Closing out the year strong with another solid Infusionsoft update. And as you may expect, there are a few features I wanted to highlight this month that will make our lives easier. Let’s get to it:
Feature #1: Campaign Categories (Easier)
What it does: You can now add and remove your campaigns to and from categories without having to do it one-by-one.
Why it matters: Campaign Categories are a recent update themselves, but in the first iteration you could only update one campaign at a time. So, if you had a list of dozens of campaigns, you’d have to go through them all, one-by-one and manually assign them to the appropriate categories. Well not anymore. As we hoped, Infusionsoft has now given us the ability to handle both adding and removing en masse.
When Campaign Categories first came out I recorded a video demonstrating what to expect and how it works, well, since this update changed a few things, I’ve gone ahead and updated my video to give you the most recent take on how this feature works and how you can use it:
Feature #2: Time Zone Timers
What it does: This update allows you to use the recipients time zone in order to schedule your campaign sequence steps.
Why it matters: This matters because if you have contacts across multiple time zones, or around the world, then this means that you can have your messages show up in their inbox at the times that you know they’ll be best received. If you know that your specific audience opens email at 5:15 am, then you can make sure this message is in their inbox bright and early, no matter where they are in the world.
Caveat: Because this feature determines their time zone based on a web form submission, landing page submission, or a purchase through the shopping cart, there is a reasonable chance that you may not have time zones on record for some/most of your contacts. IF you don’t have a time zone on record, then it’ll process this step using the time you selected and the local time zone for your app (basically as it would have without this setting anyway). Furthermore, their time zone is based off of where they are when they submit your form/landing page, so hopefully they’re in their local time zone, but if they take one of those actions while traveling, it’s possible that you could have the wrong time zone on record for them.
Second Caveat: There are some circumstances where you will NOT want to use this, here’s an example: If I schedule this blog post to go live at 8:00 am Pacific US Time, and then I schedule up an email for 8:15 am Pacific Time to let everyone know that my awesome blog post is ready, well, I wouldn’t want to use the Time Zone feature because 8:15 am in Sydney happens 17 hours before it happens in San Diego, and that would mean the email was going out 17 hours before my blog post was actually live. I could see some similar concerns if you’re doing a promotion that ends at Midnight local time, etc.
Feature #3: DKIM in Infusionsoft
What it does: This gives you the ability to digitally sign your own emails, basically telling your domain that Infusionsoft has permission to send emails on your behalf. (AKA It should improve deliverability.)
Why it matters: This is a fairly technical feature, but it’s one that many people have been requesting for a while. It’s mostly over my head, but recently I recorded a bonus module for my IS Starter Kit to cover setting this up, so if you’ve got the IS Starter Kit check out the bonus modules tab for a video over view, or, if you don’t have the Starter Kit course for some reason, you can learn more here.
Caveat: If email deliverability in general is over your head, and you’d like to brush up, or if you think you may have deliverability issues, there’s nothing I recommend more than The Ultimate Guide to Deliverbility from Adrian Savage at WeDeliver.Email.
Feature #4: Web Page View Goal Method
What it does: Now you can trigger or stop automation when someone visits a page on your web site.
Why it matters: This is HUGE. This means that you can start or stop automation based on a contact in your database visiting a page on your website. Think about that for a moment, this means that if someone visits a check-out page and doesn’t purchase, you can send a follow up email addressing the most common objections, or offering them a discount. It means that if someone visits your FAQ page you can trigger a task for a sales rep to contact them, and on, and on, and on. The applications for this are really versatile.
Check out the recent blog article from Brett at Blick Digital for a step-by-step walk through on how to use this new feature.
Caveat: This brand new feature has already had some bugs and is currently listed on the Known Issues page. I’ve seen it work successfully, but I’ve also heard reports of people have issues with it. So, if you’re a little iffy about new stuff like this, maybe give this feature a month or two while they work out the kinks.
You may have heard me say this, but it’s worth repeating: I believe it’s our job as the user community to help guide where the product goes – and the easiest way to do that is through constructive and thoughtful feedback. If you are loving what they’re doing, tell them. And if you are concerned about something you’re not seeing, tell them that too.
Thanks for reading. Probably worth mentioning that there were a few other features packed into this release that I didn’t call out above (like Opportunities coming to the IS mobile app…). I’d love to hear which features from this update you love (or don’t love) in the comments below!
