Newsletter

With the Shopware Newsletter Manager you have the ideal tool to stay permanently in contact with your customers. We will tell you here how you can set up your first newsletter in a few steps.

In addition to the HTML Newsletter described here, we can provide you our plugin "Intelligent Newsletter". With this Plugin you can set up your Newsletter easily by drag and drop for Banner, pictures, articles, and other items. The plugin is also able to create customers tailored product advices.

Newsletter Overview

At first open the backend with the newsletter module, this can be found at "Marketing > Newsletter Manager". After opening the Newsletter Manager you get an overview of the created newsletters and other settings.

When you click on "Create Newsletter" (1) you generate an empty Newsletter. After creating a Newsletter it will be displayed in the Overview (2).

Status

In status you see at a glance if your newsletter is Not sent The percentage of the sending or if all mails were sent.

Recipients / Letters Read / Clicks /

Here you get a compact view about how many recipients have reached your newsletter. The item "Letters Read" is counted how many newsletters have been opened. (Only the first time the email was opened is counted.) In "Clicks" the total amount of clicks in the newsletter that ended in your shop are listed.

Turnover

Most interesting to a newsletter is sometimes how much revenue the newsletter has introduced. Under the heading "Turnover"you can find the sum of all sales that were generated with a store access through the newsletter.

Actions

In the right panel of the overview are the Actions (3) of the newsletter. Here you have the possibility to edit, delete or send your newsletter.

Using the Search (4) you can find a specific newsletter faster. The search includes the sender address and the subject of each newsletter.

Administration

In Administration tab you can create general settings for all of your newsletters. Here you can define sender, create recipient groups and manage your receiver.

Sender

Here you can manage, create, edit or delete the sender addresses and names for your newsletter. The defined addresses / names are displayed to the recipient as the sender of the newsletter. You can "Create new sender (1) by entering an e-mail address (2) and a name (3). You can edit or delete your sender on the Actions (4) fields on the right side.

Recipient group

By using different groups of recipients, you can sort your subscribers and achieve a better and more efficient use of your newsletter. For example you can create a group of recipients receiving a weekly newsletter or a group that only receives the newsletter once a month. When creating a newsletter you can select the customer groups and the recipient groups which you create here. You can chose the receiver group that will be assigned by default to a new customer "Settings> Preferences> Storefront> Login / Registration".

Note to the number of the recipient: This recipient groups include all recipients that are assigned. Duplicates are not considered at this point! The final number of recipients is not visible when you run the cron jobs, since these filters out the duplicates and the number prints out.

Receiver

Here you can manually add or delete email addresses. In addition you can change the assignment of a customer with a doubleclick in the group with a pull down menu.

The Newsletter

In the newsletter itself you have 2 tabs. The editor where you can add your newsletter in HTML or plain text, and the Settings tab. All settings are stored which apply only to this newsletter.

Creating Newsletter

With the HTML window, you can breathe life into your newsletter. With the Settings from the Editor (1) you can also create your newsletter without any knowledge about HTML. Just insert the content into the input mask (2). If you want to watch the newsletter as the newsletter will look for your customers use the Preview(3) button.

Settings

At first you should set up a subject (1) for your newsletter. The Sender (2) can be selected via a pull down menu. At next you choose which customer group (3) is directed to the newsletter. With the option Select language: (4) you can select the shop using the newsletter. With shopware 5.1.2 you can use timed send newsletters, the cron job checks whether the newsletter is released and the delivery time Send at: (5)is reached. Here you can define where the Newsletter sent to a date. You can choose whether the newsletter should be sent as plain text or HTML + Plain text with the Sending type: (6). If your newsletter is ready, you can use the check box Published (7) If you want to use the timed sending, then use Release for sending: (8) set 'the hook in' so that the newsletter is sent when cron call the specified time.

The newsletter is sent only when the defined time is reached.

At the end of the settings you can select the check boxes of the newsletter recipients here you can choose between Customer groups (9) or your Own recipient groups (10) the newsletter be delivered to.

Under Settings> Preferences> Storefront> Email Settings you can use a double opt-in to the newsletter subscription, the customer would then receive an email in which he must acknowledge receipt of the newsletter.

Sending

On the right edge of the Newsletter page you find the function "Send Newsletter" (1).

After clicking this button 2 confirmations appear. With the first, you confirm sending the newsletter.

With the second you can choose whether the package script to be executed manually or shipment is processed through a previously established Cronjob.

Start Cronjob via browser

To test the cronjob open your browser with the URL of your shop a:

http://www.yourshop.com/backend/Newsletter/cron

If you are sending the newsletter manually a new tab with the valid url for your shop is opened automatically. The execution is performed directly and the result should be visible in the browser as text. You should update this site every 5 minutes until the message "Nothing to do ..." appears.

Calling by Shell / console

Inside the shell there are no limitations regarding to the script runtime. The cron jobs can be ideally started by Shell or console command. In the management interface of your provider, check matching settings. Our certified hoster will help you setting this up. Just add here the cronjob URL of your shop:

http://www.yourshop.com/backend/Newsletter/cron

We recommend to choose a setting that is running the file every 10-15 minutes.

Newsletter Archive for the frontend

You can use the "Release" feature to mark a Newsletter as visible after the complete delivery. They will appear in the archive and can be viewed by your visitors.

Thus, even visitors who do not receive the newsletter, stay up to date.

With the link http://www.yourshop.com/newsletterListing all sent newsletters are displayed.

With the shoppage function you can easily add the newsletter archive link.

Newsletter text modules

The layout of the newsletter also uses the Shopware text modules. Thus it is very easy and comfortable to adapt the texts, such as copyright or the links in the backend.

Open your backend to select Settings> Text Blocks. On the left side you can choose namespaces and newsletter. All text modules of newsletter templates are now listed in the right pane.

Example: Adding a link to contact and imprint in the block NewsletterFooterNavigation

Tips & Tricks

Basic settings

In "Configuration > Basic Settings > Additional Settings > Newsletter" you can set how many eMails should be sent per step/request. It is important to split the sending of the newsletter into smaller steps to prevent the mail server from being overloaded. Additionally it can come to problems with certain providers, if too many mails are sent at the same time over SMTP.

Newsletter release

Once you have approved your newsletter, you can no longer send it manually. If you do, you will have to deactivate your approval.

User administration

The setting of the dispatch time is ACL compatible, which means that if your users only have read access to this module, you cannot control the dispatch either.

Add your own logo to the newsletter

You want to add your own logo to the newsletter?

Create a header.tpl in your own theme at

themes\Frontend\Your_THEME\newsletter\index\header.tpl

Here you can add the following content:

 
<div>
  <div align="left">
      {* align left needed for old outlook versions *}
      <img align="left" src="{link file='frontend/_public/src/img/logos/logo--mobile.png' fullPath}" />
  </div>
  <div align="right">
      <span style="color:#999;font-size:13px;">NEWSLETTER</span>
  </div>
</div>
 
{* Clear floating *}
<div style="clear:both;float:none;height: 0px; line-height: 0px;"></div>
 
<br>
 

Then you can replace frontend/_public/src/img/logos/logo--mobile.png with your own shop logo.

Deactivating the newsletter function

The newsletter module is one of the most powerful marketing tools in Shopware. In the standard version it is not possible to switch off the newsletter function globally. To hide the newsletter function in the frontend and backend, you have to work through the following checklist.

Deactivating the newsletter function in the backend

• Deactivate newsletter registration: Configuration > Basic settings > Storefront > Checkout

Deactivating the newsletter function in the frontend

• Remove the Link to the Newsletter-Form: Content > Shop pages > Unten (Spalte 2) > delete the Link Newsletter
• Theme changes: To remove the corresponding blocks, which show the newsletter registration in the frontend, an individual template adjustment is necessary. Get further Information in our Tutorial-article about Making changes in the template

The cache must be cleared for the settings to be accepted. Empty the entire cache except for the SEO and search.