Subscription Reports
Lyris List Manager has the ability to send list administrators regular reports on how the subscriber base has changed. These reports include the following information: new subscribers
for that period (section for each of confirmed and unconfirmed), members that unsubscribed during that period and members that were put on hold during that period.
The period of the report is whatever you wish: a day, week, or month -- this is up to you. You may choose more than one report if you need to. This allows you to receive reports at any interval you
wish.
You also have the option of receiving short, normal or detailed reports. The short report does not list a day if there is no pertinent information for that day. The detailed report includes
members' email addresses.
For example, here is a sample "normal" report:
Grand total members by type for 'list2'
- Normal members: 3
- Unsubscribed members: 2
For dates from 1999.08.13 to 1999.08.19 members by type for 'list2'
- New normal members: 1
- New unsubscribed members: 1
------------------------------------------------
Members by type for list2 for dates from 1999.08.13 to 1999.08.19
---
1 members who subscribed:
1999.08.13
1999.08.14
1999.08.15
1999.08.16
1999.08.17
1999.08.18 * 1
1999.08.19
---
1 members who unsubscribed:
1999.08.13
1999.08.14
1999.08.15
1999.08.16
1999.08.17
1999.08.18
1999.08.19 * 1
Notice that there are several dates that do not have any data. When you opt for the "short" report, this section looks more like:
Grand total members by type for 'list2'
- Normal members: 3
- Unsubscribed members: 2
For dates from 1999.08.13 to 1999.08.19 members by type for 'list2'
- New normal members: 1
- New unsubscribed members: 1
------------------------------------------------
Members by type for list2 for dates from 1999.08.13 to 1999.08.19
---
1 members who subscribed:
1999.08.18: 1
---
1 members who unsubscribed:
1999.08.19: 1
When you opt for the "detail" report, the report has an additional section at the end of the general data section. This additional section includes the email addresses associated
with the data points present in the general data section. An example of the detail report:
Grand total members by type for 'list2'
- Normal members: 3
- Unsubscribed members: 2
For dates from 1999.08.13 to 1999.08.19 members by type for 'list2'
- New normal members: 1
- New unsubscribed members: 1
------------------------------------------------
Members by type for list2 for dates from 1999.08.13 to 1999.08.19
---
1 members who subscribed:
1999.08.13
1999.08.14
1999.08.15
1999.08.16
1999.08.17
1999.08.18 * 1
1999.08.19
Email address detail:
1999.08.18 1
vince@tile.net (Tile Vince)
---
1 members who unsubscribed:
1999.08.13
1999.08.14
1999.08.15
1999.08.16
1999.08.17
1999.08.18
1999.08.19 * 1
Email address detail:
1999.08.19 1
vince@redmood.com (Vince Redmood) [joined 1999.08.19, member for 0 days]
Subscription reports are an easy way to keep track not only of who has subscribed recently, but who has unsubscribed recently. These are very useful in maintaining external
databases or tracking the growth of your list.
Statistical Integrity of Subscription Reports
It is important to keep in mind that the integrity of the statistics reported by Lyris List Manager is highly dependent on two things: 1) your list settings, and 2) administrator activity.
The aggressiveness of your purge settings can have an impact on the data reported. Consider a weekly mailing list where members are put on hold after two bounces, and are never notified of their hold
status. Also consider a "Purge Held" setting of five days. You have configured the list to send you detailed weekly reports.
With this configuration in mind, it is conceivable that after a mailing, some percentage of members will be put on hold. Five days later, they will be purged. This all happens between the weekly
reports. In otherwords, many members have moved from normal status to held status, and have then been deleted. Thus, these purged members are not "new held" members nor are they "new unsubscribed"
members when the next report is run -- they have effectively disappeared. This will create an effect that the numbers from week to week "don't add up", which can be misleading.
This situation may be remedied by having less aggressive purge settings. Specifically, the purge held setting should be increased to something greater than the report frequency (for weekly reports
then, you would want to increase the "purge held" setting to something greater than seven days, thereby preventing members from being put on hold and subsequently deleted prior to the next report is
run.)
Another situation that leads to the numbers appearing to not add up is administrator activity. Specifically, if an administrator deletes members either using the web interface or via email commands,
those members have moved from normal status to a status that is not monitored by the reporting (deleted).
In both cases, the illusion is that "normal" members have disappeared. Please keep that in mind when you are analyzing your figures.
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