What is a “linked list”?

A linked list is a contact list that you assign your newsletter to. You do this within the Settings step of creating a newsletter. It helps you to sort newsletters so you know where to find them when looking up their stats. Here are the main areas where the linked list will come in handy:

• In Newsletters, you can choose a list and see all messages associated with it.
• In Email analytics, when you choose a list, you can check the statistics for all the newsletters associated with it.
• In Search contacts, you can choose a list and look for contacts who open or click on links in the messages linked to it. Likewise, you can find contacts who have never opened messages or clicked on links, or haven’t done so for a specific amount of time.

How do I use linked lists when creating and sending newsletters?

You can use linked lists to plan your marketing campaigns and to make sure you’re using the right type of message to reach the right audience. There is no right or wrong way to do it. All depends on the kind of marketing strategy you’d like to apply to meet your goals. You can use the three examples we show here as a starting point for planning your mailings and list management.

Example 1

This example shows you when it’s useful to keep your newsletters linked to one specific list. Let’s say you’ve created a contact list with your new customers. It’s called new_customers_example, for easy identification. You’ve created a series of newsletters that are lessons designed to teach them how they can use your product to grow their business. The newsletter content will be tailored to the needs and interests of people in that particular list.

You’ll need to select new_customers_example twice when creating a newsletter. First, when you’re choosing the linked list (to later help you search for this message). Second, when you’re choosing the recipients, because you want all the contacts in the list to get the newsletter.

Example 2

This example shows you when you might want to choose one list as your linked list and another for the recipients. Using this strategy will help you to monitor how your newsletters are doing, adjust your strategy, and curate your contact lists.

Imagine you’ve created a contact list called example_product_a. Everyone in this list receives newsletters with promo codes for product A, and all those messages are linked to this list for better organization and performance tracking. But you also have another contact list for everyone who signs up via a landing page for a product B. Let’s call this list example_product_b.

You’d like to see if contacts in list example_product_b might be interested in product A, too. Or, they’ve never opened any of your newsletters linked to example_product_b. So, you send newsletters linked to example_product_a to recipients who are in example_product_b.

Now you should check whether they are more responsive to the product A newsletters. You can use Advanced search to find people who open the newsletter or clicked on the promo code in it. If they click on the product A newsletters, we could say that those newsletters have a better conversion rate—they encourage your contacts to perform the action you’d like them to. With this information, you can decide if you’d like to copy or move contacts from example_product_b to example_product_a for a better-fitting product offer.

Tip: you can set up an automation workflow that would move or copy contacts from one list to another when they click a link.

Example 3

This example involves working with multiple lists and a segment. This approach may be effective when you don’t want to create a new list or move contacts between lists, but still want to create a group of contacts from different lists to receive your newsletters (this saves you the trouble of hand-picking individual recipients every time you want to send a newsletter).

Let’s say you have 4 contact lists for contacts receiving newsletters linked to the respective lists. You’re planning a webinar and linking the webinar invitation to one of the lists. However, you want to invite contacts from all four lists because you know they all are a fitting audience for what you’d like to discuss. Plus, you’re thinking about identifying a specific group of contacts who might be interested in another project you’re developing. So, you’re going to select contacts in all four lists to be the recipients.

After the seminar, you can use Advanced search to find the contacts who participated in your event and save them as a segment. When you choose to contact them about the project, link the message to the list you’ve originally selected (this will help you find it later). Then, choose the segment you saved for the recipient of the message. This way you can be sure that you’re reaching people who’ve already expressed interest in your enterprise. Your click and open rates will be higher. This also decreases the chances of your messages being marked as spam and increases your deliverability.

When your project takes off, you may want to decide it merits its own contacts list with tailored newsletters linked to it. You can add all the contacts from the segment to that list and keep growing your list.