Learning Resources: FAQs P

Postcards

"Why are your postcards so expensive/cheap?"

Yes, we get asked both all the time.  :)

They're expensive because they're printed on digital presses (not offset, which is cheaper but designed for high volumes) they're big (8.5" x 5.5") and they're mailed first class.

They're cheaper than the competition because print simply isn't how we make our money.  We consider print to be just one of many features that you pay for with your monthly subscription fees, so we do it at a very low margin. Basically, for any other company that does very short run print (i.e., one piece - we're only really aware of AmazingMail), charging for printing IS the business model and where they make all their profit.  That's why their prices are 50%+ higher.

"How do I get a PURL onto my postcard?"

The answer you're looking for is here.

"How do I split test my postcards?"

Learn about Split Testing postcards here.

"My mail hasn't arrived yet. What the heck?"

"My contact Joe McSchmoe says he didn't get his postcard. It's been forever."

Double check that we have a valid address on file.  We run all addresses through USPS-approved databases that fix addresses as best they can (CASS certification) and then update addresses for movers (NCOA) but these systems aren't able to catch EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, according to the terms of our license agreements we're unable to show you exactly what's wrong with bad addresses or update addresses in your system, but we DO show you in the contact log when an address fails and of course you're not charged for those.

If there's simply no address in the contact record at all, no postcard is triggered so you won't see it in the contact log at all.

"I got my postcard and it looks all screwed up.  It's got text on top of text and it didn't look like that in my preview!"

The thing that is nearly always the problem here are merge fields that are longer than you thought they'd be. For example, if you put 'Hey [First Name] [Last Name]' at the top of your postcard and it looked good with your card (and your name is short.. like Sue Doe) you might have been lulled into a false sense of security.  What happens when you merge a contact whose name is 'Christian McGobbleDeGook'?  If there's not enough room on the first line, the name will wrap.  If you've got two text layers, the upper one might wrap over the lower one.  If you have just one text area, all the content will be pushed down potentially causing text to run off the printable area of the card.

So, bottom line: think about what happens when long merge fields are inserted into your text!

"How long does it take for recipients to get my postcards?"

"Is there a minimum number that I can send?"

Nope.  Send one if you want.  That's one of things that sets this system apart.  Because we can send just one, you're able to create 'postcard autoresponders'.. which we believe is an industry-first.

"Is there a minimum number of credits that I can buy?"

Yes, we sell a minimum of 10. You can use them one at a time or all at once.

"What happens if I have a sequence set up to send postcards but I don't have credits available?"

We'll buy them for you, at the cheapest available pricing level.  That is, if your sequence is sending one postcard and you have no credits, we'll buy you 10 credits (our minimum order) at $9.70.  If you're sending 101 postcards, we'll buy you 101 credits at the .92 price.

Note: if you don't have a valid card on file at the time we attempt to add credits to your account, your sequence will be paused and you'll get an email letting you know.

"I purchased a list of addresses from InfoUSA, and I'm blasting out a bunch of postcards to them, but some of them came back because the person no longer lives there, can I have a "or current resident" field on the address?"

In this case, where you're buying lists of strangers from a broker, using our service to send postcards is probably a mistake. The reason is that with any cold list, your response rate is going to be relatively low. To make your mailing profitable, you'll likely want to use a less expensive mailing option than our first-class, full-color, jumbo postcards. If you're going to do color at all, you'd probably want to do a large run on an offset press and then have them "over-printed" with addresses as you need them and then mailed at bulk rate.

Our cards are really designed to be sent to warm/hot leads or existing buyers. They're the highest quality, fastest delivery option available, which for targeted, time-specific follow-up is ideal... but for big drops to cold lists, is overkill.

That's why we've never worried about 'or current resident'.. our clients typically WANT to get their returns so they can remove them from their databases and save the cost of future mailings to a bad address.

If you still want to utilize our PURL functionality.. that's smart, and you can! But did you know you can EXPORT those purls and give them to your printer and have them over-printed on your shells right along with the addressing?

HELP! I made my card on a mac and it looks different on a PC!!

when you save a postcard in OSX, it will proof differently in windows due to each OSX generating images differently. Same vice versa

Products

I have a subscription based product. I want my affiliates to receive commission ONLY on the first month of the subscription and nothing after that. How can I set that up?

The affiliate system is set up to pay out commissions on every sale of a commissionable product. However, there is a way to set it up so that only the first sale ets paid out to the referrer. Here are the steps.

1) Create a single sale product. Set the price equivalent to one month of the subscription. This will be the commissionable product.

2) Create a second, subscription based, product with your normal settings. However, set up a 30 day trial (30 days can of course be adjusted to fit whatever your normal subscription is). This product will NOT be commissionable.

3) Place both products on the same order form. The subscription will work just as it did before, but only the first month will pay out a commission to your affiliate.

How do I delay the charge 30 days from order date??

On a product, if you want to delay a charge for 30 days from order date, dont user Delay Start date, instead use free trial

We operate our business on recurring products, and many of our products bill every other month. Can you add an every other month option to the recurrence?

Yes, when setting up your product via the add product section in your admin menu you can set your product as a subscription that renews every two months. See the screenshot <a href="http://www1.moon-ray.com/dloader.php?file_id=3762&stamp=1298503242">here</a>

When multi-payments or monthly subscription payments are declined, does that trigger the same rules you set up in the order form?

No, in order to handle subscription or multipayment declines, you'll want to create an active response rule based on when the "credit card status" is changed to declined.

PURLs

"How do I get a PURL onto my postcard?"

The answer you're looking for is here.

"How do I link PURLs to images in an email?"

You can do this, but you'll have to access the HTML of the email.

1. In the source HTML of the email find the <img > tag you want to link.

2. Surround it with <PURL_purl_name> and </PURL_purl_name> so the result would be <PURL_purl_name><img src='bla'></PURL_purl_name>

"I want to send out PURLs in a letter through my own printer, what are the steps to get this done?"

Before attempting to export that information to your printer, you'll first want to make sure you have a group of contacts that you're going to send this PURL to, as well as a PURL set up and ready to go.

1. First, you're going to want to go to your contacts tab and change the "Current group:" to the group you want to send the letters to.

2. Then, you'll want to scroll down to the "Group actions" section of the page and make sure the drop down reads "With: All in group" as opposed to "With: Selected".  Once you've got that set up, go ahead and click on "more actions" and then "Export Contacts."

3. Next, you'll want to select your printer's email address in the given field.  This will ensure that the list is sent directly to them.

4. You can change the export settings if your printer prefers, however the default ones are most likely fine.

5. Now, in the "Select which fields to export" section you're going to go through and check or uncheck information that you do or do not want to send to the printer, for example, they'll obviouslly need the contact's name/address and such but they probably don't care what sequences they're on in your system.

6. Pay special attention to the options for PURLs.  You're going to want to check the box next to the one you want sent with the letter.  This will send that information in link form to the printer.

7. Click submit and they're on their way.

If I'm sending PURLs out to my contacts, what happens if multiple people have the same first name?

Say, for instance, you've got 3 people named John in your database and TWO of them even had last names that started with the letter 'R'...

The first John's PURL would be: John.example.com

The second John's PURL would be: JohnR.example.com

The third John's PURL would be: JohnRasner.example.com

"Can I link images or anchor text to PURLs?"

Yes. But...it's a bit complicated and only recommended for advanced users who have a working knowledge of HTML.  You'll need to view the HTML source of the message.  The HTML tags beginning with "PURL" surround the part of the email that will be the clickable link (the image or the anchor text).  What goes inside those tags is determined by the standard PURL merge fields.  So if you want to link an image, say, with [PURL_Example Landing Page], you will:

1. Insert the merge field [PURL_Example Landing Page].
2. Go into the HTML and replace the '[' with '<' and the spaces with "%20" and you get <purl_Example%20landing%20page%20>.
3. Put that where you want the clickable area to start, and end the clickable area with </purl_example%20landing%20page%20>.
4. Note the closing slash thingy.

Can I have a PURL set to go to my own site even if it's not hosted with you guys?

Directly, no. However, there is a way around this. You can create what's called a "redirect" to your site. When you create a new landing page, one of the options is "Redirect". Creating one of these just asks you for the domain of the page and where you want it to redirect to. Use whatever domain you want (you can even use your own if it's nameservers are pointed to us) and then have it redirect to the page you want people to end up on. You can then create all the PURLs you want to the redirect page. You can even track who clicked the link!

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