Updates from February
There’s a new subscriber details view
It’s been eight years since we first launched the subscriber details page. Since then, we’ve added an activity feed and tags, Meghan Markle became a royal, we all got really into athleisure for a while… lots has changed, and so has our detail page.
This time around, we removed a bunch of fields from the subscriber details that no one seemed to like and simplified the whole thing.
Click on any subscriber in your Subscribers view to see the new layout and let us know what you think! We just might be able to work in your ideas before the next royal wedding.
See which sites send subscribers your way
Go to your Analytics view, click the Customize dropdown menu in the top right corner, and select Page views by referrer. Boom! Your analytics dashboard will now show you how many people arrived at your newsletter via various domains and platforms. This only works if you have Archives enabled (via the Settings page) as well as Page view tracking under the Tracking settings.
Head to our analytics documentation for some important context around the difference between referrers and UTM parameters.
From the blog
We got a lot of awesome stuff published on the blog this month. But few things make us as happy as Buttondown users dreaming up ways to use the platform that we never imagined. Jon Sully wrote up an article about how he writes and sends his newsletters from Typora (a Markdown text editor) without ever opening the Buttondown UI. Chef’s kiss.
One of the things that makes Jon’s process possible is that he baked in a way to email himself newsletter previews before sending to his entire list. That aligns with another post from this month about having a list of beta readers for your newsletter, a privileged inner circle to provide feedback and edit drafts before they go out. Of course the opposite approach could work too, writing newsletters like you write emails to your grandmother–casually and without stressing over polish and professionalism.
The remaining articles from this month had a decidedly antiquarian bend to them. One about the storied history of mail merge, from specialized typewriters that cost more than a house to a staple of modern newsletters. The other article a deep dive into the very public debates over how email should work amongst the people who built it.
Other stuff
Legacy teasers have been deprecated. The only people who need to do anything differently are those who were using custom teasers. So if that’s you, read this.
The latest Zapier integration is faster to set up and adds two new actions: Remove a tag from a subscriber and List subscribers by tags, IP addresses or referral codes. Check out the changelog post for instructions on updating your Zaps.
We want to give you money (after you convince your friends to sign up)! And that requires updating your referral settings, which is, like, super easy.
You can now move custom buttons to the left and right edges of your newsletter canvas with the new alignment options.
API-specific updates for this month include the ability to 1) filter by date in the API Requests view (from the Customize dropdown) and 2) chart API request count (also from the Customize dropdown) inside your Analytics view.
This has been a lot of stuff, I know. We’re growing a lot (both in terms of inputs and outputs) this year, and we think it’s time to take a break. March will be spent focusing on performance improvements and bug fixes (everybody’s favorite phrase, but — seriously, we mean it.) If you’ve got a nagging bug or rough edge that you want us to take a look at, reply to this email and we’ll make sure it gets sorted!