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Questions & Answers
• Pricing & Billing
• System Requirements
• Security & Privacy
• Subscribe & Unsubscribe
• Manage mailing lists
• Receiving newsletters
• Sending newsletters
• Designing newsletters
Pricing & Billing
Can I pay with Paypal?
No. Presently you can pay by credit card through the secure Authorize.net payment gateway which is accessible on the 'Sign up here' menu link on the SharperEmail homepage.
If I cancel my subscription, how long will my account be active?
If you sign up for a monthly or annual subscription, your account with SharperEmail will run to the end of the agreed period. If you sign up today and cancel tomorrow, your account will remain active for another 30 days (or 365 days if you subscribed for the annual plan).
How do I know when my account has been debited?
Authorize.net will confirm each debit by e-mail. More information is available on the Authorize.net website at www.Authorize.net
Which credit cards does SharperEmail accept?
Credit card payment is processed by Authorize.net. Authorize.net accepts Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Authorize.net is one of the most established companies in eCommerce world-wide today. All transactions are encrypted using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) architecture (dependent on browser support), and are signed using Thawte digital certificates.
How does the price structure for SharperEmail work?
SharperEmail is working on "send credit" system. One send credit is for sending out one email. For example, if you have 2000 send credits, you can send out to a mailing list with 2000 email addresses once, or a mailing list with 500 email addresses 4 times.
System Requirements
Can I download the SharperEmail program and install it?
No, SharperEmail is a hosted application, like Hotmail. It is used online, by logging in with a username (e-mail address) and password at www.SharperEmail.com.
What software do I need to use SharperEmail?
Any Windows PC with Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5, or higher. No downloads or plug-ins are required. Some advanced editor functions will only be available when running Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher. Internet Explorer 7 can be downloaded free from www.microsoft.com or www.tucows.com. In Internet Explorer you can check the version of your browser under the Help > About menu.
I have a Macintosh. Can I use SharperEmail?
Yes. SharperEmail is compatible with Mozilla Firefox browsers on Mac OS X platforms. NOTE: You must use the New Edit function when editing or designing emails.
Security & Privacy
Is my credit card data secure?
Credit card payment is processed by Authorize.net. Authorize.net is one of the most established companies in eCommerce world-wide today. All transactions are encrypted using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) architecture (dependent on browser support), and are signed using Thawte digital certificates.
Do you sell e-mail address lists?
No. Your address lists, or your login e-mail address lists will never be disclosed to third parties. SharperEmail does not sell lists of targeted e-mail addresses. Read our Privacy policy for full details.
Are stored newsletters, images and mailing lists secure?
SharperEmail is hosted at a large data center in Texas, USA. Our hosting provider has a state-of-the-art network operation center providing full security, fire walling, backup, and multi-tier, redundant high-speed network connections. Our Privacy Policy strictly precludes us from providing personal data to any third party.
Subscribe & Unsubscribe
Will I know when there are new subscribers (and 'un'subscribers)?
Yes. In the SharperEmail reporting tool, the number of un/subscribers are available per week, month and year, as well as per mailshot sent.
Why does my subscribe/unsubscribe form not list an “unsubscribe” option at the bottom when more than one list is selected?
If your client is subscribed to more than one list then the subscribe list will show which lists they’re subscribed to. If they wish to unsubscribe from one of those lists they must uncheck that list and then click on the “Update” link. If they wish to unsubscribe from all you lists they must click on the “Unsubscribe All” link.
Manage mailing lists
How does double opt-in work?
SharperEmail supports double opt-in on subscriptions. If this feature is enabled (on Subscription form setup), when someone subscribes to your newsletter they will receive a generic email asking them to click a link to confirm their subscription. If you have double opt-in enabled then a SP code will display next to their email address if they've subscribed, but not yet clicked the email opt-in link. A S2 will be next to their email address once they've clicked the email opt-in link.
How do subscribers unsubscribe?
Each e-mail you send using SharperEmail has an unsubscribe link appended to it. If you have only one general subscriber list it will say 'Unsubscribe from this mailing list'. If you have several categories of subscriptions active on your subscribe form, the link will be 'Manage my subscription'.
How do I get new subscribers?
The SharperEmail subscription form builder (available under the Manage Mailing Lists section) enables you to collect new subscriptions from a subscribe link on your website. The website link enables users to subscribe to specific mailing lists (which you can set up to correspond to your newsletter categories). You can design your subscription form with logos, fonts and colors. After you have set up the subscription form, SharperEmail generates the HTML code for you (or your webmaster) to insert into your existing website code.
Will I receive bounced return e-mails from (newly) invalid addresses?
No! This is where SharperEmail saves you time and removes the headache of hundreds of undelivered e-mails bouncing back and clogging your inbox. SharperEmail automatically flags invalid e-mail addresses ('hard bounces') so that they are excluded from future mailshots. 'Soft bounces' (addresses that are temporarily unavailable), go through a series of checks before they become a 'hard bounce'. E-mail addresses are being checked for validity on a continual basis, even when you are not logged in.
Receiving newsletters
What should I do if someone isn't receiving my emails?
If someone isn't receiving your html emails and you believe they should be, it's possible that your emails are being stopped or re-routed by the person's server or filter program. Because filtering programs - and their criteria for delivery - vary, the easiest way for a recipient to make sure they keep receiving all of your emails is to add you to his or her address book or trusted sender list. If you're on someone's trusted sender list, you'll bypass pretty much any filtering they have in place. (If the person checks email at work, he or she might need their server administrator's help white-listing you.) You'll need to provide the recipient with the 'from' name and address you use to send your email campaigns. In most cases, that's all they'll need. In some cases the server administrator may ask for your 'IP' address as well. This is the technical "address" from which your campaigns are sent. If that is required from a system administrator have them mail us at support@SharperEmail.com referencing your username in their email.
Why can’t my recipients see my images?
In SharperEmail, images are not embedded in the email. SharperEmails have code that points to the images, which either reside in your SharperEmail pictures folder or on another website, according to your preference. When a recipient opens the email, the newsletter calls the image externally, and it is downloaded to the recipient’s computer. If the recipient is not online, they will see a broken link.
Why are people not getting my mails?
Unfortunately, no email service can guarantee 100% delivery. People change email addresses when they move or leave jobs, auto responders are set up when people are on vacation and spam filters trap messages before they arrive based on key words and phrases in the content. Industry averages for delivery rates are 30-40% for business to business newsletters and 10-15% for consumer newsletters according to eMarketer. Your message content and your relationship with your list (whether or not they white listed you in their email client) also have a lot to do with successful delivery. With SharperEmail, you're able to see exactly who has opened which email over time and work on improving your open rates. Without a similar tool you never have any idea who’s receiving the email.
Sending newsletters
Can SharperEmail be used for unsolicited bulk e-mail (spamming)?
SharperEmail does not condone spam. Our Anti-spam policy clearly states our position. Each account displays a complaint statistic per send. If the complaint level exceed a threshold we've set your ability to send emails will be blocked. You will be asked to contact us to explain the offense and provide opt-in proof. The block may be lifted after a satisfactory review. Depending upon the severity of the offense, SharperEmail maintains the right to cancel your account and to refund any unused credits remaining on the account. Please review our Anti-spam policy by clicking on the link at the bottom right hand corner of the homepage.
What is SharperEmail used for?
The SharperEmail tool is mostly used by corporations, associations, clubs, small businesses and private individuals. The uses are endless, but most people use SharperEmail to communicate with clients, staff, members, colleagues and relatives or friends. Private use would include invites, announcements, travelogues and family albums. Small businesses might use SharperEmail for press releases, newsletters, product launches, quotes, letters, proposals and more. Corporations, on the other hand, might have an in-house communications department that wants to send out internal newsletters, reports, memos and directives to other offices, as well as a range of opt-in or other marketing functions.
Does SharperEmail CC (carbon copy) or BCC (blind carbon copy) e-mails sent to multiple recipients?
No, when sending, each newsletter is addressed and sent individually. This is much more effective. When people see a single stock phrase in the "To" field of the received e-mail, they usually associate it with SPAM.
Can I personalize the e-mails or use different subject lines?
Yes, we offer a range of personalization functions. You can address the emails to individuals, based on fields you set up in datasets managed in the Manage Subscriber Info area. You can also personalize the subject with a data field representing each individual recipient, such as their name.
Can I do scheduled sends with SharperEmail, choosing the time I wish my newsletter to be sent out?
Yes, scheduled sends are part of SharperEmail's functionality. They can be sent by hours and days, up to one month ahead.
Can the recipient's name appear in the ‘To’ field?
The TO field has to contain an email address. If you want to add the recipient’s name, use our personalization tool.
Can I send out personalized emails?
Yes, SharperEmail allows you to personalize your emails and set up subscribe forms where your users fill in their details to populate sets of data that you can set up, with a choice in the type of information you wish to get from them. Go to Manage Subscriber Info and Create New (dataset). Full instructions are available in the help files. A small icon next to the subject line in the SEND area enables you to personalize the subject line.
Is there a limit to the size of my newsletter when sending?
Some email software freezes up when an email is too big. The limit, more a practical maximum, is 200 kilobytes. This is a very large file anyway, and we advise against sending so much data. 200 kb is 200,000 bytes, or about 25,000 words and 3,000 lines. This is without the pictures - remember that images are not embedded in the email, but exist externally, either in your SharperEmail folder or in a folder on a website. This means that your recipient must not only download 200 kb of (words and code) data, but also all the images. You are unlikely to endear customer to you or your product if you're subjecting them to that ordeal. We recommend that the size of a newsletter (words and code) does not exceed 70 kb, and that the newsletter links to a minimum number of small, carefully compressed images. There are many image editors on the market. Some, such as IrfanView (Tucows gives it a five cow rating) are freeware or shareware and are free or cheap to use.
Can SharperEmail deliver statistics (such as open rates and clicks) on text e-mails sent instead of HTML messages?
No. Our reports depend on an action being taken (such as a image being downloaded) or a click through. One way around it is to design the newsletter in HTML but make it resemble straight text by using only text in a simple table structure (in a font such as Courier New).
Does personalization work with plain text newsletters?
At this time personalization only works in HTML and not in text-only emails. However, a work-around is to design a text-only e-mail using HTML, but choose a plain text font such as Times Roman. This way, you can personalize the e-mail as well as track clicks and other useful statistics. HTML contains code that communicates with our server to register these stats, whereas text-only e-mails do not.
How does personalization work?
Under Enhanced mode – Manage subscriber info, you can create your datasets there. Help files are available. You can personalize your TO field and the SUBJECT, as well as a range of other options.
Is there a cost involved in personalizing emails?
Personalization is one of many useful features that come free with SharperEmail.
Does SharperEmail automatically send the correct version (HTML or text) to recipients?
Yes, SharperEmail is reverse MIME compliant and will automatically determine whether an e-mail client can read HTML. If it cannot, SharperEmail will deliver the text version (a setting that can be turned on or off in your SharperEmail account).
My newsletter was sent successfully, but no-one has received it?
This could mean that either our servers are busy, or you have a big file so downloading takes a bit longer.
Designing newsletters
Can I use javascript in my newsletters?
No. Javascript is not allowed in emails. Most email browser see this as a security alert and will block any scripts in your newsletter.
Can I use embedded objects like flash or movie clips?
We do not recommend to use these objects in your newsletters because some email browsers will block any activeX objects. These kinds of objects are seen as a security risks. Some browsers will display these objects with no problems.
Does the system have free templates?
Yes. You choose your templates and can adapt them for your organization, as required. It is also easy to design your own templates in the online editor.
Can I add (Flash) animations to a newsletter?
Yes. The SharperEmail Editor enables you to place a range of visual objects, such as Flash files and animated GIFs, as well as the usual range of pictures.
What kind of universal settings can I get for my newsletters in SharperEmail?
Our Profile and Settings have a range of useful features, including "Create text version with HTML version", "Enable password on subscribe form for users with additional data", "Display 'Subscribe' link on all emails", "Display 'Forward to friend' link on all emails", and "Append the address (in Profile) to the footer of all emails sent out." (Obligatory, by the US CAN-SPAM act, for emails to US resident recipients) You can also set your date format and the Time Zone you operate in. You can even set the Start page for each section to save you time.
Can I create templates in SharperEmail?
Yes. You can save your newsletters as templates for use later, along with the variety of pre-designed SharperEmail templates. GM provides a growing range of templates for different audiences: press releases, invitations, product launches, newsletters, quotes, memos, letters, travelogues, announcements and a series of e-cards relating to holidays or religious holidays. You can also create newsletters based on other newsletters, which is useful when you want your newsletter to comprise other pages with the same look and feel. It's easy to cross-link to these pages. For customers who need help in designing templates, a SharperEmail designer can create one for you.
How do I create a newsletter that links to other Web pages?
Highlight the text that you wish to hyperlink. Click the External Link button. Select http:// in the top dropdown and insert the rest of the URL in the space below.
How do I know if e-mails that I sent out were actually opened?
SharperEmail provides statistics of sent newsletters and reports the percentage of e-mails opened per mailshot, how many were sent, how many website click-throughs were generated, and who clicked on what links and who actually opened the email. We even enable you to generate or export these addresses as a separate list so that you can target your users based on their click behavior.
Can I edit images when working in SharperEmail?
Yes. The SharperEmail Editor includes an image button on the toolbar similar to the picture icon in Microsoft Word. A popup window appears with the attributes and current settings of your picture. It contains a list of pictures in your pictures folder, with a preview of the image you selected showing in the left-hand pane. It tells you the Image Source (the URL path to the image in your SharperEmail folder), the alternative text (text that appears you move the mouse over an image in your newsletter), as well as Height, Width, Alignment (the abs in absBottom stands for absolute), Image Border (thickness of the rule used as a border) and Vertical Spacing. You can change any of these attributes to change the way the image is presented. The image popup window includes other features, such as the functionality to upload images from your hard drive and insert them into your newsletter, or to insert pictures straight from your SharperEmail image folder.
Can I import HTML files into SharperEmail?
Yes. You can import HTML Web pages from your computer into your SharperEmail account. When you upload the HTML file's images to your SharperEmail images folder, your SharperEmail newsletter will automatically insert the correct path in the code to the images you have uploaded. You can also import an HTML Web page from another URL.
Do you cater for power users?
SharperEmail has a Basic Mode and an Enhanced Mode, which offers advanced functionality around the management of your newsletters, mailing lists, subscriber data, subscription methodology and more. The power of SharperEmail lies in the flexibility of the product. You can design your own subscriber forms and select - even customize - the type of data you wish to collect from subscribers to your mailing list. In the SharperEmail Editor, power users often prefer to cut and paste their own HTML code into a newsletter, especially when working with embedded Flash files and other objects. The HTML View takes you right into the code, where you can, for instance, use CTRL F to find the tag you wish to work on. Most Windows shortcut keys work in SharperEmail.
Can I have my own branding at the footer of my e-mails?
Yes. Get the SharperEmail footers removed or replaced with your own branding for a one-time fee of US$250. Please contact us if you’re interested in this option. The branding effect of the SharperEmail footers allows us to minimize our advertising spend and therefore maintain our low price structure.
Can I create templates in SharperEmail?
Yes. You can save your newsletters as templates for use later, along with the variety of pre-designed SharperEmail templates. GM provides a growing range of templates for different audiences: press releases, invitations, product launches, newsletters, quotes, memos, letters, travelogues, announcements and a series of e-cards relating to holidays or religious holidays. You can also create newsletters based on other newsletters, which is useful when you want your newsletter to comprise other pages with the same look and feel. It's easy to cross-link to these pages. For customers who need help in designing templates, a SharperEmail designer can create one for you.
Can I create newsletters that link to other pages in SharperEmail?
Yes. Because you can use a newsletter as a template, you can repeat the look and feel to create 'pages' of a newsletter, and cross-link to them from your main page.
How does SharperEmail manage images?
You can upload and insert images from your computer hard drive into your SharperEmail newsletter, or use images that are elsewhere on the Web. SharperEmail stores your images in a folder for convenient access at any time. SharperEmail enables you to either upload images straight into your pictures folder to be inserted into a newsletter later, or you can upload and insert an image at the same time while working in the SharperEmail Editor.
Can I add attachments to my email newsletters?
Yes - a download link to the file from your email will be almost the same thing as an attachment. It is also much more likely to get through corporate firewalls. Create text like "read more" or "link to pdf". Highlight these words and select the "hyperlink" button. Click on the yellow folder. A pop-up box will appear, browse for the saved file and you can now upload the pdf file. Once the file has been uploaded click "ok", "insert", "apply" and "ok". The hyperlink to the pdf file is now inserted.
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