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Groups in ccNewsletter

You can reach the groups under Components > ccNewsletter > Groups.

If you do not need to segment your subscribers into different groups, then don’t! ccNewsletter will work perfectly even without using groups, so that functionality can just be ignored if not needed.
Page contents:

ccNewsletter (starting in version 1.3) has a very user friendly group management option, which can be used to add a subscriber to one or multiple groups.

Groups overview

Toolbar options

  • New: create a new group
  • Edit: edit an existing group
  • Delete: delete a group from the ccNewsletter database, subscribers in that group will not be removed
  • Enabled: enable a group, it will be available to send newsletters to
  • Disabled: disable a group, it will not be possible to send a newsletter to this group

Groups table

Above the table, apart from the default filter/search there is a dropdown that can be used to show only the enabled or only the disabled groups.

The groups table itself contains:

  • Group name: if available the name of the subscriber. Either entered by you, the subscriber in the site module or taken from the Joomla! user database if the subscriber is also a Joomla! user.
  • Status: enable or disable a group. If disabled, the group will not be shown to subscribers after they subscribed in the site, or to administrator users when they want to sent a newsletter.
  • Public: is the group publicly visible for subscribers after subscribing? If yes, subscribers can see the group and also subscribe themselves to it. If no, the subscribers can not see the group at all, and you will probably add subscribers to that group yourself. In both cases, newsletters can be sent to the group.
  • Subscribers: the amount of subscribers in that group
There are two default groups “All subscribers” and “Unassigned subscribers”. You can use the filter “Select group” dropdown (in Subscribers overview, on your right in Joomla! 3 and Joomla! 4) to select “Unassigned subscribers” to view all subscribers that have not been added to a group.

New/edit groups view

Apart from the default Joomla! options (Save, Save & Close etc), you can enter the group name. You can define if a group is enabled (visible to administrator users when sending a newsletter and to site visitors if it’s also “Public”) or not. You can also define if a group is public or not. If the group is public, it will be shown to subscribers after subscription so they can choose to subscribe to a specific group. If a group is not public, site visitors will never see it, but you can add subscribers to it and send newsletters to subscribers in those groups.

The “test group”

On the top right you will find a “Create Test Group” button which will create a test group with 1000 fake e-mail addresses. This can be used to test the sending process on your server. The group can be created and removed during normal operation of ccNewsletter. Please do remember that if you send a newsletter to “All subscribers” when this group is created, the 1000 fake e-mails will also be sent the newsletter, so remove it first.

When testing, you do not have to send the newsletter to the entire group. Just play with the configuration settings until you can send the newsletter to a few batches, and then cancel sending when you think the settings are optimal.

How are subscribers added to groups?

You will not see enabled subscriber groups in the module or subscription form on the website.

ccNewsletter has a low friction module and subscription form which makes it attractive for your site visitors to subscribe by not adding another “thinking” step “which group should I apply to” before they subscribe. Only after subscription, when they are already safely stored in your database, the enabled and public groups will be shown for the site visitor to choose from.

This should result in a higher percentage of visitors subscribing.