What is a contact?
Learn what a contact refers to in Retainful, how it is captured, and how it is managed in this guide.
What is a Contact in Retainful?
A 'Contact' in Retainful refers to the email address of a person. Retainful can capture the email address through a number of interactions - tracking of carts/orders, sign-up form submissions, referral campaigns, and so on.
You can also import a list of contacts using the import option. Simply put, one email address is equal to one contact.
How Contacts are Captured in Retainful?
Retainful captures the email address primarily in two different ways.
Via Sign-up Forms
Via Cart / Order tracking
Via Signup Forms
You can create a signup form and publish it at your storefront to let visitors subscribe to your newsletters/emails.
Example: Welcome popups, Exit intent popups, Add-to-cart popups.
These contacts are always attached to one or more Lists.
Retainful helps you track abandoned carts in real time and recover through a series of automated reminders. Retainful also allows you to send automated order follow-up emails, thank-you emails, win-back emails, and so on. So Retainful captures the email address at the checkout form.
There are two scenarios when capturing the email address at the checkout form:
a. If the person shops as a guest: As soon as a customer enters his email address at the checkout, it is captured by Retainful. No need for the customer to click the Place order button or any other button. No need to log in. Just entering the email address itself is sufficient. Retainful will capture the email in real time. As long as an email address is entered into the checkout field, it will be captured.
b. If the person shops as a logged-in customer: The email is captured as soon as a customer adds an item to the cart. But if the customer shops as a guest, abandons the cart, and leaves your store before reaching the checkout without providing any email address, it will be a guest cart (That is, a cart without an email address).
NOTE: The contacts captured through cart/order tracking are NOT automatically assigned to a list.
Where You Can Manage the Contacts in Retainful?
In Retainful, the ‘Contacts’ section of your dashboard is your central hub for managing your contacts.
The ‘Contacts’ page provides a comprehensive list of all your contacts. For each contact, you can view their email address, the date and time they were added, their subscription status, referral count, and referral code.
Here’s what you can do:
Filter Contacts: You can filter your contacts based on various criteria. This includes filtering by date range, subscription status, and referral status. These filters can help you quickly find and manage specific groups of contacts.
Manage Subscription Status: You can change the subscription status of the contacts. Example: Unsubscribe a contact from all your emails
Bulk Delete: This option allows you to delete multiple contacts at once. This is particularly useful when you need to clean up your contacts list or remove a group of contacts who no longer engage with your communications.
Export as CSV: This feature enables you to export your entire contacts list as a CSV file. You can use this file for backup purposes, for further analysis, etc.
Importing Contacts into Retainful
In addition to the above, Retainful also allows you to import contacts from your store or from a CSV file. This makes it easy to add new contacts to your list.
You can import contacts in two different ways
Importing from the store - This option helps you import customers from your store and their purchase history
Importing from a CSV File - This helps you import contacts via a CSV file
How to Manage the Consent Status of the Contacts
Consent refers to the subscription status of the contacts.
By default, the subscription status is managed at two different levels:
At the Global level
At the List level
At the Global / Account Level:
This is primarily used when sending automated emails through workflows or when you choose the “All Contacts” option when sending a campaign to all the contacts in your account. When you change the subscription status at your Retainful dashboard -> Contacts, it affects the status of all the emails.
For example, when you unsubscribe a contact or when a contact unsubscribes from an email sent as a part of the workflow, they will be unsubscribed globally and they will not receive any emails.
At the List Level
The subscription status for the contact is maintained at the LIST level as well. (in addition to the global status). For example, when a contact subscribes via the signup form, they get added to one or more lists. This allows a contact to unsubscribe or subscribe to selected Lists alone.
Example: A person may not want to receive your offers, but they may still want to receive your order follow-up emails.
NOTE: When contacts are added during the cart/order tracking, they are created without any LISTS assigned to them. That is, their consent status is maintained at the Global level. You can manage the consent setting for email captures during the cart /order tracking depending on your eCommerce platform.
How it works in WooCommerce
If you are using WooCommerce, please go to your WordPress dashboard -> Retainful -> Settings. There you will find the “Marketing consent” field. It offers two options and you can choose one that meets your requirements.
Implicit Consent
In WooCommerce, implicit consent is assumed when a customer makes a purchase or creates an account. Their contact details are automatically added to your Retainful contacts.
Explicit Consent
Explicit consent involves the customer actively agreeing to share their contact details. This could be through checking a box to subscribe to your newsletter or marketing communication during the checkout process.
NOTE: If your business resides in the EU or if you sell to European residents, set the Marketing Consent to “Explicit”.
Here is a detailed documentation on the GDPR guidelines: Click here
How it works in Shopify
In Shopify, the process is similar to WooCommerce. You can manage the consent settings under your Shopify settings.
Why Do I See a Difference in the Total Number of Contacts in Account & the Total Contacts in the List?
The total number of contacts in your account includes all individuals who have interacted with your store - via sign-up forms, captured at checkout during order tracking, or through a referral campaign.
The total contacts in the list only include those assigned to that specific list.
NOTE: If a contact is only unsubscribed at the List level, it will still be in your account total. Even if you delete the contact from a list, the contact still remains under your Contacts section. If you would like to permanently delete a contact, please head over to your Retainful dashboard -> Contacts section to delete the contacts.
How Do I Find Contacts That Are Not Part of Any List?
Here are the steps to find contacts that are not part of any list in Retainful:
Navigate to ‘List and Segments’: Start by going to the ‘List and Segments’ section in your Retainful dashboard.
Click on ‘Create New segment’.
Enter a name for your new segment.
Give ‘ Start from scratch’ in segment templates.
Click on ‘Add Condition Group’.
In the dropdown menu, select ‘List Properties’.
Choose the ‘Contacts Present’ option.
In the next dropdown, select ‘Not In’.
Type in the name of the list that you want to exclude.
Finally, choose the ‘Is Subscribed’ option.
Click ‘Save’ to view the list of contacts.
Now, the contacts that match the filter rules will be added to the segment. Also, the contacts who match the rules in the future will be added to the segment automatically. If a contact no longer matches the rules, the contact will be removed from the list automatically.
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