Quick start guide

(Extra) secure login 

Make sure to securely safeguard your account so that all data and campaigns you place in it are optimally protected. You can activate two-step verification directly on your own. This adds an extra step to your login procedure, making it much harder for a malicious person to access your account. It is also possible that this so-called two-factor authentication (2FA) is already mandatory for your account. In that case, just follow the steps you see in your login process. If you log in using Single Sign-On (SSO), you don’t need to activate two-step verification. 

See also: how to easily activate your two-step verification (2FA)

Check if you need to authenticate your domain

Authentication provides the receiving party with extra assurance about the sender and the content of an email, giving them more reason to trust your mail. This is good for the deliverability of your newsletters.

1. Does your domain use DMARC?
   Then authentication is necessary, otherwise many of your newsletters will be rejected. You will receive a notification about this within our program (in Step 1, 5, and 6 when creating a campaign).
   Note: first check if you receive this notification and set it up as soon as possible so you can test and send your first newsletter.

2. What do you need to set up?
   Under Settings → Authentication, you will find your domain(s) and two records per domain that need to be added to the DNS. You can do this yourself if you have access to the domain settings. Otherwise, you can send the records to your web developer or IT department.

3. Don't forget to activate
   If the DNS records have been added, you still need to indicate this within Laposta. You do this by clicking the ‘Activate’ button (under Settings → Authentication).

4. Need help?
   Check our documentation for step-by-step instructions on how to authenticate your domain. 
   Still having no success? Email helpdesk@laposta.nl, and we'll help you further.

Happy with your hostname?

A hostname is automatically generated for each account, which has the name of the account. You can see this hostname on the Settings → Hostname page. If this hostname is not exactly to your liking, or if you will later be sending newsletters for different (subsidiary) companies from your account, you can adjust the hostname on the aforementioned page.

See also: How do I change my hostname?

Add sender addresses?

You can select a sender address per campaign. For this, you can add an unlimited number of sender addresses (if you have a paid account). If you want to test this in your first campaign, first add a new sender address on the Settings → Sender Addresses page. Confirm this address via the confirmation email you receive at this new sender address.

See also: How do I add a new sender address?

Enter contacts (lists)

There is already 1 mailing list ready for you in your account, with the email address linked to your account. Use this list primarily for testing! If you are not going to use the API to automatically place your contacts in Laposta, add a (test) Excel file to see what data you would like to use in your newsletter. You can create additional fields in your list and import a file. You can also start working with sign-up forms, which you can place on your website and/or refer to from your other communication channels.
Tip: use your own email address as a test address right away.

See also: How do I import a large contact file and How do I create a test address?

Send your first newsletter in six steps

Time to get started with your first campaign!
On the Campaigns → Overview page, start a newsletter campaign by clicking the ‘New campaign’ button. Then, go through the Six Steps to create your first campaign. If you need a little extra help with this, you can use our documentation: Creating a newsletter in Six Steps

View results

Immediately after sending your campaign, you will get insights into the results on the Results → Campaigns page and the main ratios will be displayed in a row. If you click on ‘Overview (live)’, you will see even more results: the view and click rates, the links that have been clicked (both visually and numerically), and more information about unsubscribes and feedback. Click different links after sending your test campaign to see how your results change. 
Tip: you can also export all results to Excel by clicking ‘Export to Excel’ under the graphs.

See also: How do I read the results of sent campaigns?

Have a lot of fun with your first campaign in Laposta!