Setting up Newsletter

Get the latest plug-in

If you've already installed the Threadloom plug-in, upgrade to the latest version from the Threadloom Portal. If you haven't installed the Threadloom plug-in:

1. Create a free account at https://www.threadloom.com/signup.
2. Register your forum and select Newsletter when choosing your products
3. Download and install the plug-in. See installation instructions here.

Indexing typically runs at about 250-500K posts per hour. You'll receive an email notification once indexing is complete, at which point you can configure your Newsletter settings.

Note: You don't need to use Threadloom Search in order to use Threadloom Newsletter.

Configure your Newsletter settings

Once Threadloom is done building your index, you can configure your Newsletter settings by logging into your Threadloom Portal.

Sender info

Set the name and email address recipients should see in their email client.  Also select whether you want email sent from Threadloom's domain, or your own.

1. Send from Threadloom's domain.
   This is the easiest option.  It requires no additional setup; you just need to specify a sender name. Any user who replies to this address will get an auto-reply message directing them to your forum.
   
   
2. Send from an address at your domain.
   This option requires some DNS setup to allow Threadloom to send on behalf of your email address. Recipients will get your newsletter from a familiar address and you'll be able to receive replies directly.

If you choose Option 2, you will need to add the CNAME records in Mail delivery section of the Portal to your DNS zone records.

Important notes

• If you are using Cloudflare to manage your DNS records, please disable Cloudflare caching for these CNAMEs.
• If you have HSTS enabled for your main site, please make sure "include subdomains" is turned off, and that HSTS is not enabled for these 5 CNAMEs.
• If you are sending from an email address other than your forum domain.tld, drop us a line.

More info on how to add CNAMEs

• GoDaddy (you can use a TTL value of 3600 seconds)
• Google Domains
• Namecheap
• Note: If you use 1&1 to manage your DNS records, we need to generate an alternate, old-school version because they don't support underscores.

Appearance

1. Upload a JPG image file for your Newsletter banner image.  We only support JPG files for support across browsers and email clients.  Recommended size is 1200 x 200 pixels.
2. Input hex or RGB color values to style your Newsletter.
3. See what your Newsletter will look like in the web preview.

Admins & curators

Enter email addresses for users who should be able to administer your Newsletter edition, and users who should be able to curate content for each issue. For more info on Admin and Curator privileges, view this article.

Admins and curators will receive email notifications from Threadloom to manage each issue.  See below for more information on curation.

Recipients

Choose which forum user groups should receive your newsletter. You can also exclude specific user groups or users.

Set active and inactive user group thresholds and choose which activity groups should receive your newsletter. 

Select which countries or regions to exclude.  Read this article for more information.

When you're done choosing your recipients, you'll see an estimate of your total number of recipients.

Content

Select which forum nodes you want Threadloom to source content from to create your newsletters. 

If you don't want posts from the same thread to appear in back-to-back issues, you can set how many weeks should pass before a previously published thread shows up again. By default, this is set to 0, which means that Threadloom won't exclude threads from past issues. (Regardless of what you set this to, Threadloom will not show the same post in more than 1 issue unless you manually insert it.)

Schedule

Your schedule determines when Threadloom generates candidate posts for your next newsletter issue, how long you have to score and review your newsletter, and when your newsletter will email your subscribers.

Using Newsletter

Before you send your first email, here is some information on how Newsletter works.

Newsletter schedule

Threadloom Newsletter runs on the following schedule:

1. Threadloom nominates threads and the scoring period opens.
2. Scoring period closes & review period opens.
3. Review period closes.
4. Newsletter sends.

You can customize your schedule in the Threadloom portal.  You can also modify the schedule for the current issue while you're scoring or reviewing your newsletter.

Curation

After Threadloom nominates threads for your next issue, you can either score and review the content before it's published or auto-publish (by skipping scoring).

Scoring

Scoring threads allows you to designate which threads will show up in your next issue.  It also helps Threadloom learn what content you like.

Admins and curators receive the following reminders for each issue:

• Curators:
  • Scoring is open (includes a link to the scoring portal, where curators can score content and edit the preview text, subject, and preheader text).
  • Scoring is about to close.
  • Scoring is closed.
• Admins
  • Newsletter preview and approval email.

The timing of these emails is based on the schedule you establish during setup.

During the scoring period you can also edit your subject line, intro and outro email text, and any of the top threads in your issue. (Note: We automatically add a personalized greeting at the top of each email, e.g. "Hi [%<forum>_user_name | there%]!".)

Final review

After scoring closes, you will receive an email with a preview of your issue.  Your schedule will determine how long you have to review your newsletter, edit your content, and/or cancel an issue, if necessary.

Auto-pilot

If you don't score any articles, emails will automatically go out with the top 10 articles after the review period ends.  The subject and preheader text are automatically generated from the top thread.  You also have the option to set a sticky subject, preheader text, and/or intro and outro paragraphs that persist across issues.

Start sending

Once you've finished setting up Newsletter, Threadloom will send your first issue according to the schedule you selected.  Please note that Threadloom warms up new editions to protect your domain and IP reputation.

Additional resources

Introduction to Newsletter