Segmenting Subscribers by Their Preferences in MailerLite Classic
In the new version of MailerLite, or so I am told, it is possible to easily set up a decent page so that subscribers can set their preferences. In MailerLite Classic, not so much. It took me a lot of tweaking to finally come up with something I liked, so it would feel wasted if I didn’t share my workflow. Feel free to pick up whatever meets your needs.
Of course, we don’t want to bother anyone with unwanted emails, and segmentation is a great way to be able to send them release emails, even though they don’t want to hear from us otherwise. I have found the plain-text only segment to be very small, but highly interactive. The click rate is about 50%.
The Triggers
There are four entry points to set preferences. Two of them are links that trigger an automation:
- ⚫ a link in the footer of every campaign email
- ⚫ a link on the unsubscribe page
Two are emails in automations:
- ⚫ the last email in my welcome sequence
- ⚫ the re-engagement automation
The Automation
In the new version of MailerLite, you can have several triggers for one automation, but with MailerLite Classic, I’ve got automations that are almost identical. Here is the outline to one of them.
The Email
The core part of the email sent is a survey. The first question asks for what emails they want to get, the second is about how it should look like, and the outro is a plain thank-you page.
The Questions
You might want to consider offering something as a thank-you. Or not.
The Rules
In my first go at this automation, I had set the rules to sort the subscribers into groups. That was awful. It worked, but it was complicated and cumbersome and things tended to go wrong somewhere. Plus, it was difficult to allow subscribers to change their minds.
Using fields is waaaay easier.
The “Create A New Field” link does just that. I named the fields in such a way that I will clearly remember what they are about and start all with the same word (to find them grouped when in alphabetical order).
I’ve got two fields with several values each:
all emails
releases
special offers
images
plain-text
When you ask your subscribers about how they’d like your emails, chances are they decide they don’t want them at all. That’s great—you will not have to weed them out.
If they click the unsubscribe link in the footer, MailerLite takes note of it and might think poorly of you. (I still haven’t truly understood what the consequences are, but I am cautious.) So I offer them a nice, very obvious option. The rules to that button assign the subscriber to a group “to be unsubscribed”, which then triggers a separate automation.
That email is just a short note: “So as per your request, I have unsubscribed you. Farewell!”
Apparently, according to the GDPR, subscribers have the right to ask why they aren’t on your list anymore. So I make sure I take note that they wanted to be unsubscribed. The other field value is “did not re-engage”. NB: Never, ever delete subscribers, as you would not be able to tell them anything about their journey through your list.
The Campaign Emails
Campaign emails I gear towards all emails + with images. Those who opted for release notes or special offers will be considered according to the nature of the email. So typically, the emails go out to everybody on my list, minus those onboarding, those in re-engagement, those who don’t want all the emails, and those who want plain-text.
+ general
– onboarding
– re-engagement in process
– releases
– special offers
– plain-text
When finished, I copy that campaign and edit the email’s content by stripping it of all images but for my signature. I then delete all the text that refers to the image and tighten the content to make the email very short. This one goes out to all those who want plain text, minus releases/special offers. There is a high overlap between these segments.
+ plain-text
– releases
– special offers
I hope this was helpful to you. You’re welcome.