Knowledge Base

Retail Express

How do I Give my Newsletters the Best Chance of Being Received?

When sending newsletters out of Retail Express there are several things that can prevent these communications from getting through to your customers.

Please see the below recommendations to help give your newsletter the best chance of getting to it's destination:

📋 Note: Newsletter broadcasts can sometimes be delayed beyond the scheduled transmission time due to server network queues. Furthermore, we accept no responsibility for emails lost in transit"

The most common reason your newsletter will not be received by your customers comes down to Customer Data more specifically the quality of the emails that your inputting into the Audience list. It is extremely important to:

A: Never use purchased blind email lists - we do not support these and will block your newsletters if you continue to use them. As these are the number 1 cause why we get black listed.
B: Clean your customer data - you will need to clean your customer data in Retail Express before creating a newsletter. Invalid emails such as " customer'name@ _com-au" will prevent your entire newsletter from sending and will subsequently block all further newsletters until you advise us you have fixed the data.
C: Do not leave/use copied Newsletter Audience lists from previous newsletters or customer audience uploads as this will not take into account anyone who has unsubscribed from your newsletters. If you continue to send to these customers they will make you as spam and as a result this will black list your domain and potentially ours also.

Newsletter Design Guidelines -

Ensure that your newsletter contains more text than images.
Significantly more images than text can often make SPAM detection software reject the email.

Reduce the size your images IMPORTANT
Resize your pictures before uploading them to reduce your file size - this will make them faster to load when your customers receive your email.

Newsletter Set Up -

Global Settings (Menu > System Settings > Global Settings)

Please configure the settings under the Newsletter section of Global Settings as below:

From Email Address	Email address used to send newsletter, defaults to the Customer Service Email configured in Global Settings.Your address should match your domain name (eg, joe@mydomain.com.au and your site is mydomain.com.au).
From Display Name	The display name of the From email address, defaults to Company Name. This is very important as not specifying a meaningful display name is often associated with Spam.
Reply To Email Address	Reply to address used for when customers reply to a received newsletter. Leave blank if it's the same as your From Email Address.

General Newsletter FAQ:

Can I change the default template?
No, however you can click the Copy icon to duplicate your existing newsletter into a new one.
Can I see whether the newsletter has been received? Are there any email tracking reports?
No. The anti-spam and anti-phishing laws have tightened up significantly in recent years so to offer you the best possible chance of your customers receiving your email we have not included any ƒ??secretƒ?? tracking scripts inside the email. If the address is not valid, it will bounce back- otherwise, you can assume it has been received in most cases providing your content follows email best practice.
My emails keep getting flagged as SPAM
As each customer will have their own anti-SPAM filtering set up often with varying ways to classify that your email is legitimate, it is unrealistic to expect all customers to receive your email. However, by following the Design Guidelines on this page, you can significantly improve the number of emails that will get through.