Newsletter and marketing

Where to find it

Menu Vouchers & marketing → Marketing, tabs Campaigns, Contacts, Lists, CSV import and Email templates. You need the Marketing module and additionally one of the modules Contracts, Forms or Job postings.

Contacts and lists

Lists are distribution lists with a name and a description, for example "General newsletter" or "Business customers". A contact can be in several lists. If a list is deleted, the contacts are kept.

Contacts come in three ways:

• Via a form (recommended): with double opt-in, see below.
• CSV import: contacts are active immediately, without a confirmation email. Only import addresses for which you have verifiable consent.
• Manually: also active immediately.

Status per contact: Unconfirmed (waiting for double opt-in), Active, Unsubscribed, Bounce (address undeliverable, blocked).

Sign-up with double opt-in

Sign-up runs via Forms (menu Contracts & forms → Forms): add a field of type Newsletter (default text "Yes, I would like to receive the newsletter") and select in the form the Unitlify newsletter list that new contacts should go into. Without a selected list, the sign-up goes nowhere.

Flow:

1. The guest ticks the box and submits the form.
2. The contact is created with status "Unconfirmed" and receives the confirmation email.
3. By clicking the confirmation link, the contact becomes "Active"; time and origin (form, product) are stored.

Contacts that are already active do not receive a second confirmation email.

You can replace the confirmation email in the Email templates tab with your own template from the email designer. The button in it must point to the placeholder {{link}}. If it points to your website, the sign-up is never confirmed and the contact stays unconfirmed. Further placeholders: {{name}}, {{firma}}. Optionally, you can redirect to your own thank-you page after confirmation (https only).

There is no newsletter checkbox in the shop checkout. The checkbox there ("be reminded of open bookings and asked for a review after the visit") is only the consent for cart reminders and review requests. For the newsletter, use a form, for example as a link on your website or in the confirmation email.

Writing and sending a campaign

New campaign: internal name, subject, preheader, sender name, reply address (Reply-To), recipient lists and the content as HTML. Personalization with {{name}}, {{vorname}}, {{nachname}}, {{alter}}, {{geburtsdatum}}.

• Test email: goes to you with "[Test]" in the subject. Placeholders are not replaced in the test email; that only happens on the real send.
• Send now: goes to all active contacts of the selected lists, without duplicates. Sending runs in batches of up to 200 emails per minute. There is no scheduling; send when the email should go out.
• Only drafts can be edited. To reuse a sent campaign: Duplicate.

The sender address is fixed as newsletter@news.unitlify.de. You set the sender name and the reply address (default in the marketing settings, can be overridden per campaign); replies from guests arrive at your inbox.

Every email has the link "Unsubscribe from newsletter" in the footer plus the one-click unsubscribe that email clients offer, in the language of your business.

Unsubscribes and statistics

An unsubscribe applies to the contact as a whole, not per list. You can only re-add an unsubscribed contact with verifiable consent (confirmed double opt-in or import); otherwise the contact becomes "Unconfirmed" again and has to confirm anew. Bounce contacts stay blocked.

The statistics per campaign show Delivered, Opens (tracking pixel, so only an approximation), Clicks (only for complete http(s) links), Bounces and Complaints. A complaint ("spam") automatically unsubscribes the contact. The overview shows open, click and unsubscribe rates as well as the emails of the last 30 days.

Birthday email

In the Email templates tab you can activate an automatic birthday email. Do not use it in parallel in Brevo, otherwise customers receive it twice.

Brevo as an alternative

If you keep running your newsletter in Brevo, connect Brevo under Settings → Integrations → Brevo (newsletter): API key (v3), ID of the double opt-in template, redirect URL, default list and the names of the attributes for date of birth and postcode. In the form you then select the Brevo newsletter list. Brevo sends the confirmation email itself.

• If the list, template or redirect is missing, the sign-up is skipped without a message. A wrong attribute name makes Brevo reject the whole call.
• If both a Brevo list and a Unitlify list are selected on one form, the guest receives two confirmation emails.
• Import from Brevo fetches lists and contacts into Unitlify once. Contacts blocked or unsubscribed in Brevo stay inactive. There is no synchronization back to Brevo.

GDPR

For every contact, Unitlify stores the source (form, import, manual), the form and offer, the sign-up time and the confirmation time and, for form sign-ups, IP address and browser. This is your proof of consent. For imported and manually created contacts, you have to keep the proof yourself.

Troubleshooting checklist

• Contacts stay "Unconfirmed": own confirmation template without {{link}}, or the guest did not click the link.
• Sign-up arrives nowhere: form without a selected list, or Brevo set up incompletely.
• Two confirmation emails: Brevo list and Unitlify list on the same form.
• Test email shows placeholders: normal, they are only replaced on sending.
• Campaign cannot be changed: already sent, duplicate it.
• Low open rate: the tracking pixel is blocked by many email clients, the value is only a lower bound.