Big Updates to Newsletter and Mail Core modules

We've just recently rolled out big updates to our Newsletter and Mail Core modules and wanted to let everyone know about some of the cool new features that have been added.

Detailed Delivery Statistics

The big area of improvement is the all new Stats Browser (provided by the Email Core) that gives you a detailed look into your newsletter delivery.  This includes all new tracking that provides per-email open and URL click tracking, as well as integration with the Geo IP Module to give you a nice audience overview:

The detailed stats also includes:

- Per User open tracking -  see how many users actually viewed or opened your newsletter.  Note that this requires the use of a small tracking image in the email - users that do not allowed images to be shown in their email client may not be tracked as an "open".

- Per user click tracking - all the URLs in your newsletter that point to a location in your Jamroom site have a special tracking URL created for them - this allows you to see which users are clicking on what URLs.  The Mail Core tracks this and provides a special Recipient plugin to send newsletters to "Top Users" - i.e. users that have shown an interest in your content by clicking on a URL in your newsletter.

- Unsubscribe, bounce and suppression - If users unsubscribe due to your newsletter, they will show up in the Unsubscribes tab.  If there are bounced emails during your newsletter send, you'll see the Bounces number increment (Bounced support requires the Mailgun SMTP module be installed and configured).  "Suppressed" is the number of users that have set their notification preferences to UNSUBSCRIBE for your newsletter - in other words, these are users that have opted-out of your newsletter before the current newsletter.

These new detailed delivery stats are a big step up from the old Jamroom Newsletter module, and should really help you determine what content is most valuable to your users and audience.

Newsletter Module Updates

The Newsletter module has also been updated with some new features:

- Full Page HTML Support - you can now send full page HTML newsletters that include the proper header and footer sections.

- New Template Browser - it's easier now to create Newsletter templates and modify and save them.  This is a great way to save yourself time by creating a set of templates that fit your site style and design.

- New Queue Based newsletter send function - you no longer have to keep your browser open during a large Newsletter send - you can close your browser and walk away now if you want The core send function has been updated to be Queue based which means once you submit the newsletter, the send function is no longer "attached" to your browser and just does it's work in the background.  You can view the newsletter workers in your Dashboard -> Queue Viewer if you want to see detailed info on what they are working on.

The Newsletter module has been overhauled from top to bottom and should be a much more "complete" Newsletter module than the old Jamroom Newsletter module ever was.  Our goal is to help you find the right content for your users - with the new delivery stats and tracking, as well as the ability to make better newsletter designs we think it just go easier.

We'd love to get your feedback on the new features - join us in the Jamroom Support Forum:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

and let us know your thoughts.

Thanks!