Tag: lead view

Sending emails via aNinja

Sending emails via aNinja to your leads when having all relevant information at your fingertips is what you really need to handle all your communications directly through aNinja.

You can take advantage of aNinja’s features to make your interactions with the leads more efficient.

Moreover, aNinja auto-saves your work every few seconds so you don’t lose it.

Sending emails via aNinja

Users with Admin role can send emails from any email account associated with aNinja. When composing an email, an admin will have all the email accounts listed in the “From” dropdown.

  • When on the lead view, click on email from the toolbar
  • Type the email or select an available template
  • Click Send
  • If you choose to “reply”, “reply all” or “forward”, this brings you the old communicated messages in the body of the email.
    • However, if you select a template in the reply/reply all/forward, the template overwrites the old messages with the pre-defined text saved in the template.

Sending an attachment by email

To attach a file to your email, click on the attachment icon.

Note! We presently don’t allow attachments in Email Templates.

You might want to take security measures to avoid your email being marked as SPAM.

Stopping an email or text sequence

Stopping an email or text sequence can only be done if the sequence delay setup is of 1 or more days.

How to stop a lead / email / text sequence

Two ways to stop an email or text sequence

1. Stopping the sequence from the lead view
  • Go to the lead view
  • Refresh the page.
  • Click on X in “Active Email (or Text) Sequence”
  • Click on OK to confirm.
  • “Success!” message will pop up once done.
2. Stopping the sequence from the widget “Bulk Sequences” in the Dashboard

Deleting Leads

Deleting leads removes all associated interactions and activities.

Moreover, when you delete a lead, you can no longer retrieve the deleted lead and the contacts, interactions, and activities associated with them.

Deleting a lead in aNinja

In aNinja, you can delete a lead and remove all associated interactions and activities.

  • Go to lead view
  • Scroll all the way down. In the bottom left, click delete.Deleting Leads
  • And confirm by clicking on Yes, delete it.Deleting Leads

Deleting previous bulk imports files

You might want to delete a bulk import that you’ve previously imported to your aNinja account.

Just remember that this removes all associated interactions and activities.

  • On the left sidebar, click on Settings > Bulk import
  • Locate the file you want to delete.
  • On the right side of the page, next to the file you want to delete, click on the delete imported leads link.

Deleting leads in Bulk

If you want to delete leads in bulk, send your request to support@aninja.com and let us know the context. We can bulk delete on our side if there’s a range.

Using Tasks

You can keep track of your to-do list items using the Tasks in aNinja.

 

Accessing the Lead tasks

You can view the tasks in the “Inbox” and in “My Tasks” dashboard widget:

  • On the left sidebar, click on the Inbox
  • And, My Tasks Widget in the dashboard.
    • If you can’t see the widget on the dashboard, just enable it from the little gear on the top right of the page.

Creating a Task

  • When on the Lead View, hit the “Add Task” button.
  • Pick the calendar date to receive a reminder by email on the due date.

using tasks

Assigning a Task to a user in your Team

  • When on the Lead View, in the Tasks on the left side, choose the user you want to assign the task.

Deleting a Task

  • When on the Lead view, choose the task you want to delete, and hit the edit pen to open it.edit task
  • Hit the recycle bin buttondelete a task
  • Click Yes to confirm

Marking a lead as “Do Not Contact”

When you don’t intend to message a certain lead, you can mark them as “Do Not Contact”.

Moreover, through triggers, you can stop emails or texts sequences for this lead separately.

Marking a lead’s contact as “do not contact”

To mark a lead as “do not contact”,

  • Go to the lead View, on the left side, click on the plus sign (+) next to Contacts.

  • Push the Stop next to a contact item to activate the “do not contact”.
    • e.g. If you want to stop sending texts to a certain lead, just click on the stop button next to the phone number(s).
    • If you want to stop sending emails and texts to a certain lead, click on the stop button next to all contact items (emails and phone numbers).

mark lead as "do not contact"

  • Once the “do not contact” button turns red, all automatic messages (emails or texts based on your selection) will be automatically blocked for this lead.
  • You can still however manually contact the lead through email from the lead view.
  • If you’re replying to a lead’s text after being marked as do not contact, it will show you “no contact” in the phone number section.
  • Regarding the leads that were added to the “do not contact” list; they do get included in the bulk sequences but their texts get blocked by aNinja so it doesn’t get actually sent.
    You can check them by clicking on the blocked leads count in ‘Bulk Sequences’ widget.
  • “Adding a lead’s contact to the “do not contact” list”, can be automatically executed through Triggers, based on an event that verifies the trigger’s condition.
  • You can manage the contacts saved in the “Do Not Contact List” in Settings > Do Not Contact Lists (view, remove from the do not contact list, and export as CSV).

IMAP vs POP3

IMAP vs POP3: These are 2 different methods to access mail from a third-party email client or software.

When setting up a mail client such as Microsoft Outlook, Mac Mail, iPhone, or Android, you will need either enter POP or IMAP server settings.

POP3 (Post Office Protocol)

POP (Post Office Protocol) stores the emails on a single device and not on the server. POP doesn’t support public folder access. The folders are only accessed from the client’s device. This does not enforce aNinja’s vision for mobile data access.

If you want to keep messages on the server, make sure to enable the setting “Keep email on server”. Or all messages are deleted from the server once downloaded to the app or software.

IMAP (Internet Messaging Access Protocol)

IMAP is an internet protocol that lets you sync your email inbox across multiple devices. It also allows a two-way synchronization between the email clients and aNinja. So that if you communicate by email with your lead/customer (whether from aNinja, your email client, or anywhere), you will have all the relevant emails for that lead centralized in the aNinja lead view, as well as available in your email clients.

Why does aNinja only support IMAP

  • We only support IMAP because the main difference is that IMAP allows us to read the messages on the server and keep them there.
  • POP (an older protocol, that gets the messages off the server)
  • aNinja synchronizes the email messages view. So if you communicate by email with your lead/customer (whether from aNinja, your email client, or anywhere) you will have all the relevant emails for that lead centralized in the aNinja lead view (as well as available in your email clients).

Need help understanding the difference between IMAP vs POP3? Leave us a message at support@aninja.com. We will happily assist you!

Launch a bulk email or text sequence for a specific group of leads

Create a custom field that specifies a group of leads – create a Smartlist using this custom field – and Launch a bulk email or text sequence for this group of leads.

Using the custom fields feature, you can pick the right leads delegated for a special campaign. The custom field could be a location, creation time, source, or any identification you want to add to a lead.

Whether you choose to reach out to your leads by email or by text, you can send them in Sequence.

You can also launch an email or text sequence on a specific event using aNinja triggers feature.

Launching a bulk email or text sequence for a specific group of leads

1- Create a new custom field
2- Segment your leads

Group or segment your leads based on their specific characteristics by assigning them a custom field, to personalize the messages and make them relevant to each specific segment/group.

3- Create a Smartlist using Custom fields

Add the Custom field to the Smartlist search query which dedicated to retrieve leads based on their characteristics. e.g. Custom.Group=”email1″. This brings all the leads having this custom field to the leads view.

4- Launch the sequence
  • Select the Buk Email Sequence or Bulk Text Sequence from the top right of the page, and hit Launch Bulk Sequence to Launch a bulk email or text sequence for this specific group of leads.Launch a bulk email or text sequence for a specific group of leads
  • An alert pops up to show the number of leads included in this sequence and that have no phone numbers or no email addresses. Click on the number in the alert to see those leads.

Sending a text (SMS) via aNinja

Sending a text (SMS) via aNinja is a way to communicate with your leads and nurture them with your campaigns.

What’s an SMS

SMS (Short Message Service) is a text message that can contain up to 160 alphanumeric characters for every segment.

From a business’s perspective, there are hundreds of potential use cases for text message marketing including sales reminders, discounts and special offers, emergency alerts, and more.

The most effective business text messages are timely, informative, compelling, and easy to understand.

While SMS was built to send short messages, MMS focuses on sending multimedia messages.

Sending a text (SMS) via aNinja

  • When on the lead view, click on Text from the toolbar
  • Your phone number is automatically injected next to “From”.
    • If you’re an Admin user, from the dropdown, you can choose the phone number you want to send the text through.
  • The primary phone number is also automatically injected next to “To”.
  • You can either select an available template
    • The content of the template will be injected into the body section.
  • Or you can manually type the message in the body section.
  • Before you send your text, you want to make sure that it does not exceeds 160 characters, to avoid being billed for more messages.
  • Check the counters under the SMS body. When you go over 160 characters, the characters counter turns red, and the segment counter increases by 1.
  • Click Send to send your text immediately,
  • Or click on the arrow next to send to schedule your text to send at a later date and time.

Text Segmentation / Message Length

  • Maximum Message Length with aNinja Messaging
    The aNinja Programmable Messaging platform has a limit of 160 characters in a single incoming or outgoing message request.
  • Additional Considerations for Long SMS Messages
    Although aNinja supports large message payloads for all Messaging channels including SMS; it is important to understand that some wireless carriers and devices may behave differently than others when receiving long SMS messages. In addition, the length of an SMS, and which characters are present will affect its price, because of a concept called segmentation.

    • What’s a text segment or Segmentation? SMS industries count messages before sending them through your carrier. They count the number of characters that a text contains. Each segment is of 160 characters. If your text contains more characters, you’d end up with two messages on your bill.
  • Message encoding
    Carriers encode SMS in different formats to represent the characters and special characters used in the message.The default encoding used in SMS is GSM-7, which consumes fewer segments, making it more cost-effective.However, if the text content includes special characters like emojis or backticks, a different encoding called UCS-2 is used; which consumes more segments, approximately double the amount of GSM-7.

    When it comes to MMS, the encoding used can vary depending on the content of the text. It can be either GSM-7 or UCS-2, depending on whether special characters are included in the message or not.

  • In conclusion, there are multiple things you can consider before sending text messages to ensure effective deliverability with the right cost.

Need help in sending a text (SMS) via aNinja? Leave us an email at support@aninja.com. And, we will happily assist you!

MMS messages

MMS stands for ‘multimedia messaging service’. It was built using the same technology as SMS (short message service) text messages.

While SMS was built to send short messages, MMS focuses on sending multimedia messages.

Some of the rich content types which can be sent include phone contacts, audio and video files, and images.

Types of MMS messages

  • Audio files
  • Video files
  • Images

Sending MMS through aNinja

  • Search for your lead
  • When on a lead View, click on Text in the toolbar
  • Your phone number is automatically injected next to “From”.
    • If you’re an Admin user, from the dropdown, you can choose the phone number you want to send the text through.

  • The primary phone number is also automatically injected next to “To”.
  • You can either select an available template
    • Then, the content of the template is injected into the body section. And the media file saved in the template is attached to it.
  • Or, you can manually type the message in the body section.
  • Click on the attachment icon and select a file
    • Supported file formats (jpeg, png, and gif)
    • Check the “Supported media types” below.
  • Before you send your text, you want to make sure that the total message size is under the maximum size limit for the channel.
    • Check the “Attachment Limits” section below.
  • Click Send to send your text immediately,
  • Or, click on the arrow next to send to schedule to a later date and time.
  • An MMS can also be sent in bulk text sequences. Attach the media file to the template and use it in the sequences.

Note!

Make sure to include content in your template before saving it, not only attachment(s). Otherwise, when attaching it to a text sequence, it will not be launched.

Supported Media Types

Different carriers support different types of media, regardless of the media types allowed in aNinja.

When you send an MMS, the telephone carrier checks the content-type header at the provided MediaURL to validate the content type of the media file. If the content type header does not match that of the media file, the request will be rejected.

You can check the status of the MMS in the lead view, on the bottom right of the message. Hover your mouse over the error to see the message provided by the carrier. Some carriers don’t provide error messages.

The following types of content are fully supported. This content will be formatted for delivery on destination devices.

  • image/jpeg
  • image/jpg
  • image/gif
  • image/png

 

The following types of content are accepted. Requests will not be rejected, but the content will not be modified for device compatibility.

Audio
  • audio/basic
  • audio/L24
  • audio/mp4
  • audio/mpeg
  • audio/ogg
  • audio/vnd.rn-realaudio
  • audio/vnd.wave
  • audio/3gpp
  • audio/3gpp2
  • audio/ac3
  • audio/webm
  • audio/amr-nb
  • audio/amr
Video
  • video/mpeg
  • video/mp4
  • video/quicktime
  • video/webm
  • video/3gpp
  • video/3gpp2
  • video/3gpp-tt
  • video/H261
  • video/H263
  • video/H263-1998
  • video/H263-2000
  • video/H264
Image
  • image/bmp
  • image/tiff
Text
  • text/vcard
  • text/x-vcard
  • text/csv
  • text/rtf
  • text/richtext
  • text/calendar
  • text/directory
Application
  • application/pdf
  • application/vcard
  • application/vnd.apple.pkpass

Most of the phone carriers support image file attachments in one of the supported file formats (jpeg, png, and gif) and they might not support these types (PDF, BMP, MPEG, MP4, Quicktime, and 3GPP).

Message encoding

Text messages, also known as SMS, are encoded by the carriers in different formats to represent the characters and special characters used in the message.

The default encoding used in SMS is GSM-7, which consumes fewer segments, making it more cost-effective.

However, if the text content includes special characters like emojis or backticks, a different encoding called UCS-2 is used; which consumes more segments, approximately double the amount of GSM-7.

When it comes to MMS, the encoding used can vary depending on the content of the text. It can be either GSM-7 or UCS-2, depending on whether special characters are included in the message or not.

Attachment Limits

When sending text and pictures in the same message (MMS messaging), a message can contain up to 10 images and 1600 characters.

Through aNinja, you can send an MMS of 600KB. If your message (including body text and media) is larger than 600KB, your message request will fail to send.

In aNinja, we have reduced the size of the MMS to 600KB to increase the chances of deliverability. As the top US carriers have recently reduced their allows MMS sizes as follows:

Carrier Short code MMS attachment size
AT&T 600 KB <—- ideal size
Sprint 1400 KB
T-mobile 1000 KB
Verizon 1200 KB

So you want to provide a shorter video that is ideally < 600KB if you want to reach all the targeted audience.

Our carrier automatically compresses JPEG, PNG, or GIF files to reduce their size if they exceed certain thresholds, to help you fit more images on your message when needed.

Hence, there will not be any additional charges applied for the message body. It will be included in the MMS cost.

If your media is not an image file and is larger than the limit allowed by the destination carrier, your MMS message will fail.

You can always compress the size of your media file using tools online.

Lastly, we recommend hosting your media file on your website or a file hosting service and adding the link to download it in your template or text call to action.