Newsletter Management Overview

The newsletter module lets you reach your confirmed subscriber list from Serene Studio. This article covers the full workflow: understanding your subscriber list, writing a draft, sending or scheduling it, and what happens after delivery.

Before you begin

• The newsletter subscribe form on your public site is set up. See Website Integration.
• Your workspace has a verified sending domain. Without one, the send page shows “Sending domain not configured” and offers Go to domain settings.

Where to find newsletters

Newsletters live under Marketing in the sidebar (this appears when newsletters are turned on for your workspace). Open the Newsletters tab to see your drafts. The list shows each newsletter’s Title, Status (Draft, Scheduled, or Published), and when it was Updated. Select a row to open it.

From the Newsletters tab you can also open:

• New draft — start a new newsletter
• Audience — your subscriber list
• Taxonomy — themes and eyebrows (the small label above a headline)
• Calendar — content ideas and scheduled sends on one calendar
• Newsletter settings — settings that apply to your newsletters

The panel on the left of these pages also links to Subscribers, Segments, Suppressions, and Email templates.

How subscribers are managed

Subscribers arrive through the opt-in form on your public site. The process:

1. A visitor enters their email and submits the form.
2. They are added to your list as Pending, and a confirmation email with a unique link is sent.
3. The visitor selects the link, and their status changes to Confirmed.
4. Only Confirmed subscribers receive newsletters.

To view your subscriber list:

Go to Marketing, then Newsletters, then Audience. At the top you see counts for Total subscribers, Confirmed, Pending, and Unsubscribed. The table below shows:

Select a subscriber to view them, add or remove tags (Add tag), or Remove subscriber from the audience. To add someone yourself, select + Add subscriber, enter the email address, and select Add.

Segments let you send to part of your list. A segment has a name, an optional description, a status filter (All non-unsubscribed, Confirmed only, or Pending only), and optional tag filters. A subscriber must have all the listed tags to be included. Create one from Segments in the left panel.

Writing a newsletter

1. Go to Marketing, then Newsletters, and select New draft.
2. Enter a Title. The title is also the subject line subscribers see in their inbox, so keep it concise and descriptive (up to 200 characters).
3. If you have set up eyebrows under Taxonomy, you can choose an Eyebrow, the label printed above the headline.
4. Write the body in the Markdown box. The Preview beside it updates as you type. Use Insert image to add an image from Files.
5. Select Create draft. You can keep editing the draft afterward.

See Composing and scheduling newsletters for formatting, preview, and scheduling details.

Sending and scheduling

On the send page for a draft you choose:

• Audience segment — leave it on All confirmed subscribers, or pick a segment. The recipient count updates when you change it.
• When to send — Send now dispatches immediately. Schedule for later lets you pick a Date and Time in your browser’s time zone.

Select Send to (with the subscriber count) to send, or Schedule for to schedule. Scheduled sends are listed under Pending scheduled sends on the same page, each with a Cancel button.

The draft page shows a progress line (Draft, Scheduled, Sent, Published) and a Send history list. Select a send to open its report. A send report shows:

• Recipients enrolled, Accepted by Resend, and Failed counts
• Delivered, Bounced, Complaints, and Unsubscribed counts, reported after delivery
• A delivery rate, once delivery data arrives

Open and click data is not collected.

Unsubscribes

Every newsletter includes two ways to unsubscribe:

Link in the email — An Unsubscribe from this list. link at the bottom of every email. The subscriber confirms on the page that opens, and their status changes to Unsubscribed. They are left out of all future sends.

One-click unsubscribe — Every email also carries a standard one-click unsubscribe header (RFC 8058). Mail apps that support it, such as Gmail and Apple Mail, show an Unsubscribe button in their own interface.

Unsubscribed people stay on your list with the status Unsubscribed.

Bounces

When an email to an address bounces, the address is marked as bounced and added to your suppression list (Suppressions in the left panel). It is left out of future sends automatically. Bounce counts appear in each send report. Addresses that report a spam complaint are also left out of future sends.

Next steps

• Composing and scheduling newsletters — subject-line tips, formatting, and scheduling details.
• Account security — secure the account that controls your subscriber list.