How do I collect email addresses for Square Marketing using an online form on my Square Online websi

[nella]

Does anyone know how to collect email addresses for Square Marketing using an online form on Square Online website or any website for that matter?

@tranguyen, @Kelly 

Thank you.

[nella]

Or another way of looking at it is, will in-store customers who sign up to the Square Marketing mailing list via the QR code be added to the mailing list in Square Online, and will online customers who sign up to the mailing list via an online form be added to the mailing list in Square Marketing?

We want to treat all customers across in-store and online centrally as a single mailing list. 

[nella]

I have just done a test by signing up to the mailing list on our Square Online website and I can see the test email address I used has come through to our Customer Directory in my Dashboard, however, the Marketing email status is NON-SUBSCRIBED. Why?

[Breffni]

Hi @nella, thanks for your post and for doing some testing here! 

In order to have your customers listed as subscribed they will have to sign up via your marketing campaign where they have consented to being subscribed.

If you would like to mark the current customers in your mailing list as subscribed, you can do so via bulk editing their status in Customer Directory via CSV file but you will first need to request your customers permission to do so - due to GDPR regulations. 

You can read more about this and the GDPR regulations required in our Get Started With Customer Information Collection support article. 

[nella]

Hi @Breffni 

Thank you, but how can they sign up via our marketing campaigns if they are unsubscribed? If they are unsubscribed we cannot send them marketing campaigns.

To edit the subscription status in bulk via CSV file import is not practical. The reason this is because new subscriptions will come in one at a time and irregularly and at the same time in-store customers are added to the Directory who have requested that they are not added to the mailing list. How will we be able to distinguish between the two? Also, importing via csv file is cumbersome.

Surely, there must be an automatic way of subscribing customers who fill in the email mailing list sign up form online to Square Marketig mailing lists?

[nella]

Hi @Breffni 

I would like to resolve this asap to continue our transition from our current email marketing software to Square Marketing. Could you please advise how we can achieve the setup I describe?

Thank you. 

[Breffni]

Hi @nella, thanks for getting back to me here and sorry for the delay. 

So, the customers email addresses wich are appearing in your directory currently with status 'unsubscrbed' - where have you collected those email addresses from? Have you imputted them manually or got them from another source? 

I'll keep an eye out for your response! 

[nella]

Hi @Breffni 

We will be collecting them on our Square Online website, which we are currently building. We will be using the section, 'Email Newsletter' which can be added to any page. 

If you wish to see this, I can share with you access to our currently password-protected site.

Thank you

[Breffni]

Thanks @nella, not to worry.

The Square Online email collection form (Contact Us) is not considered GDPR compliant by Square Marketing’s standards because it doesn’t get specific consent for behavioural tracking from your customers. This is why they would be appearing as 'non-subscribed' automatically and we suggest you get their consent before updating their status. 

A customer is considered as Subscribed if they have opted in to receive your marketing communication, emails marked as Subscribed will show as available to receive Square Marketing communications from you.

[nella]

Hi @Breffni 

Thank you for your reply. It is, however, surprising that Square should consider this adequate. Please can Square make this online form GDPR compliant asap? Otherwise, we have a mailing list sign up form online that really is useless. 

What is the workaround in the interim? Send emails ad hoc to all new contacts who sign up asking them for their specific consent for behavioural tracking? That is impractical and not a workaround we can adopt. What are other Square Online/Marketing users doing to get around this problem?

Please raise this with your developers as this problem needs to be addressed. 

Thank you. 

[nella]

There's a 'Getting Started' button in https://squareup.com/dashboard/customers/marketing to 'Collect Customers' Emails' which links to https://squareup.com/dashboard/customers/settings/profiles, however, there is no functionality to do so once you get there. I have learnt from emails to Square Support that this functionality is not present to UK customers, apparently due to GDPR which is a poor reason and can be rectified by making some straightforward changes as highlighted here and in my email correspondence. Hopefully, Square will implement these soon?  

[doc_choc]

@Breffni @nella 

I’m really struggling to get me head around marketing in particular mailing lists, email collection, loyalty email collection, Square marketing and Square online promote and grow. Whether to use Square marketing or Weebly promote etc

We are trying to get a nice consistent approach for our business, that is GDPR complaint for collecting emails from our Square Online website and from our Loyalty programme. We want to collect clean compliant emails, generate a quality mailing list for our newsletters, sign customers up to loyalty and collect their emails as part of the signup.

At the moment I feel it’s all very disjointed, a little messy and a little confused.

Is our business objective achievable? 

[Breffni]

Hi @doc_choc, thanks for your comment. 

I can appreciate it can be a lot to wrap your head around, I'm not sure this thread is the best place either as it's mostly based on why Square Online form submission emails are technically not considered GDPR compliant. 

I just want to make sure I've fully understood here before we dig a bit deeper. 

You are looking to send marketing emails to customers who have visited you in person (and signed up for your Loyalty program) and online and you are trying to decide whether Square Marketing or Weebly promote is the best option? 

I'll keep an eye out for your response.  

[doc_choc]

Hello @Breffni 

Yes to your question plus a bit more 😀

I’m also trying to wrap my head around this. Email capture to communicate promos via newsletters, Loyalty to get them coming back for more both online and in store (this function works well as there is loyalty sign up at checkout in store and online). We want to capture emails on the website at checkout and through a pop up newsletter sign up. We also want to capture emails when people sign up for Loyalty at POS (US function only at the moment). Ultimately I need a bit of joined up thinking bringing the customer in to one VIP experience where we have their email and they are signed up to loyalty programme that captures their email and with the understanding that we can directly communicate by newsletter email and they earn points be it online or in store. At the moment loyalty gives us nothing apart from the promise of maybe a return visit, and here in the UK no means to communicate with them. Many customers do not return as they are not local but will buy online, so they will collect loyalty points and may like to be reached via newsletter with promotions.

Trying to figure out do I continue  to use Weebly Promote or use Square Marketing for newsletters automatic emails as there are similar but not the same functionalities, with some cross over of functionality. If I use Marketing is there an easy way to get the website signups data across. I see there is and import export function but would require continuous updating with new subscribers from the website, very onerous. Also things like the nomenclature ie status in Promote are opted in, would these need to have the Marketing status changed to subscribe to appear in the default group email subscribers? Fiddly, messy and a tad confusing.

At the moment on the online checkout there is no means for customers to opt in to the marketing, the opt in button has vanished even with the ‘opt in to email marketing’ set as ‘on’ in the customer input section of the dashboard. Seems to be broken

Loyalty as I may have mentioned a few times previously (lol) does not allow us to subscribe customers to to the newsletter at the same time as loyalty signup. It preventing our business transitioning to Square register which we really want to do.

It feels like the Square Marketing is a positive attempt to bring things together but it still feels very messy. It’s not as straightforward particularly with data capture via the website and at POS for loyalty and ultimately clean list data management in one place is confused between online and POS, looks to be time consuming….Yikes!!

[Breffni]

Thank you for the details here @doc_choc and sorry for the delay. 

It does sound like what you are looking for here would be a feature request for the time being, or an amalgamation of both products if even. 

It is an unfortunate case that the Square Online email collection form (Contact Us section) is not considered GDPR compliant by Square Marketing’s standards because it doesn’t get specific consent for behavioural tracking. This means we can’t advise you to mark these opt-ins via Square Online as ‘subscribed’ via CSV the way we can advise you if you had collected them via an email signup sheet or are importing from another email marketing programme. As you mentioned, it's messy and confusing. 

I completely see that this blend of Square Online, Marketing and Loyalty is not super intuitive and it has been raised before and is being worked on in the background. I'll continue to pass this feedback on though as it is very valuable. 

For the time being, I don't have a different solution for you, unfortunately. These things are always moving though so I will be sure to let you know of any updates that do come up! 

[doc_choc]

@Breffni thank you for the update, its much appreciated. Square seems to have the elements (very nice elements), but it's not quite gelling together to form a fantastic product, which is a shame as most of it seems to be in place just not joined up, in particular for use in the UK/EU markets.

We are sadly straddling two Sqaure systems now for marketing which as you say is messy, plus trying to keep a clean compliant mailing list is really not easy, not as easy like it should be. Very time consuming.  I think what worries me is the missed opportunities for our business and Square. We have a lack of confidence in the Squares Loyalty and Marketing aspect which sounds harsher than I want it to sound but we just do not feel with how it stands our marketing team can easily collect, manage and use customer data effectively and shop teams need something that's easy to implement at the customer interface, collecting all the loyaty and marketing in one compliant space. So we really are not using to its full potential and shy away from marketing directly to our customer, but we should not be doing, which concerns me a lot.

If the Sqaure team are looking at this please feel free to contact me, we would love to help out on this if you feel it would be of benefit to you. Many thanks 😊 

[nella]

I agree with everything said here by @doc_choc.

Can Square not change the Online email collection form (Contact Us section) so it is considered GDPR compliant by Square Marketing’s standards? This seems to be the first step in overcoming some of these problems.

Likewise, if the Sqaure team are looking at this please feel free to contact me as we would also love to help out on this.

Thanks

[doc_choc]

Morning @Breffni , I have taken a look at GDPR requirements on ICO website, this is the link ICO 

It's not too heavy reading. It seems pretty straight forward when it comes to emails and text, its probably something you are alreay using as Square will be having to pay there bit to the ICO. Hope this is of help though.

[doc_choc]

Hi @Breffni @nella 

The more I look at this the more confused I get with Square Marketing and Loyalty. It's a little frustrating not  having a straightforward system that works across the POS and Online to build up a mailing list and loyalty together that allows us to communicate directly with subscribers, it's kind of fundamental to an online business. I totally understand that it works fine in the US, but we are really needing a solution for the UK/EU markets. The fact that its not GDPR compliant really needs addressing and fixing by Square, without it Loyalty, Marketing, Weebly Promote it's just not worth using the Square Online

Today we have been looking at workarounds using forms on the website to at least enable us to capture some of the lost customers we can not sign up using Square marketing or loyalty. But to be honest its a right crock of... lol, so we have abandoned this idea. We haven't quiet given up as we would love to use loyalty and marketing, but close to it!

Have you had any more success, do your customers still get the option to opt in to marketing at checkout if you have the (settings/checkout/customer inputs/opt in to email marketing on). We have set as on but there is no longer an opt in button at checkout? The button does nothing! 🙄

[nella]

@Breffni 

Again, we agree with @doc_choc, "The fact that it's not GDPR compliant really needs addressing and fixing by Square, without it Loyalty, Marketing, Weebly Promote it's just not worth using the Square Online".

This is an issue that we feel needs to be addressed sooner than later. Can Square advise if they recognise this issue and if they do, what are the plans and timelines for a solution?

As always, many thanks for your input.

[k_atie]

Appreciate you both sharing your feedback with us @doc_choc and @nella. It's definitely a big miss from us as the product was rolled out without fully addressing all the market nuances. To recap, the current issues with Square Loyalty and Marketing raised in this thread is:
 

• Inability to opt-in to Marketing if someone has already opt-in to Loyalty.
• How Marketing currently works with Square Online — inability to capture customers' details if they signed up for newsletter/via pop-up
• Sending email via Weebly Promote vs Square Marketing

These are the issues that we have flagged with our Product Manager but if we have missed anything please let us know and we will add to the conversation we currently have with them. I completely understand how important it is for all these elements to work together seamlessly so we will continue to push for information that we can share with you here. About Loyalty & Marketing opt-in together specifically, our product team is aware of this feature request. From the last conversation we have, they are evaluating how this can work with the current privacy regulations in place but there is no immediate plan for this right now. However, we have asked them again so hopefully, there is a better update to share. However, there are a couple of things I can help clarify in the meantime:
 

• For Online customers: you can collect their marketing consent at checkout. To enable this, navigate to your Square Online overview > Settings > Checkout and scroll down to Edit customer inputs. Make sure to check the box next to Allow customers to opt-in to receiving marketing emails from you. Once this is enabled, customers should see a Sign-Up toggle under Stay in touch on the right-hand side of the screen. If this is not coming up for you even after you have enabled this, can you let me know? I can ask our team to look into this to make sure the function is working as expected.

• Weebly Promote and Square Marketing are completely separate products. This means that if someone has opt-in to receive marketing at the checkout page on the Square Online site, you can email them through Square Marketing. However, customers who opt-in via newsletter pop-up or footer can't be emailed through Square Marketing but has to go through Weebly Promote. And Promote will not be able to email customers who have opt-in via the QR code generated by Square Marketing. The team is in the process of replacing many of Weebly Promote with Square Marketing, as Promote is not being actively developed but this is a slow process as it does have to go through testing and many different teams to ensure that everything works. But it is something that the team is working towards. We just do not have a timeline to share right now as these dates can change.

I hope this help addressed some of the questions raised. I will be following up on this thread as soon as I hear back from our team with information that we can share externally.