Newsletters and automated emails

A newsletter is an email you write once and send to many members: a new feature, a holiday promotion, a reminder to renew, a nudge to post a first listing. You choose who receives it from a few ready-made groups, and your site sends each member their own copy.

Newsletters live on the Email page of your admin panel, in the Newsletters card. For emails that go out by themselves, see Automated emails.

Before you start: use your own email service

Newsletters go out through your own email service, not through Yclas’s built-in sending. Sending hundreds of emails at once from a shared service would hurt delivery for everyone, and your own service lets you track and protect your sender reputation.

Go to Email. If the Newsletters card says Needs your own email service, choose SMTP, Mailgun or Elastic Email under Email Service first. See Email settings, SMTP, Mailgun and Elastic Email.

Who receives newsletters

Only members who agreed to receive emails get newsletters. Each member controls this with Subscribed to emails in their profile, and every email has an Unsubscribe link in its footer that switches it off. Members are subscribed when they create an account.

The Newsletters card shows how many subscribed members you have, and how many of them have featured listings, have no published listings, or haven’t signed in for three months. Check these numbers before you write, so you know how big each group is.

Go to Email and, in the Newsletters card, click Write a newsletter.
Under To, tick one or more groups (see the table below).
Fill in From (the name members see as the sender) and From Email (where replies go).
Write the Subject and the Message.
Click Send.

You’ll see Email sent when the newsletter has gone out, or an error if your email service refused it.

If Write a newsletter takes you back to the Email page instead of opening the form, contact Yclas support and we’ll help you get your newsletter out.

Group under To	Who it includes
All active users.	Every active member who is subscribed to emails.
Users with featured ads.	Members with a published listing that is, or has been, featured.
Users with featured ads expired.	Members with a published listing whose featured period has ended: a good group for a “feature it again” offer.
Users without published ads.	Active members who have never had a listing on your site: a good group for a “post your first listing” nudge.
Users not logged last 3 months	Members who haven’t signed in for three months: a good group for a “here’s what’s new” email.
Users marked a spam	Members you marked as spammers. You’ll rarely need this one.

Groups overlap: a member with a featured listing is also in All active users. Tick only the groups you need, because a member who belongs to several ticked groups can receive the newsletter more than once.

One message per email. Say what’s new and what you’d like members to do, with one link.
A clear subject. “New: free featured listings this weekend” beats “Newsletter #12”.
Short and personal. Write as the owner of the marketplace, not as a company.
Check it before you send. There is no preview or undo, so write the text in your own email program first, send it to yourself and read it on your phone.
Not too often. Once or twice a month is plenty for most marketplaces. Send more and members unsubscribe or mark you as spam, which hurts all your emails.

Send newsletters only to people who signed up on your marketplace, follow the anti-spam rules of your country, and never import addresses you bought or collected elsewhere. See Make sure your emails arrive.

Automated emails

A newsletter goes out once, when you click Send. Automated emails are a series you write once that keeps working: each new member gets a welcome a few minutes after signing up, a nudge a week later if they still haven’t posted, a “here’s what’s new” when they haven’t visited for two months.

Go to Email and, in the Newsletters card, click Automated emails (it shows once your site has its own email service). The newsletter form has the same link at the top.

Start from an example

Under Start from an example, three ready-made series are waiting for you to adapt:

Example	Starts	Emails
Welcome series	After signing up	A welcome on the same day, and three tips for a good listing on day 3.
Nudge to post	No listing yet	A reminder on day 7 that their first listing is waiting.
Come back	Not signed in for a while	A “what’s new” email on day 60.

Click one to open it as a new series, change the text to sound like you, and save. Or click New series to write your own.

Write a series

Give it a Name (only you see it).
Choose when it Starts:
- After signing up: days after the member creates their account.
- After their first listing: days after they post their first listing.
- No listing yet: days after signing up, only while they haven’t posted anything. It stops once they post.
- Not signed in for a while: days after their last sign-in, only while they stay away. It stops once they sign in.
For each email, set the Day (0 sends it straight away), the Subject and the Text. Use Add another email for the next one, up to 10 emails in a series.
Switch it On and click Save.

Each email’s day counts from the moment the series starts for that member. A member gets each email once, and a later email only after they got the one before it. To remove an email, empty its subject and text. Remove series deletes the series and its numbers.

You can put these placeholders in the subject and text; each member’s email gets their own values:

Placeholder	Becomes
`[USER.NAME]`	The member’s name.
`[SITE.NAME]`	Your site’s name.
`[URL.SITE]`	Your home page.
`[URL.POST]`	The page to post a listing.
`[URL.ACCOUNT]`	The member’s account page.

A new series never mails your existing members in one go: only members whose day comes after you switch it on get its emails. Someone who signed up last year doesn’t get your new welcome email.

Who gets them

Automated emails go to active members who are subscribed to emails, like newsletters, but never to your own team. With email preferences on, members can also untick Tips and news from the site on their Email notifications page to stop them, and keep getting your other emails.

Like newsletters, automated emails need your own email service. Until you set one up, the page says Needs your own email service: you can write series, but nothing is sent. Emails go out every 15 minutes, in batches.

See how they do

The Automated emails page lists each series, On or Paused, with every email’s Sent, Opened and Clicked numbers. A click counts as an open too. Opens are counted when the email’s pictures load, so some opens are missed: many email programs don’t load pictures until asked. Clicks are more reliable.

Let your site send updates for you

If you want to keep members up to date with new listings, you don’t need to write anything:

The email digest sends members a daily, weekly or monthly email with the latest listings.
Listing alerts email members the moment a listing matching their search is posted.

Email settings — set up your own email service.
Email digest — a regular round-up of new listings, sent for you.
Listing alerts and notifications — subscribers and their alerts.
Email templates — the emails your site sends on its own.