How to send an email to a single contact ?

[RuhsarK]

Hi, 

I need to send an email to a single contact. My use case is user is clicking on forgot password on my system. Therefore, I need to send an email only to him/her. What is the endpoint for that? I cannot find on the docs.

[John__B]

Hello RuhsarK,

Thank you for reaching out to Constant Contact API Developer Support. My team is here to assist outside software developers with questions about building into Constant Contact's API.

Our system isn’t really configured to send individual emails, as Constant Contact is built primarily for sending bulk emails to lists of contacts, and sending a large amount of emails to lists that only contain one contact could potentially make viewing campaign reporting and statistics cumbersome.

You could add individual contacts to their own lists and send individually with that method, however, since it sounds like potentially sensitive information would be sent in these emails with your use case, I would also mention that Web Page URLs are generated for each sent Constant Contact email, which would not be ideal for sharing sensitive information such as usernames or passwords since these emails could potentially be viewed by parties other than their intended recipient.

Please have a look and let us know if you have any other questions!

Regards,

[MDFM]

I was really surprised to see that you can't send an email to 1 individual. If they're part of a segment then yes - they get all the emails that are sent to that segment which is what Constant Contact (CC) is made for - but, here's an example: I send out an email campaign to. let's just say, "All segments." So the email has gone out, been sent, and delivered into every contacts inbox - now I have someone who wants to be signed up, but they haven't gotten that email - I'd much rather send it them in CC, individually, than to look for it in my work email and forward it from my work email to that person - I don't think it looks professional. I think this is a huge benefit (to me at least) for everyone - you, CC included

On a side note, and I know this is a popular ask from a ton of users - it would be so amazing if you could please *get more fonts* or a way for users to download fonts or something. Anything. I'm a freelancer who makes websites for people and I build the platforms they need in order for them and their website, to be successful - this includes an email/CRM/marketing platform - and Constant Contact, as of right now, for me, is the last platform I'd recommend.

[Courtney_E]

Hello MDFM,

Thank you for reaching out to Constant Contact API Developer Support. My team is here to assist outside software developers with questions about building into Constant Contact's API.

Our system isn’t really configured to send individual emails like that, as Constant Contact is built primarily for sending bulk emails to lists of contacts, and sending a large amount of emails to lists that only contain one contact could potentially make viewing campaign reporting and statistics cumbersome.

However, if you are planning on building your own application for integration using our free V3 API, there are certain ways that you could work around this by using the V3 API in combination with an HTML Custom Code email template sent to a specific list on a schedule using custom contact fields. 

Additionally, while there is no way to emulate the "Quick Send" feature that is available via the Website UI, you can use the same html used to create the initial email (though you would need to give it a different unique campaign name) and use the same process below to send an email with the same content to the same recipient.

I’ll list some steps below showing how you might configure something like that:

In the following example, you’d take that contact data and use the API to add those contacts to a designated list. 

Step 1: Create the HTML code for your Custom Code email template.

[Designing HTML for Custom Code Emails]

https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_guide/design_code_emails.html

Step 2: Use your template code to create an email draft.

[Create an Email Campaign]

https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_guide/email_campaign_create.html

Step 3: Create a list for use with your integration.

[Create a List]

https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_guide/lists_overview.html

Step 4: Add the desired contact to the list you created

[Bulk Activities - Import Contacts]

https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_guide/import_contacts.html

Step 5: Send your email to the list we created.

[Schedule an Email Campaign]

https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_guide/email_campaign_create_schedule.html

Step 6: After the email has sent, clear the list so it can be used again for the next send.

[Remove Contacts from Lists Bulk Activity]

https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_guide/remove_list_membership.html

Step 9: Repeat steps 4-9 to send out your individual emails as needed.

Additionally, you can utilize our API Reference Page to find body schemas & values, as well as test the functionality of our available endpoints to see how they will work once programmed within your application:

https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_reference/index.html

In regards to fonts, if you opt to create Custom Code HTML emails (either via the website UI or the API), you do have the option to use a font of your choosing, however, if the font chosen is not supported by the browser or the email client of the recipient, then it will revert to whatever the default is for the person viewing it. Due to this, it is better to use the fonts that are provided.

Email-safe and web-safe font selections in emails

https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/5877-web-safe-font-selections-in-ca...

V3 API - Designing HTML for Custom Code Emails
https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/api_guide/design_code_emails.html

Please have a look and let us know if you or your developers have any other questions!