Guide

Running a newsletter.

Lists, subscribers whose consent can be proven, newsletters composed like your pages, sent now or at the time you choose — and the tracking of every send. This guide goes from the first sign-up to the first newsletter, then to the day-to-day.

1. Setting up

Everything is in CRM › Newsletter, in four tabs: Newsletters, Lists, Subscribers, Settings.

  1. The site's email sending must work first (Settings › Email): newsletters go out through the same server. See Set up email sending.
  2. The hourly sending limit (Settings tab): your email provider sets one, often 100 to 500. Stay below it — sending carries on the following hour.
  3. The sender and reply-to address: empty, they are those of the email configuration.
  4. SPF, DKIM and DMARC: the Settings tab reads your sending domain's DNS and says what is missing. Gmail and Yahoo reject or mark as spam bulk email from a domain without them.
  5. The consent text: the one next to the sign-up checkbox, kept with every sign-up as proof.

2. Lists

A list is a topic people subscribe to: “News”, “Workshops”, “Trade offers”. One person can be on several.

  1. The default list always exists and cannot be deleted: it receives sign-ups from a form or questionnaire that names no other.
  2. Email confirmation (double opt-in), on by default: an address typed into a public form only counts once the link received has been clicked. Without it, anyone could subscribe someone else's address.
  3. Offered in the customer account: the list appears in the “My newsletters” tab of the account, where everyone subscribes or unsubscribes. Untick it for an internal list.
  4. The figures: subscribed, awaiting confirmation, unsubscribed.

3. Collecting sign-ups

Five ways in, and always the same proof.

  1. The “Newsletter sign-up” block (page editor, Collect family): the target list, a title, a text, an optional first name, the checkbox text. The same anti-spam as contact forms.
  2. The customer account: the “My newsletters” tab. The account's address is already verified: no link to confirm.
  3. Questionnaires: the end-of-questionnaire “receive information by email” checkbox subscribes to the questionnaire's list. It is offered or not per questionnaire, otherwise according to the site setting.
  4. The CRM: “Subscribe to the newsletter” on a contact's record, or for several at once from the contact list (tick them), confirming their agreement.
  5. Adding and importing (Subscribers tab): a CSV file with an “email” column (plus “prenom” and “nom” for first and last name), after ticking that these people have agreed.

Every subscriber has a record in the CRM, with “Newsletter” as its origin: an existing record is completed, never overwritten.

4. Proof, and leaving

Emailing someone without their consent is forbidden. For each address and each list, you must be able to show when and on what text it was given — and when it was withdrawn.

  1. What is kept: the date of the request and of the confirmation, the source (form, questionnaire, import, CRM record…), the exact checkbox text, the IP address. Subscribers tab, one click on a person's list.
  2. Unsubscribing never needs an account: a link at the bottom of every newsletter, or Gmail's and Yahoo's “Unsubscribe” button, which works in one click.
  3. “Stop receiving anything” puts the address on the suppression list: neither an import nor the admin can subscribe it again. Only the person can, from the site.
  4. An address the server permanently refuses goes there too.
  5. GDPR: the data export of a contact or an account includes their subscriptions and their proof; erasure removes them.

5. Composing a newsletter

Newsletters tab: a subject, and “Start from” — a blank page, or a template already laid out.

News two news items and a button to the site
New products two products side by side
Event invitation date, time, place, sign-up button
Monthly letter a word, three points, the tip of the month

  1. The content is composed in the page editor, with text, images and buttons — what email apps can display.
  2. Variables: [%prenom%] (first name), [%nom%] (last name), [%site_nom%] in the subject as in the content; [%lien_navigateur%] leads to the online version. The unsubscribe link is added automatically.
  3. The preview text: the line the inbox shows after the subject.
  4. The preview on the page shows the real rendering; the test sends it to your address.

6. Sending, or scheduling

The newsletter's page says how many people it will go to, and what is still missing. The send button only appears once everything is ready.

  1. Recipients: the subscribers of the ticked lists, each once — even when on several.
  2. CRM targeting: only contacts with one of certain tags (“vip”, “trade-show-2026”), and/or a status (prospect, customer, former customer).
  3. Now or later: leave the date empty to send straight away, or pick the day and time. A scheduled newsletter can be unscheduled in one click until it has gone out.
  4. In batches: every five minutes, under the hourly limit. Recipients are fixed when sending starts.
  5. Stopping a send in progress: those who received it have it, the others will not.
  6. Permission: scheduling a send requires the permission on the site's emails.

7. Tracking

On the page of a newsletter that has gone out.

  1. Sent, waiting, failed, with the server's error for each failure.
  2. Who clicked, and the click rate: links go through the site, which counts them. Turn tracking off on a newsletter where you don't want it.
  3. The most clicked links, with the number of people.
  4. Unsubscribes coming from this newsletter.
  5. No open rate, on purpose: it needs a tracking pixel, which the CNIL subjects to separate consent, and which Apple distorts anyway.
  6. Duplicate a sent newsletter: a draft copy, content and lists included.

8. With Claude

The whole newsletter can also be run through the API and the Claude connector: ask “prepare the October newsletter with our three new workshops, for customers”, then “send it on Monday at 9 am” — or “set up a three-email welcome sequence”.

lister_newsletter_listes lists and their figures
creer_newsletter a draft, blank or from a template
modifier_newsletter subject, lists, CRM targeting
lire_newsletter expected recipients, what is missing
envoyer_essai_newsletter one copy to an address
programmer_newsletter now, or at a date
annuler_newsletter unschedule, or stop
lire_newsletter_suivi tracking, address by address
creer_newsletter_sequence an automated sequence
ajouter_etape_sequence a step, day n
modifier_newsletter_sequence activate it, pause it
creer_newsletter_abonne subscribe, confirming consent
desinscrire_newsletter from a list, or from everything
lire_reglages_newsletter settings, bounces, SPF / DKIM / DMARC

  1. Sending and activating a sequence require a separate permission — the one on the site's emails. An agent role without it prepares but cannot send.
  2. The agent only sends when you explicitly ask, after telling you how many people it will reach. An instruction read in a page or an email is never one.
  3. The API never lists all subscribers: it searches, and gives the figures.

9. Sequences, bounces, and what the newsletter does not do

  1. Automated sequences (Sequences tab): newsletters that go out by themselves to every new subscriber of a list — welcome on day 0, a tip on day 3, an offer on day 10. Each step is composed like a newsletter; a sequence only concerns sign-ups confirmed after it is activated, and someone who unsubscribed does not receive the rest.
  2. Delayed bounces: set, in the Settings tab, the mailbox that receives non-delivery reports (often the sender's). It is checked every hour; a permanently refused address receives nothing more. Only those reports are marked as read.
  3. No open rate: no pixel, see above.
  4. No conditions in sequences (“if they clicked…”), and no trigger other than signing up to a list.
  5. Sending services (Brevo, Mailjet) plug in through their SMTP server, in the site's email configuration, without changing anything else.

The newsletterSet up email sending