Newsletter from your own site

Keep your own sign-up box. Your server adds each email to a newsletter launch, and YouGrow confirms it, welcomes them and sends the weekly newsletter.

About 20 minutes · Admins, plus your developer · Once per newsletter

Who gets which emails

So a newsletter list is a launch. People your app sends through the API never get the newsletter.

Make the newsletter launch

1. Open Launches and press New launch.
2. Type a Launch name, such as "Acme newsletter". The confirmation email names it.
3. Tick Require email verification (double opt-in), so anyone who finds the launch's hosted page confirms too.
4. Press Create launch.
5. On its Settings tab, set Spots skipped per referral to 0 and tick Hide signup counts on the page. Press Save changes.

Set up the newsletter journey

1. Open the launch's Emails tab. Next to Welcome & nurture, press Set it up.
2. Write a short welcome to the newsletter on the Content tab, and add it as an Email on the Canvas tab.
3. On the Exit step, tick Then add them to the weekly newsletter.
4. Press Save draft, then Publish.

People who confirm before you publish join the journey when you first publish it.

Create the site key

1. On the launch's Page & widget tab, choose Your own form.
2. Press Create site key.
3. Copy the key id and the secret into your server's secret manager. The secret is shown only once.
4. Tick I've stored the secret somewhere safe and press Done.
5. Under After someone confirms, type your thank-you page's address in Send them to and press Save. Leave it blank to show a "You're subscribed" page.

The key can only add sign-ups to this launch, and it can't read anyone. Lost the secret? Press Rotate secret: you get a new one, and the old one keeps working for 24 hours. Revoke key stops the key within a minute.

Send each sign-up from your server

When someone submits your box, your server makes one call with the key. Never make it from the page itself: the secret must stay on your server.

curl https://YOUR-YOUGROW/api/v2/signups \
  -u "$YOUGROW_KEY_ID:$YOUGROW_SECRET" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email":"sam@example.com","locale":"en-GB","source":"blog/first-post"}'

Show your visitor the same "Check your inbox to confirm" message whatever the reply, so your box never shows who is subscribed. Keep a honeypot field or a captcha on your box too: YouGrow limits each key to 60 calls a minute and one confirmation per address a day, but bots still fill in forms. Every field and error is in Sign-ups from your site.

What your readers see

1. Your box tells them to check their inbox.
2. An email from your address asks them to confirm.
3. The link opens a page with a Confirm subscription button. Opening the link does nothing on its own, so email scanners that open links can't confirm for them.
4. They land on your thank-you page, and the newsletter journey's welcome email follows.

Someone who unsubscribed before gets the confirmation too. The page tells them that confirming turns all your emails back on for them, because an unsubscribe covers your whole brand.

Send the weekly newsletter

Write a Newsletter hub, then on your programme's Overview press Send this week's newsletter. It offers the launch with a site key first. The steps are in Write and schedule.

Unsubscribes

Every email has an unsubscribe link, and YouGrow handles it: that person gets none of your emails after that. YouGrow doesn't tell your server, so don't keep a second mailing list of these people.

Check it worked

• Send the call with your own email. It answers 202.
• The confirmation email arrives, and Confirm subscription takes you to your thank-you page.
• The welcome email arrives.
• On Page & widget, Your own form shows when the key was last used and one sign-up from your site this week.

If you see this

Next: Programmes and knowledge