Growing Your Email List
You can only email customers who said yes to emails. That yes has to come from them, and Passtastic keeps the record. This guide shows the ways customers say yes, and what happens next. To send an email, click Write an email in Send message, and see Send Your Customers a Newsletter by Email.
Three ways customers say yes
1. The join form. When someone joins, the form shows an unticked box: "Send me news and offers from [your business] by email. You can unsubscribe at any time." It appears once they have typed their email. The card works whether they tick it or not. It only shows if your email sending is set up and your business address is saved.
2. The back of the card. Every card has a link, Get our news by email, on its back. It opens their page with their email filled in and a button, Yes, send me emails. This is the way to reach people who already have your card. Pushes can't carry links, so you can send a message like "Open your card and tap Get our news by email on the back".
3. The Customer Portal. In My details, a member sees a switch, Emails from [your business]. Switching it on is a yes. See Your Customer Portal.
You can also bring over a Mailchimp list. See Import Your Mailchimp List.
Customers confirm by email
For the join form and the back of the card, nothing is sent until the customer confirms. They get an email from your business with a button. They open it, press Yes, send me emails, and see "You're in". Until then they are not on your list. If the link is too old, the page says "This link has expired" and they can ask again.
On the Customer Portal, a member who signed in with their email code is added straight away. Anyone else sees "Check your inbox to confirm" and gets the same confirmation email. We send a customer at most one confirmation request every 30 days, and these emails don't use your monthly emails.
Why you can't add emails yourself
A customer list you already have does not count as a yes, and you can't tick a box to say "my customers agreed". The law in many countries, such as Germany and Poland, asks for a separate, clear yes to emails. So existing customers need to say yes themselves, using the ways above. The ordinary customer import doesn't sign anyone up for newsletters either. The one exception is a Mailchimp export, because Mailchimp already holds each contact's status.
Unsubscribing
Every email has an unsubscribe link, and mail apps like Gmail show their own Unsubscribe button. One click is enough. It covers all of your cards, not just one. After that, the person is never emailed again, and they show up under Unsubscribed in the results of that post.