What To Check If An Activist Isn't Receiving Emails
There are a couple of reasons that an activist may not be receiving your emails, but thankfully it's quite simple to identify the reason in most cases.
Is The Activist Subscribed To Your Email List?
The first thing to check is the Activist's email subscriptions. Head to their Activist Record and on the left-hand side, you'll see the EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS box. A Green tick means that they're currently subscribed and an x of any colour means they're currently unsubscribed.
You'll only be able to see the subscription status of the Group you're managing and the Children of that Group. You won't be able to view or change subscription statuses for the Parent of your Group. To find out more about the Parent-Child relationship, check this guide: Understanding The Parent-Child Relationship Of Action Network Groups
If you want to see the reason and time that they unsubscribed simply move your mouse cursor over the x and a text box will appear which will give you the detail you need. In this example, the activist has chosen to unsubscribe from the selected mailing list on April 29th 2021.
If you see an orange x next to a mailing list follow the same step as above, of hovering your cursor over it. In this example, the activist has previously reported an email from the list as Spam and so has been unsubscribed automatically. If they wish to resubscribe they should follow this guide: Spam Complaints and Resubscribing to lists
Is The Activist Receiving Your Email?
Once you've confirmed that the activist is subscribed check their email history. You'll see a list of all the emails sent to the activist along with some ticks and crosses to show if certain steps have been completed.
- The Envelope column shows whether or not they have received the email, showing that they were targeted by the email.
- The Eye column shows whether or not they have opened the email.
- The Link column shows if they have clicked any of the links within the email.
As you might have noticed in the image above, one of the emails from March 26th 2021 shows that somebody clicked on a link, but didn't open the email. This isn't unusual. Due to increased mail privacy protections it's possible that you'll see an email hasn't been opened, as a mail provider or client has stopped us monitoring this, but the click is still recorded.
Once you've confirmed that an email has been sent to an activist you should ask them to check their Spam or Junk folders to make sure it hasn't been classified as Spam automatically. If the activist finds the email in their Spam folder they should mark it as Not Spam, to make sure they receive future emails you send.
Was The Activist A Target Of Your Email?
If the email was not sent to the activist you should check the targeting of the email you sent. Do any of the filters exclude the activist? If so, does the email targeting make sense, or should the activist have been included as a recipient? If they should have been included then it's time to check your Queries meet the requirements of your email targeting.
Why not set up some Queries to save you time when it comes to email targeting in future? Check out this guide: Useful Queries To Make Campaigning Easier
Can I Resubscribe Activists?
Although you can resubscribe activists the question really should be "Should I Resubscribe Activists?". Before unsubscribing an activist to email you need to be sure you have their explicit consent to do so. It's not enough to simply assume that someone wants to receive your emails- they need to tell you that they want you to resubscribe them. If you're an admin of a Parent Group- for example, a regional party, you should confirm if they want to be resubscribed to regional emails only, or if you should subscribe them to any Child Groups- for example a local party within the region.
How Do I Resubscribe Activists?
There are two ways to subscribe an activist to email from their Activist Record.
- To subscribe an activist to a single mailing list head to the EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS box, and click on the pencil icon on the right-hand side. You'll be presented with a confirmation screen– on which you'll just need to click the button mark YES, SUBSCRIBE.
- To subscribe an activist to all available mailing lists just click on the + Subscribe All link. You won't receive any confirmation screen so double check you're happy to subscribe the activist to all mailing lists before clicking this link.
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