Adding Direct Mail Properties

  • Article

Direct mail campaigns are a way to get users to view your ads. Direct mail can be targeted toward specific users by using mailing lists that reside in List Manager. You can import ASCII text files, and tables from SQL Server databases. You can also import Analysis reports into List Manager. You can use these lists to run Direct Mailer jobs in order to target your users more successfully.

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  • Before you create a direct mail campaign, ensure that SQL Server Agent is running. If SQL Server Agent is not running, you will not be able to save your direct mail campaign. For information about running SQL Server Agent, contact your system administrator.

To add direct mail properties

  1. In Campaigns, click Campaign Manager.
  2. In the Campaign Manager screen, expand the customer for whom you want to create direct mail, select the campaign for which you want to create direct mail, click Add on the toolbar, and then select New Direct Mail from the drop-down list.
  3. In the Campaign Manager <Customer> <Campaign> New (direct mail) screen, in the Direct Mail Properties section, do the following:
    Use this To do this
    Direct mail name Type a name for the Direct Mailer job.
    Message from e-mail address Type the address that the direct mail is being sent from.
    Reply to e-mail address Type the address to which the recipient is to reply if different from the default address.

    This box defaults to the address the direct mail is being sent from.
    Message subject Type the subject text for the Direct Mailer job.
    File path or URL containing message body Type the path of the file or the URL that you are using to display the direct mail message.

    The URL of the personalized message body must have a valid HTML content type extension, such as .htm or .asp. Invalid extensions such as .xml will result in a Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) error and the message will not be sent.

    To view personalized pages, see Testing Direct Mail.

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    • A file over two megabytes in size will be truncated. Only the first two megabytes of data will be used in the direct mail.
    Attachment Type the file path and name of the attachment being sent with the message.

    If no attachment is being sent, leave this box unchecked.
    Mailing list Select the mailing list that this direct mail campaign will use from the drop-down list.
    Personalize direct mail per user Select this check box to enable personalization for this direct mail campaign.

    If this box is checked, for each user, the message body ASP page is invoked and the result is sent as e-mail.

    If this check box is not checked, the message body ASP page is invoked once, and for all users the same content is used.

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    • This option saves a large amount of processing power, especially for bulk mailings.
    Mail format Select the format for this mail.

    The options are:

    • Text - Formats the mail in ASCII format.
    • MIME - Formats the mail with Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.
    • MHTML - Formats the mail with mime encapsulation of HTML content so that the mail can be sent as an e-mail message.

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    • These message formats are the default values, and are only used if the user-specific e-mail format is NULL. If a user-specific e-mail format was specified (when creating and/or importing the mailing list), the user-specific format will be the format that is used when sending the direct mail.

    For information about message formats, see Message Formats.
    Comments (not included in message) Type any required comments that are pertinent to the direct mail job.
  4. To save the direct mail and return to the Campaign Manager screen, click Save and go back on the toolbar.

The direct mail is added to the Campaign Manager module. You can now schedule, and then test the direct mail.

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  • In the File path or URL containing message body box, to verify that the message body URL path is valid, select the path and the file or URL, and then press [CTRL C] to copy the selection. Open your browser, and then press [CTRL P] to paste the selection into the Address line, and then press [ENTER]. If the file or URL is correct, the appropriate page will appear in your browser.

For information about scheduling direct mail, see Scheduling Direct Mail. For information about testing direct mail, see Testing Direct Mail.

See Also

Adding a Campaign

Managing Lists of User Records

Importing and Exporting Lists

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