Exporting stats to excel errors and other questions

The Export Stats is a new feature just released this week, so we haven't tested it yet.  I will have to do so today and see what happens.  Up to now, we've been pushing the data to RE and running a report from RE on the Appeal tags.  Other than situations where the same email appears on 2 separate constituent records, that works great.



I have cleaned our email list using MS Access...used Access queries to show me email addresses missing the @ sign or without one of the standard .com/.net/.org extensions.  Other than that, I haven't really thought about reviewing and correcting other typos.  We used to use Constant Contact, and OLX being within RE is so much better for us, that I now should have the time to think about this, though...since I don't have to be exporting/importing data between the 2 anymore.



I will say, however, that with OLX (and Constant Contact, or any of the email services), if someone opts out via the link at the bottom of the message, you cannot add them back in...you can get them back in the query, but regardless of what RE says, my understanding is that OLX will exclude that email from getting the message because they unsubscribed.  If, however, they go to your website and opt-in with that address, I believe it will work and cancel the unsubscribe.  I'm kind of wondering about this, too, so will be interested in what others say here, and what BB/OLX staff say.



As far as marking them in our database, which is a big deal for us because we do several communications each year (one just this week) that are part email and part postal mail, we do mark them.  When someone opts-out or unsubscribes, we change the Phone Type on that specific email address (OLX will tell you which one on the Appeal Tag that you pushed over) from eHome or eWork to XeHome or XeWork.  That way, it's still there on the record, but that Phone Type is not included in my OLX queries.  This is important to us, as I mentioned above, when we do a communication that is "send electronically to those we have emails for and postal mail to those we don't" parameters.  If we just left it up to OLX to exclude unsubscribes from the email messages, those folks would end up excluded from both.



OLX gets regularly released upgrades, so hopefully things will continue to develop.  I would encourage you to sign up for a Discovery Call with OLX, particularly with your NetSolutions/NetMail experience, and give some feedback on how OLX is working for you.

First, I just exported the stats on our most recent eNewsletter...you're right, the total number sent is in two different cells.  I'm hoping this is due to the fact that testing didn't occur on a list big enough to show this issue, as it sort of makes the data unusable (without some editing).  However, I don't see myself using this feature very often, since I've set up my OLX Appeals report process.



Second, my assumption is that if someone calls (or writes it in on their reply card) to opt-in to an email list they've already unsubscribed to, we can go to our org's website and sign that person up again, just as if they'd done it themselves.  But putting their RE record back into the query for OLX won't work.  I would love to be able to access the list of emails that OLX is screening out, just to audit against what I've got in RE.  Particularly with the whole 7.94 Phones issue that's still being resolved.



I would love to see Bounced changed to Hard Bounce and Soft Bounce, and even better a tool to let you see the bounce reason.  We should put this in the OLX Idea Bank (not sure where that is currently, as OLX has an online Community separate from this one).



The Appeals Tag will be pushed to every record that was in the initial send...so let's say you send to 12 people.  2 open the message, 1 opens and clicks a link, 1 unsubscribes, and 2 bounce.  When you push that data over, you'll add Appeal tags to 12 records.  The Response column will list 6 as Received, 2 as Opened, 1 as Clicked, 1 as Opted-Out, and 1 as Bounced.  Then, the next day you send another message to this same list.  Now it will send to 11 people.  The only one removed (as I understand it) is the opt-out/unsubscribe.  I just went to 2 messages sent to our main list and jotted down 5 emails from the first one's bounced list and checked for (and found) those names in the second one's bounced list.  But since they were on the second message's bounced list, that means the message was actually sent to them, the addresses just bounced again.  (I looked at the Appeals tab for one of them, and there are Appeal tags for 6 OLX messages, all of them saying Bounced.)



I deal with the unsubscribes in much the same way you describe your process from NetSolutions.  I have a query that pulls records with an Appeal Response of Opt-Out, and then I spot check and globally change the Phone Type to one that is not included in OLX.  This allows the email to remain on the record, in case a fundraiser needs it for an individual message, and because our general best-practice policy is not to delete emails or addresses, but not disappear and potentially cause other problems down the road.  Phones haven't quite made that rule, because they're an historical mess as well.



You can do the same with Bounced...query on any constituent with an Appeal Response of Bounced and go from there.  A temporary thought might be to change the Phone Type on those Bounced addresses, include that as one of your 3 Phone Types in OLX, and then periodically check to see if any of them resolve themselves, or when you have time (ha!) review them and try to resolve them on your own.



I do set a date in the criteria for that query, though...because if someone has more than one email address (or you correct a Bounced address but want to leave the Bounced Appeal on the record), this will prevent that record from being in the query all the time.  When necessary, I just update the date in the criteria, which is:

   (eHome Number not blank

   OR eWork Number not blank)

   AND (Assigned Appeal Response equals Opt-Out

   AND Assigned Appeal Date greater than or equal to 7/1/2015)



I'm going to wait on major process changes or scrubbing efforts until 7.95 is out and the 7.94 Phones issue is resolved, and then scrub emails more thoroughly...along with the rest of the mess of Phone data.  (Which was probably 60% existing and 40% caused by the 7.94 update.)



 

I have had the exact same problem (staff member not getting emails despite being in the query) but haven't been able to diagnose what's causing it.