
A/B testing might be good, I never tried it, its for marketing, not for newsletters, but you are hardly alone there, I saw a lot of others offering something along those lines.
Geo Targeting is interesting, but its probably not used very much, and hardly accurate. if location is really important one would collect it from subscribers.
About time warp, I am not using it, so I haven’t really looked at it, but I think some of the others have that too.
Closed system I mean, not being able to fully customize thank you and unsubscribe pages, and some other forms, as well as thank you and other system emails, and not being able to use your own pages, its not very professional to use a different domain name for these stuff.
Dont answer that its impossible, because others do have these options.
Also, most others offer free phone support.
I appreciate your quick response. I still like mailchimp, and I am staying because I hope it would get better soon.
Please respond.
Thanks
06.04.2010
Ben MailChimp
Thanks, I’ll let the architects know that.
Actually, a lot of paid customers downgraded to the free plan when we introduced it, and saved money. Not only that, but with the monkeyrewards program, they’re able to earn even more credits (it also passes credits to people they refer), and some “paid” customers don’t even pay for using MailChimp. I think the original question you raised about charging for a plugin is a good one, and we’re constantly evaluating our pricing and offers, but I simply wanted to remind you that while others offer some features free, we offer all our email marketing services free, along with some very powerful email marketing features. My point in mentioning all this is we spend a considerable amount of time, resources, and money to make email marketing affordable for everyone. Not just simple little tools. But very powerful email marketing features that would normally only be available to the enterprise. There may be one or two features that you want that we don’t offer (polls), but those are freely available elsewhere.
You could try Wufoo, Formstack, or Google Forms. They all have free options, and we integrate with them.
Attaching files is problematic not just from a bandwidth standpoint on *our* end, but on the receiving end, too. Sending thousands of emails to your list with heavy attachments will get you blocked by some ISPs. Not to mention, it’s a waste of resources when only 20% of your list open and 10% click. It’s just bad practice. Embedding images in your HTML emails is problematic as well. We’ve experimented with that to test deliverability and renderability, and it did not work most of the time. For attachments, the proper, safer thing to do is host it on a server, and link to it (which also allows for tracking). We made that easier with this feature that we launched last year. We provide the hosting of those images and files free (also hosting of campaign archives), while many others charge extra monthly fees.
I use A/B testing for my newsletters all the time, actually. It’s great for testing subject lines and delivery dates and content. And it’s true that some competitors have unfortunately felt the need to copy our innovation (some rather blatantly), but that’s something we may address legally later. This is, btw, why I questioned your original assertion about who exactly is “behind the curve.”
We are always working to make those more customizable. They’re actually quite customizable as they are now, though. More customizable than many other ESPs offer. We’ve also spent considerable resources translating them. There are elements of the opt-in process we keep locked down to prevent abuse, and to comply with best practices. Unfortunately, there are some users out there who are very creative about abusing things.
Some steps within the opt-in process do allow you to redirect to your own pages on your own domain. Furthermore, Google Analytics tracking can be activated on some of our hosted forms.
We once offered phone support. I’m not saying we’ll never do that again, but we’ve since learned that we’re able to help more people, and faster, by eliminating telephones and using live chat and email. It’s a more modern way of offering support that most of our customers prefer, and it’s much more scalable. And instead of spending money on costly, inefficient call centers, we can put that into innovation and offering lower prices on our services.
Thank you for taking the time to give us this feedback, and I appreciate your business.
06.05.2010
joe
thanks for your answer,
Actually I researched this survey thing, I am really disapointed, My goal was to be able to track how individuals subscribers responded to the survey, turns out that even integration with survey gizmo wouldent do it.
At least 2 other ESPs that charge less than mailchimp, provide that feature, so please let your superiors know about this, and maybe even a reply from them if we can expect it and when.
B T W, I subscribed to receive a email when someone posts a reply here, I was shocked THAT IT WAS PLACED IN THE SPAM FOLDER by gmail, I mean your own email? and you are supposed to deliver other peoples? I clicked on “not spam” but google insisted with a red box
“Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information. Learn more”
Please refer that to your superiors as well, I am afraid heads will roll.
06.05.2010
Ben MailChimp
Perhaps if you give us some details on what it is exactly you’re trying to do, we can send you some examples or documentation.
Thanks, I’ll let my superiors know.
Emails from blog comments are delivered by the blog, not via MailChimp’s email marketing platform. However, delivery is normally quite good even from there. Gmail is currently making some changes to their spam folder algorithms, which is affecting everyone (sporadically) in the industry at the moment. I will refer that to my superiors as well though, so that, as you say, “heads will not roll.” Thanks for your concern about that.
06.06.2010
Andronikos K.
I am running a a Greek Homemade food delivery company and use you mailchimp as a way of introducing new offers of one option in Greek food every week. I found it great idea to give three options for each next week and leave my subscribers to choose from. Is this possible with this kind of poll that I am posting to? If not, please help me by showing me the exact way.
09.17.2010
Haley Weaver
First off, I just used your service for the first time and love it! It makes sending e-mails just a little less dreadful.
I was looking for a way to add a “yes/no” vote to an e-mail and came across this thread. Very helpful!
I’ll make the 1-10 work but also wanted to add my vote for the “yes/no” poll ;)
11.30.2010
WebMaster WWHOA
Started using MailChimp and think its great for emailing our small community. I am looking at using the polls and would also like a Yes/No/Maybe, but I can just use the 1-10 the same way.
You can just explain your poll with “click” 1 for No, 5 for Maybe, and 10 for Yes. Works just fine.
Thank you for a great program and service,
WWHOAWM
01.19.2011
peter
joe, why are you paying mailchimp if they suck so bad? close your account and go use the competition if it’s so much better. fool!
03.07.2011
Brian
What happens from the point of view of the email subscriber when he or she votes? Is there any feedback for the voter? Is it possible to display a message like “Thank you for voting”?
03.09.2011
Ben MailChimp
They get taken to a landing page that says, “Thanks for voting!”
This landing page is based on the template we use in your signup process, so you can modify it to say what you want by going to “Survey Landing Page” within your list’s form designer.
Here’s a screenshot:
http://blog.mailchimp.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/survey-response.jpg
03.10.2011
Raymond
Was wondering, is there any way to keep the “Thank You” message from showing? I would like people to be able to just click their choice and then keep clicking. If it goes to another page every time, or even another tab, then we will end up with many incomplete polls, as we have multiple questions in the poll.
08.16.2011
Matei
I second this comment. I would like to ask 3 or 4 questions, but not have the response leave their email. Could there be some dynamic code that changes the color of text when they vote to give some feedback without leaving the window?
11.13.2012
John MailChimp
Hi Matei, To make something like this happen would most likely require Javascript or something similar. This type of dynamic code is usually stripped out or blocked by most email programs along with other items like forms and image loaders. Here’s a short article giving a little more detail: http://eepurl.com/gYZl We do however, have our integration with SurveyMonkey that provides nice full featured surveys: http://eepurl.com/eOLXA
11.21.2012
twitter_rob
Good, but a simple Yes/No would be far more useful. Is this in development?
05.22.2012
leanne
this is great but please please can we have a simple yes/ no poll as this would be useful for so many things.
09.28.2012