Subscriber management

What is a list?

A list is a way to group subscribers in order to send them campaigns. However, the list itself does not contain any information about the subscribers. As you have seen, all this information is in the subscriber profile.

You can view your lists by going to Subscribers > Subscriber Lists in the main menu. Next to each list is the number of MEMBERS that list has.

However, when the list is deleted, the subscribers are not deleted.

Some examples of how this works in practice.

A useful tool for understanding lists and subscribers is the All Subscribers feature added in version 3.0.8. When this feature is enabled (in the config.php file), you can see the total number of subscribers next to your lists.

Create a 'list' of email recipients, called 'subscribers', and send 'email campaigns'.

Creating a list in phpList

The first thing to do is to create a subscriber list to organize subscribers. In phpList, at least one list must be created:

1. Subscribers
2. subscriber lists

3. Add new list

4. fill fields
5. check the box `public list

How to create first subscribers

Subscribers can be added using the import function in the corresponding menu tab. For this purpose, the email addresses to be imported must be entered per line (when importing an Excel file, these are automatically listed per line).

Adding subscribers to the phpList

1. 'Subscribers
2. import subscribers
3. select appropriate format
4. Import emails

About the results of the import will be informed after import.

How to delete subscribers

In most cases, subscribers should not be deleted. If a subscriber no longer wants to receive emails from you, they can unsubscribe. Unsubscribing means that:

• The email will be stored in the system and placed on a list of emails not to be sent (blacklist).
• The phpList system will no longer send them a campaign unless they sign up again.
• If you (accidentally) re-import their emails, the affected email addresses will automatically be added to the blacklist.
• You have a record of when and why the person unsubscribed, and can use it to improve your campaigns in the future.

If you want to delete some subscribers instead of just blacklisting them, for example to reduce the size of the lists, first go through the options on the 'Unsubscribe' page, for example to remove those who have a certain number of bounces (who have an invalid email address or who are not confirmed).

The last option is to export some email addresses (via Export Subscribers) and then paste the emails you want to delete into the bulk delete function. This function can be found on the 'Manage Subscribers' page.

Long-term health of the subscriber list

Ideally, list members will be able to subscribe and unsubscribe at will. You can set up subscribe pages so that interested people can subscribe to the lists themselves. The (mandatory) unsubscribe link in the footer of the emails allows the prospects to leave the list