About MattB1

I had this chat this morning with Robin (who was, like all of your people, great to deal with; no complaints about courtesy and service!!). Please read and then let me know how the removal of these three functionalities from Constant Contact makes the product better and my work easier. I would really like to know. Here is the chat: Robin F: Welcome to Constant Contact support. My name is Robin. One moment while I review your request. Robin F: Hi Matt! I can definitely help you with this. What kinds of questions do you have about merging lists and suppression lists? You: Okay, pretty straightfoward: the first is about merging. In the past, this was a very simple procedure-- you selected "Merge Lists"... you came to a screen where you had all your lists on the left and target lists on the right. You checked off the lists you wanted to merge together on the left. You checked off the one list you wanted to merge those to on the right. You clicked "Merge". Done. I don't see how to do that now. Robin F: I am so sorry, we did change this. Now, you can go to the list you want to merge, check the box to select all of the contacts, then click on Add to Lists at the top. This will merge those contacts into the list you choose. You: So if I have ten lists I'm trying to merge together, say, I have to go through that individual process 10 times? Robin F: Yes. I am so sorry! If you go down to the bottom of any page in Constant Contact, there is a Feedback link to send feedback to our developers if you wish to have them add this back in the future. You: Okay-- next question is about suppressing addresses. Often we do promotions where we like to remove anyone who bought the product in the last week before we do a followup e-mail... just so that we don't hassle them unnecessarily. Robin F: That makes sense! Some users do this... if you "tag" the contacts who have not purchased yet, you can narrow down sending your email to only the ones with the tag. This link explains exactly how tags work - https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/38576-Create-and-Manage-Tags Robin F: Other users temporarily remove them from their lists, but you would have to do a temporary hold for each contact, so it could take considerable time, especially if you had a lot of people who purchased your product. You: Originally, you could go to your list, click "remove contacts" and then have the option to upload a spreadsheet of names and e-mail addresses that you didn't want to send to... the system would remove those particular names from the list you were working with. Can that still be done? Robin F: Oh, that process was removed as well. You: I remembered one other question-- regarding unsubscribes. A big portion of our lists are members of our clubs. These people expect to receive newsletters and updates from us, but they periodically, inadvertently, unsubscribe themselves. Sometimes they think they are only opting out of getting promotional e-mails, but will still get the club updates... sometimes it's nothing more than a mistake. When I upload a refreshed membership list, the system will tell me, "Could not add 25 contacts because they have unsubscribed." Sorry to keep saying "in the past", but... in the past, you could then click the link and see who those unsubscribes were. Then we could contact them individually and say, "Do you really want to be unsubscribed? Or do you expect to still receive updates?" Now, it seems, I get told how many unsubscribed, but not who. Is there a way to see who those people are without doing an upload/download and cross referencing lists manually? Robin F: Ahh, yes. Now you can go to Contacts and click on Unsubcribes an export them, but be sure to include the Date Updated in the export. That way you can see who the opt-outs are and when they opted out. Robin F: Under Contacts > Activity, when it says it could not add some contacts because they were previously opted out, it is no longer clickable to see who they are. Robin F: Here is how to get people added back if they accidentally opt-out - http://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/5514-add-back-an-unsubscribed-contact You: But does that export grab every unsubscribe in the history of the account? Or is there a way to see who your unsubscribes were on a particular list after the upload has happened? Robin F: It does get all of the opt-outs, and with 21,000+ this will take about 10 minutes to export. And no, sorry, you cannot see that data any longer You: So if I have a list of 21,000 unsubscribes over the last 8 years... and a list of 200 members that I just uploaded... my only option is download a list of 21,000 people and then do 200 individual name searches on the list to see who has unsubscribed. Robin F: Basically yes. But, if you export the Date Updated, then you can sort in Excel by that column Newest to Oldest, so the most recent ones will be at the top. You: It's entirely possible that someone unsubscribed last summer and we're only catching it now. So the sorting option will KIND OF work, but only marginally. You: Okay... at least I know to stop beating my head against the wall to do these things-- I'm not missing anything, the functionalities are simply not there any more. I'll save the chat and submit it as my feedback... we'll see where it goes from there, I guess. Thanks for all the time, though, Robin. I appreciate it! You: Have a good day! ... View more

What happened to the red list of unsubscribes I used to get when I uploaded a list? ... View more