Newsletter Marketing

A newsletter can be offered to customers and interested parties for information and commitment. Intershop Commerce Management provides the Newsletter Subscription Service, which enables both logged-in customers and visitors to the storefront to subscribe to or unsubscribe from newsletters. Shop managers can then confirm or unconfirm the subscriptions as well as export the registered e-mail addresses and hand them over to an external newsletter tool.

Note: The Newsletter Subscription Service tool included with the Online Marketing section becomes operational after properly setting the newsletter marketing preferences, see Configuring E-Mail Marketing.

Logged-in customers can enable or disable the newsletter subscription in their My Account area under Profile Settings | Edit your profile. When the corresponding checkbox is enabled in the storefront, the customer's e-mail address becomes visible in Intershop Commerce Management at channel level under Marketing | Newsletter with the status "unconfirmed". When the customer disables the checkbox, the entry is deleted in the database. Customers cannot view their newsletter acceptance status.

Figure 1. Example: Enabling Newsletter Subscription in the Storefront
Example: Enabling Newsletter Subscription in the Storefront

Unregistered storefront visitors can subscribe anonymously by entering their e-mail address in the respective field. After a syntactic check of the e-mail address a confirmation dialog is shown. With this form of registration, storefront visitors are not able to remove their entries on their own, but have to contact the customer service representative via e-mail or phone. The customer service representative then has to remove the data manually.

Figure 2. Example: Newsletter Subscription for Unregistered Storefront Visitors
Example: Newsletter Subscription for Unregistered Storefront Visitors

Shop managers can view and manage all newsletter subscriptions in Intershop Commerce Management at channel level under Marketing | Newsletter. Subscriptions can be confirmed or unconfirmed here. Confirmed e-mail addresses can be exported and handed over to an external newsletter tool. With this export the possible legal requirement of double opt-in is considered. For more information, see Newsletter Management.

The Subscriptions tab displays a table with registered e-mail addresses. Shop managers can select e-mail addresses here in order to subscribe customers to or unsubscribe them from newsletters or other marketing e-mails. The following information is shown in the table:

  • E-mail Address

    This column shows the e-mail addresses of customers who subscribed to the newsletter.

  • Date of Registration

    In this column the newsletter registration date of the respective customer is displayed.

  • Confirmed

    This column is shown if the E-mail Confirmed setting is enabled. New registrations are initially unconfirmed. By clicking the status icon, the recipient status can be changed from confirmed () to unconfirmed (), or vice versa.

  • Last Modified Date

    By default the most recent registrations are displayed on top. The order can be changed by clicking on the column header.

  • Editor

    This column shows the username of the shop manager who recently edited the information related to the newsletter subscription of the corresponding e-mail address.

  • Actions

    By clicking on the trash icon, selected users can be deleted from the list.

One or more e-mail addresses can be selected and then confirmed, revoked or deleted by clicking on the respective buttons. The function of the Export button depends on the E-mail Confirmed setting:

  • If E-mail Confirmed is enabled, only confirmed recipient e-mail addresses are exported.
  • If E-mail Confirmed is disabled, all recipient e-mail addresses are exported by clicking the Export All button.

For more information on how to confirm or unconfirm subscriptions see Confirming/Unconfirming Newsletter Subscriptions. For details on the export procedure, see Exporting Confirmed E-Mail Addresses.

Figure 3. Example: Newsletter Subscriptions
Example: Newsletter Subscriptions

In the Settings tab, E-mail Confirmed can be enabled or disabled. E-mail Confirmed is necessary if newsletter subscriptions need to be confirmed by a verification e-mail. Whether a confirmation procedure (e.g., double opt-in) is required or not, depends on the legal requirements of the respective country.

Figure 4. Newsletter Settings
Newsletter Settings
Note: For a complete double opt-in procedure, the validity of the registered e-mail address must be checked and a confirmation of the subscriber must be requested, e.g., clicking on a link or answering directly to the e-mail. The e-mail address may only be confirmed after the shop manager received the confirmation. Depending on which action should be performed by the subscriber, the e-mail to request confirmation has to be adapted accordingly. The e-mail can be sent directly from the list in the Subscriptions tab. Checking and administrating of confirmation e-mails must take place separately. For more information, see Sending Verification E-Mails for Newsletter Subscriptions.