MailUp integration: what changes in ProductCart?

When you use the MailUp integration files, a few features change in your ProductCart-powered store, both in the storefront and in the Control Panel. This section goes over what changes and how.

Customers will now be able to subscribe and unsubscribe to all the lists that you make available to them. For example, if you create 3 different lists in your MailUp console for “Updates”, “Special Offers”, and “Partner Offers”, and make those lists active in ProductCart, customers will be able to subscribe and unsubscribe separately to each list.

The lists could be based on information that helps you provide them with more targeted offers. For example, you could ask them whether they would like to receive promotions on:

• Women Fashion
• Men Fashion
• Kids Fashion

… and automatically manage those preferences independently of each other. So the same customer might decide to unsubscribe from “Men Fashion”, but remain subscribed to your “Women Fashion” and “Kids Fashion” newsletters.

Customers will be able to subscribe/unsubscribe:

• When they create a new account
• When they create a new account while checking out
• When they edit their profile in their account area

Information will be automatically synchronized between your MailUp console and your ProductCart-powered store.

They will also be able to unsubscribe directly from the messages you will send to them, assuming you insert an Unsubscribe link in your newsletters (recommended and required by law in some countries).

As the store manager, you will also be able to view and change a customer's newsletter preferences when adding or editing a customer account in the ProductCart Control Panel.

When importing customers you can import their newsletter subscription preferences at the list level. That is, if you have 5 different newsletters that you send to your customers and have subscription information saved in a database or spreadsheet, you will be able to import that information.

• You can import a customer's opt-in or opt-out preferences
• The correct import format is “LIST_ID1|LIST_ID2|LIST_ID3|…” ( = list ID + pipe separator)
• The LIST ID used in the import is the ID of the list in your MailUp console (also shown in the ProductCart Control Panel)

The Newsletter Wizard contains a number of new or updated features:

• New filters to create a targeted group of customers to whom you will send a message.
• Ability to save a group of filtered customers for later use
• Ability to send the group to your MailUp console

You can still export a filtered list to a CSV file, or use the built-in message mailing feature (not recommended).

When the MailUp integration files are not used, ProductCart saves the customer's newsletter preferences in the RecvNews field of the customers table. This field is still updated when MailUp is used, in the following way:

• The field is automatically updated a customer registers a new account or edits his/her account. It is also updated when a customer is added or modified in the Control Panel
• When the customer has not opted into any of the active lists MailUp, the value in the database is “0” (opted-out)
• If any of the MailUp lists are checked (customer has opted in), the value saved to the field is “1” (opted-in)

This also means that if you decided not to use MailUp and to revert back to a ProductCart installation that no longer uses the MailUp integration files, customers' newsletter preferences will be accurate. Remember, however, that ProductCart does not support opting in and out of different lists, unless the MailUp integration files are used and you have an active MailUp account.