Our latest free update to Direct Mail began rolling out today, and we’re excited to share with you some of the improvements you can look forward to!

Personal Data Reports

New data privacy laws around the world mean that our customers may find it necessary to respond to personal information access and erasure requests that they receive from their mailing list members. In order to make it easier for you to respond to these requests, Direct Mail now includes the ability to generate and print (or save) a formatted personal information report. If necessary, you can also now easily erase all personal information related to an individual. These features can be found by choosing Window > Personal Data from the menu bar.

Improved Performance

Updated database technology under the hood means that you should enjoy a smoother, faster Direct Mail experience, with less waiting on a spinning cursor. In addition, campaign deliveries now start 2× faster!

…and More

A new emoji button in the toolbar ?, a new “Starter” template, and a host of bug fixes are just some of the additional improvements you will find in Direct Mail 5.3. To get a full list, check out the release notes (or see them in-app by choosing Help > What’s New in Direct Mail from the menu bar).

How to Update

Your copy of Direct Mail will update automatically over the next few days. If you want to grab the update right away, open Direct Mail and choose Direct Mail > Check for Software Update from the menu bar.

This is a technical blog post for consumers of our Direct Mail API. If you would like to receive email notifications each time our API is updated, please sign up here.

If you currently use our API, we want to make you aware of some minor, non-breaking changes that rolled out this week in conjunction with our Direct Mail 5.3 update. In order to help our users comply with lawful data erasure requests that they may receive from EU citizens, Direct Mail is now able, upon user request, to delete and anonymize campaign report data specific to a particular individual. This has implications for consumers of our API:

• The JSON object that represents a campaign report recipient now has an additional boolean property named anonymized. If this property is true, it means that the information for the recipient has been anonymized/deleted, and you will find that other properties on the JSON object (e.g. email, bounce reason, etc.) are null or false, so as not to reveal information about the recipient.
• The JSON object that represents a campaign report recipient has always included links to resources related to that recipient, including archived-address, live-address, opens, and clicks. If the recipient has been anonymized, those linked resources will be anonymized (as in the case of archived-address), return 404 not found (as in the case of live-address), or return empty data sets (as in the case of opens and clicks)
• It is now possible for the number of reported opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, etc. for a campaign to decrease over time. This is only possible in the case that the Direct Mail user chooses to delete data for a particular individual.

We do not anticipate that the above changes will break anyone’s use of the API. This information may be useful as you update your own business processes and software to be compatible with privacy law changes around the world.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team.

A new European privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is set to take effect later this year, and its requirements are something that all email marketers should be familiar with, even if you live outside the EU. This law places new obligations on anyone that processes the personal data of EU citizens, and limits the ways in which personal data can be used. Since the definition of “personal data” includes information like names and email addresses, the GDPR very much applies to email marketing and your use of Direct Mail. You’re encouraged to familiarize yourself with the new law, and, if necessary, update your business practices to comply with the new requirements.

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers

We have put together a guide to the GDPR, including information on how it specifically applies to your use of Direct Mail, and how Direct Mail can help you meet the requirements of the new law. For our customers in the EU who require it, we also have a Data Processing Addendum available.

Yes, Direct Mail is compatible with the GDPR

As outlined in our guide to the GDPR, Direct Mail is compatible with the requirements of the new law and can be used to process the personal data (i.e. email addresses, names, etc.) of your mailing list subscribers. It is important to remember, however, that you control the personal data that is being inputted into Direct Mail and, as such, should only do so in a manner compatible with the requirements of the GDPR. Among other things, this means making sure you obtained consent from the people on your mailing list, or have another legal basis for emailing them. Please see our guide for more detail.

Yes, you can use Direct Mail if you are located in the EU

You can lawfully use Direct Mail even if you are located in an EU member state. As explained in our guide to the GDPR, we have certified to the cross-border Privacy Shield framework, which provides you a recognized legal basis for using Direct Mail to process the personal data of EU citizens.

How Direct Mail can help

There are many ways that Direct Mail can help you meet the requirements of the new law—our guide explains them all—but one of the best is our easy-to-use subscribe forms. You can use Direct Mail’s subscribe form editor to create attractive email sign-up forms that can be placed on your website, Facebook page, iPad, and more. When people join your mailing list via these forms, you’ll have a full record of their consent that meets the requirements of the GDPR.

Another easy way Direct Mail can help is through the use of our built-in “unsubscribe” and “update email address” links. These links allow your subscribers to easily withdraw their consent or update their personal data at any time, without requiring any work on your part. Direct Mail’s built-in templates already include these links by default, but if you are using a custom template (or a “Plain” template), then you can add them by following these instructions: adding an “unsubscribe” link, adding an “update email address” link

Conclusion

The new GDPR law is set to take effect soon, and it’s important to be aware of its requirements. Our guide to the GDPR is a great place to start to familiarize yourself with the new rules. Luckily, Direct Mail is fully compatible with the GDPR for users inside the EU and out, and includes tools you can use to bring your own business into compliance. Our support team stands ready to answer any questions you might have, and, as always, welcomes your feedback.

We released Direct Mail version 5.2 today, and we’re excited to share with you some of the improvements that can be found in this new update. As always, this update is free for all users, and can be obtained via a simple software update.

Two-Way Contact Syncing via PieSync

Direct Mail already integrates with over 700 popular apps and websites, allowing you to automate away the work of keeping your mailing lists up to date. In this latest update, we are introducing support for two-way contacting syncing via PieSync. PieSync allows you to keep your Direct Mail mailing lists in sync with any one of a number of supported apps and services (like Act!, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Quickbooks, Salesforce, and more). Direct Mail stays up-to-date in the background without you having to touch a thing, and special care is taken to handle unsubscribes, too.

You’ll find this new feature in Direct Mail’s integrations directory. Just choose Window > Integrations from the menu bar at the top of your screen and search for the app you’d like to connect to Direct Mail.

Design Tests Available for iPhone X, iPhone SE, Libero, and Orange.fr

 

You can now see pixel-perfect screenshots of what your email will look like on an iPhone X and iPhone SE, as well as how it will appear in webmail clients from Libero and Orange.fr. The addition of these email clients brings the total number of design test email clients to 70 (everything from Outlook to Android, Gmail, Yahoo, and more).

If you’re not familiar with our Design Test feature, it’s a great way to see, ahead of time, exactly what your subscribers will see when they open your email on their own devices or browsers. We’ve also recently revamped the pricing. Unlimited Plan customers now can run a number of design tests for free each month, and Pay Per Email Plan customers can run tests using their existing email credit balance.

To check it out, choose Message > New Design Test from the menu bar at the top of your screen, or click the Design Test button in the toolbar.

Updated Fonts

The custom fonts included with Direct Mail have been updated for improved legibility and compatibility. Of particular note is the Montserrat font, which now renders using a slightly heavier weight for easier reading (especially on mobile devices). If you haven’t already, we suggest taking a look at the new templates that shipped in version 5 to get an idea of how nice the new typography and layouts can be. Just click the “Choose Template” button in Direct Mail.

That’s Not All, Folks

Some additional improvements in this release include: more reliable uploading over spotty or slow network connections, improved keyboard navigation in the message editor, and several bug fixes. You can see a full list of everything that has changed in version 5.2 by choosing Help > What’s New in Direct Mail from the menu bar, or by clicking here.

Thank You!

As always, thank you for your continued support, emails, feature requests, reviews, and all manner of feedback! We love to hear from our customers (and potential customers) about how Direct Mail is working for you, and how it could be even better. We hope you enjoy the improvements in Direct Mail 5.2 and we look forward to sharing more with you in the coming weeks.

The new Direct Mail 5.1 update brings helpful new features plus great compatibility and performance improvements, especially for users on macOS 10.13. It is available now, for free, to all users via a software update.

What’s New

Here’s a quick summary of some of the improvements in this new version. Full details are available in the release notes.

New Group from Selection

You can now create a new address group and populate it with the currently selected addresses using one command. This can be handy if you have a list of addresses from a campaign report that you’d like to move into a group. Just select the addresses (in the Addresses tab), and choose Addresses > New Group from Selection from the menu bar or toolbar (or contextual menu).

Improved VoiceOver Support

Direct Mail 5.1 provides full support not only for navigating the user interface via Apple’s VoiceOver technology, but also for composing and creating email content, as well. Vision-impaired users now have access to all of Direct Mail’s great tools for authoring emails, managing mailing lists, analyzing reports, and more. We are very excited to be able to bring the power of Direct Mail to even more Mac users.

…and More!

That’s not all, folks. This update addresses several user interface glitches that were present in macOS 10.13, and brings a speed boost to projects containing many campaign reports. You’ll also find improved email client compatibility, updated third-party integrations, and message editor improvements.

How to Update

Updating to Direct Mail 5.1 is free and easy. Just open Direct Mail and choose Direct Mail > Check for Software Update from the menu bar at the top of your screen. If you got Direct Mail from the Mac App Store, the app will update automatically once it has been approved by Apple.