Understanding Lists and Groups

Lists and Groups

You can create multiple Lists in your account, and then segment recipients within a List using Groups (or Filters that are a sort of dynamic groups).

List

Each List is an independent environment within your account, made up of settings, administrators, messages, templates, campaigns, groups, filters, triggered messages, statistics, etc.

What Lists share in common are Recipient Fields (the custom fields where recipient information is stored) and the sending queue.

The relationship between a Group and a List is that a Group is a subset of recipients within a chosen List.

  • A recipient can be assigned to more than one List at the same time: if he/she clicks on the Unsubscribe button of one newsletter he/she will still remain subscribed to all other Lists.
  • If you delete a recipient from a List, they are permanently removed from that List. However, they will remain part of other Lists in your console.
  • The subscriber status of a recipient can only be changed at the List level. (Subscribed, Unsubscribed, Pending.)

Group

If you want to segment users within a List, it is useful to create Groups.

  • When you import contacts to a List, different sets of recipients can be assigned to one or more groups.
  • You cannot send a message to multiple Lists at the same time. Instead, you can send the same message to more than one Group within that List.
  • A group can be created or deleted at any time and the contact information that it contains will not be affected.
  • A group will only be assigned to one List and will not be automatically assigned to other Lists.
  • If you remove a recipient from one group, they still belong to the other groups in which they were assigned.

Suggestions

  • Use different lists when managing different types of communications (ie press release, partners newsletter, blog alerts... or different brands, different languages)
  • Use a different sender address for each list
  • Do not use a news list for each new emailing