So, a few posts ago, I was shouting the praises of ExactTarget 3sixty Notifications. I was standing on rooftops and declaring my love for 3sixty, our development team, and our triggered sends. (I am sure some of you mocked me, as we are an email company - WHY oh WHY did notifications take us so long....)
But I digress, I loved our triggered sends. I don't know if I had exposed that we were using our our Automated Interaction Management platform to get notifications running, but I am telling you now. In my head, I was only mere moments away from being able to do 1 to 1 marketing through 3sixty. We were doing exactly what we would have told our clients to do, and it was a beautiful thing.
Until I realized that if you aren't careful, you can make a dangerous mistake. We setup our triggers, and we went firing away. With every post to a wall, or answer to a question, I excitedly watched our triggered sends firing off with great satisfaction. And then, the dreaded email came - "I don't want these messages. Please unsubscribe me." No problem, right? I am all about the subscriber. Let's unsubscribe him and make him happy.
But I had made a major mistake in setting up my triggers. I classified them as transactional sends. Which is fine, and was perfectly acceptable. However, it does prevent a classic unsubscribe mechanism from working in a normal fashion. No wonder he had to send me an email.
I have told HUNDREDS of clients how the transactional message works. But in my own haste, I totally forgot. And boy, did I feel stupid. The point of this story? We all make mistakes (even us email marketers), especially when navigating some tricky technology. There are 3 things to remember if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
1. It's easy to fix, and most subscribers will take it with a grain of salt. (Even our very own Al Iverson will help you out if you really do have remorse.)
2. You'll never make the same mistake again. Ever. Trust me.
But I digress, I loved our triggered sends. I don't know if I had exposed that we were using our our Automated Interaction Management platform to get notifications running, but I am telling you now. In my head, I was only mere moments away from being able to do 1 to 1 marketing through 3sixty. We were doing exactly what we would have told our clients to do, and it was a beautiful thing.
Until I realized that if you aren't careful, you can make a dangerous mistake. We setup our triggers, and we went firing away. With every post to a wall, or answer to a question, I excitedly watched our triggered sends firing off with great satisfaction. And then, the dreaded email came - "I don't want these messages. Please unsubscribe me." No problem, right? I am all about the subscriber. Let's unsubscribe him and make him happy.
But I had made a major mistake in setting up my triggers. I classified them as transactional sends. Which is fine, and was perfectly acceptable. However, it does prevent a classic unsubscribe mechanism from working in a normal fashion. No wonder he had to send me an email.
I have told HUNDREDS of clients how the transactional message works. But in my own haste, I totally forgot. And boy, did I feel stupid. The point of this story? We all make mistakes (even us email marketers), especially when navigating some tricky technology. There are 3 things to remember if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
1. It's easy to fix, and most subscribers will take it with a grain of salt. (Even our very own Al Iverson will help you out if you really do have remorse.)
2. You'll never make the same mistake again. Ever. Trust me.
3. Before you start an ambitious new project (fingers pointing at me), you'll check ExactTarget 3sixty for the latest documentation and how-to's. The time and embarrassment that will save you is not measurable.
Happy triggering - and good luck!
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