Hi John,
At Action Network we’re constantly brainstorming, building, and launching new features designed to take your email and organizing programs to the next level. As Product Director I want to make sure you are in the know about some of the coolest features we deploy each quarter so you can use them to mobilize your activists, build your list, and raise more money for the progressive movement.
You may already receive updates from me when we release new features (if you don’t get those, you can sign up for them here). This email is a little different — it’s about connecting you with our new features on a deeper level and digging into how these toolset improvements will make your program stronger. I’m also going to feature trainings and deep dive webinars that show you how to use these tools for the maximum effect.
Features in this update:
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Gamechanger: Anonymized Target Booster
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Organizing Power Up: New & Improved Action Builder Uploader
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Workflow Helper: SQL Queries in the User Interface
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Callback feature: Ladders Randomizer
Gamechanger: Reactivate your list with the Anonymized Target Booster
Sending mass emails to the ‘actives’ on your list — the folks who engaged with an email by opening, clicking, or taking action, or who subscribed to your list in the last 180 days, for example — is a best practice that I hope all of our partners adhere to (if you need a refresher, check out our Deliverability Guide). Sending to your active subscribers is a crucial pillar of maintaining good deliverability, but what do you do with the chunk of your list that falls outside of that actives query? You can bring them back on board with the help of the Anonymized Target Booster!
You can now use the Anonymized Target Booster to help re-engage activists who haven’t been active with your group recently by collaborating with the progressive movement, while lowering your deliverability risk. After your Action Network group joins the Anonymized Target Booster, you will be able to target activists subscribed to your email list who have opened or clicked emails sent by other groups who have also joined the Anonymized Target Booster, thus giving you access to more data about activists on your list so you can target them effectively. No personal information (such as email address) is shared, only anonymous email open and click data.
You can opt in on your group’s settings tab, or when targeting an email.
I recently hosted a deep dive training into this feature with Amy Chin-Lai, Solutions Engineer at Action Network, where we walked through use cases, how to opt in, and more. You can watch the recording of that training on Youtube here.
Watch the recording on Youtube.
Organizing Power Up: New & Improved Action Builder Uploader
Action Builder (actionbuilder.org) is a powerful organizing tool built hand-in-hand with organizers to give you the information you need to grow power and win real change. Action Builder has supported hundreds of organizers dedicated to bridging the gap between voting and organizing, transient events and enduring movements, and mobilizing people and nurturing leaders.
Read about how Minor League Baseball players won their union through an historic organizing campaign using Action Builder here.
To get your data into Action Builder so you can start organizing, we’ve built out an easier and more intuitive flow, and we’ve made improvements at all steps of the upload process. Suzi Grishpul, Product Manager for Action Builder, hosted a training on the new uploader, which you can watch on Youtube here.
Watch the recording on Youtube.
Ready to see Action Builder in action? Sign up for a live demo here. If you’re ready to get started, sign up here or email us at [email protected] to learn about discounted bulk packages.
Workflow Helper: Exposing SQL queries in the UI
The Action Network SQL Mirror is an add-on service that gives you access to advanced reporting. It’s a read-only copy of absolutely all the data we have in your group (or groups!) such as actions, activists, custom fields, tags, subscription status — everything!
The SQL mirror is useful for complex analysis, writing custom dashboards, data warehousing, moving data into other systems via SQL queries, or other database friendly tasks. You can read more about the mirror and how to access it here.
It can sometimes be hard to know where to start when writing a query. Imagine you have a recurring report set up targeting your actives universe and you want to set up a chart tracking this list over time. Instead of starting from scratch, from the targeting tab of your report manage page you can scroll down and copy and paste the sql statement. You’ll likely need to make some edits, but it gives you a great starting point!
Callback Feature: Ladders Randomizer
And last but not least, our call back feature is one you may have missed when it was first deployed — but it’s one of my favorites: the randomizer step in ladders! This step makes A/B testing via ladders super easy. In the example below I have a welcome series set up, so anyone who subscribes to my list enters the ladder, and then I split people into two groups using the randomizer step. Half of my subscribers will see welcome email A, and the other half will see welcome email B. I can then check on my stats in a few months and pick a winner!
Read more about Ladders on Action Network here.
On behalf of all of us at Action Network & Action Builder, I hope that these features help you supercharge your program! We’re always hosting trainings, deep dive webinars, and demos, which you can find on our events calendar here. Check out recordings of past trainings on our Youtube channels for Action Network and Action Builder.
Thanks for all of your work building progressive power!
Take care,
Mari Vangen-Strom
Product Director | The Action Network
PS — Since this is something new we’re trying, I want to hear from you if you found it helpful and/or what else would be good for us to include. Please reply to this email with any thoughts you might have about how we can make this even better next time!
