With Campaign Enterprise software, the bounce handling, unsubscribe handling and click-thru tracking is fully automated. You not only maintain control over deciding how to handle these items (for example, you can set the threshold of how many bounces indicates you should stop emailing that address), but you save a tremendous amount of time and effort in not having to deal with these manually.

Here's how Campaign Enterprise handles each of these three items (and how it benefits you):

Automated Bounce Handling
When emails bounce back to you, they land in a receiving email box that Campaign Enterprise checks every minute (or any interval you choose) for returned emails. It then reads through those emails and examines their headers to determine where each bounced message came from. Based on settings you define, Campaign Enterprise updates your source database in real time with the bounce information.

For example, if you have a field in your database called "bounces," you could tell Campaign Enterprise to simply increment that field each time a bounce is received for that email address. You can then tell Campaign Enterprise to skip email addresses that have more than five bounces, for example.

The important part is that your database is updated in real time with the bounce counts. There's no importing or exporting required. Because you're running the Campaign Enterprise software at your own company, it maintains a direct, live link to your database (that's one of the many advantages of this software over an outsourced email delivery service).

Automated Unsubscribe Handling
Campaign Enterprise automates the unsubscribe handling in two powerful ways: it can process unsubscribe requests via email and via web-based clicks. email-based unsubscribes are processed by Campaign Enterprise monitoring an email account you designate (which would usually be called something like unsubscribe@yourdomain.com). emails sent to that account are scanned for their originating email address, then unsubscribed by updating a field in your source database.

Web-based unsubscribe clicks, which are far more popular these days, are handled by Campaign Enterprise's built-in web server. Simply insert a special unsubscribe tag in the outbound message. The tag looks like this: {unsubscribelink}. As the emails are sent out, Campaign Enterprise replaces the unsubscribe tag with a special hyperlink that's unique to each email recipient. When recipients click the hyperlink, they are marked as being unsubscribed, then instantly forwarded to any web page of your choice (where you would usually have a page saying something like, "We're sorry you decided to unsubscribe..."). Naturally, part of this process also involves Campaign Enterprise updating your source database to note the unsubscribe status of that email recipient.

Automated Click-Thru Handling
Click-thru handling operates similarly to the unsubscribe handling: as recipients click links contained in your email message, those clicks are recorded, the source database records are updated with the event, and the recipient is instantly forwarded to another web page of your choice.

This click-thru tracking is one of your primary tools for learning about your email recipients. You can present them with a short list of options and ask them to click on their best choice. For example, if you were running a game software company, your email might say:

Dear Dana Jones,

Thank you for subscribing to the GameSoft e-newsletter. To better serve you, we'd like to bring you important news and game release announcements for the type of games that interest you most. Would you take a moment to indicate your gaming preference by clicking one of the links below?

Click on one:

I like strategy games
I like simulation games
I like adventure games
I like action games
I like sports games
I like puzzle games

Thank you for your interest in GameSoft!

No Web Site Changes Needed On Your Part
It's important to note that you don't have to set up a web server to accomplish all this. You don't need to modify your existing web site in any way, and if you have a web development team, you don't need to ask them for any favors. Campaign Enterprise handles all these elements on its own, with no programming whatsoever.

Of course, it does help to have a good working knowledge of the structure of your source database. You'll need to know the connection name, table name, and the field names of your database. But that's common knowledge for any kind of marketing.