Subscriber lists, campaign sending, open & click tracking, autoresponder sequences, and automated content digests — all powered by EP Email’s delivery engine.
EP Newsletter turns your PageMotor site into a full email marketing platform. Build your audience, send beautiful campaigns, and track engagement — without leaving your admin dashboard.
Collect subscribers with shortcode-powered forms. Double opt-in, honeypot protection, and rate limiting built in.
Compose HTML newsletters and send them to your lists in configurable batches through EP Email’s SMTP transport.
Know who opens your emails and which links they click. Per-campaign stats with open rates, click rates, and top URLs.
Automated email sequences triggered by subscription. Welcome series, onboarding drips, and nurture campaigns.
Automatically generate and send newsletters featuring your latest site content — daily, weekly, or monthly.
Integrates with EP GDPR for consent logging, data subject request lookups, exports, and erasure.
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| PageMotor | Version 0.6 or later. |
| EP Email | Required. All outgoing mail is routed through EP Email’s transport. EP Newsletter will not function without it. |
| EP GDPR | Optional but recommended. Enables consent logging and data subject request integration. |
Download EP Newsletter
Download the ep-newsletter-v1.0.0.zip file from your ElmsPark account.
Upload via Manage Plugins
Go to Admin → Plugins → Manage Plugins and upload the zip file using the drag-and-drop uploader.
Activate EP Newsletter
Enable EP Newsletter in your active Theme’s plugin configuration. It creates its database tables automatically on first load.
Create your first list
Go to Plugins → EP Newsletter Settings, scroll to Subscriber Lists, and create a list (e.g. “Main Newsletter”).
Enable the subscription form
Under Subscription Forms, tick Enable Subscribe Form. Set your Default List under Subscription settings.
How to verify: Add The newsletter subscription form is currently disabled.
The The newsletter subscription form is currently disabled.
The newsletter subscription form is currently disabled.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| title | Optional heading displayed above the form. |
| button | Submit button text. Default: Subscribe. |
| name_field | Show the name field. Set to "false" for email-only forms. Default: true. |
| list | Target list name. Overrides the Default List setting. |
With Double Opt-In enabled (recommended), the flow is:
Form submitted
Subscriber created with status pending. A confirmation email is sent with a unique link.
Email confirmed
Subscriber clicks the link. Status changes to active. Welcome email sent (if enabled).
Autoresponders queued
Any active autoresponder sequences are scheduled based on subscription date.
An invisible field catches bots. Legitimate users never see it.
Prevents repeated submissions from the same IP. Configurable interval (default: 5 minutes).
When EP GDPR is active, a consent checkbox automatically appears on all forms.
Already-subscribed emails get a friendly message instead of a duplicate entry.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | Submitted the form but hasn’t confirmed via email (double opt-in). |
| Active | Confirmed subscriber. Receives campaigns and autoresponders. |
| Unsubscribed | Clicked the unsubscribe link. No further emails sent. |
| Bounced | Email address is no longer valid (marked manually). |
Lists let you segment your audience and target campaigns to specific groups. Subscribers can belong to multiple lists simultaneously. Create and manage lists from the Subscriber Lists dashboard.
The Subscribers dashboard supports CSV import and export:
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Import | Paste CSV data with one subscriber per line: email,name. Imported subscribers are set to active. Duplicates are skipped. |
| Export | Downloads a CSV with columns: email, name, status, subscribed_at, created_at. |
Deleting a subscriber is a cascade operation — it removes their list memberships, tracking events, campaign queue entries, and autoresponder queue entries. This cannot be undone.
Campaigns are one-time email sends to your subscribers. Create them from the Campaigns dashboard on your EP Newsletter settings page.
Compose your email
Enter a subject and body (HTML supported). Use placeholders like {name}, {email}, and {unsubscribe_url}.
Choose your audience
Select a list to target, or leave empty to send to all active subscribers. Pick an EP Email template for the visual wrapper.
Send or schedule
Send Now begins delivery immediately in batches. Schedule queues for a future date and time. Save Draft saves without sending.
| State | Description |
|---|---|
| Draft | Editable, not yet sent. |
| Scheduled | Queued for a future date and time. |
| Sending | Actively delivering in batches. |
| Sent | All recipients have been processed. |
| Paused | Temporarily stopped. Can be resumed. |
Campaigns send in configurable batches to avoid overwhelming your email provider. Default: 50 emails per batch with a 2-second delay between batches. For each recipient, the body is personalised, tracking is injected, and the email is sent via EP Email.
Batch processing runs on admin page loads, throttled to once per minute. For large campaigns, it continues sending across multiple page loads. Keep your admin open or visit occasionally to keep the queue moving.
EP Newsletter tracks two types of engagement, both enabled by default and toggleable independently.
An invisible 1×1 pixel is appended to each email. When loaded, an “open” event is recorded with timestamp, IP, and user agent. Each subscriber is counted once per campaign.
Links in your campaign body are rewritten through a tracking redirect. Each click is recorded, then the subscriber is instantly redirected to the original URL. Unsubscribe, mailto, and tel links are never rewritten.
Click Stats on any sent campaign to see detailed analytics:
| Metric | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Total Recipients | How many subscribers were targeted. |
| Sent / Failed | Delivery success and failure counts. |
| Unique Opens | Distinct subscribers who opened the email. |
| Open Rate | Unique opens as a percentage of sent emails. |
| Unique Clicks | Distinct subscribers who clicked at least one link. |
| Click Rate | Unique clicks as a percentage of sent emails. |
| Top Clicked URLs | Ranked table of most-clicked links with counts. |
Open rates are a lower bound. Many email clients block images by default. Some privacy-focused clients (Apple Mail Privacy Protection) pre-fetch images, inflating rates. Treat open rates as a trend indicator, not an absolute measure.
Autoresponders are email sequences triggered when someone subscribes. Use them for welcome series, onboarding drips, or educational content.
Create a series
In the Autoresponders dashboard, name your series (e.g. “Welcome Sequence”). Optionally select a trigger list, or leave empty to trigger for all new subscribers.
Add emails with delays
Add emails to the series, each with a subject, body, template, and delay (days + hours after subscription). Example: 0 days for immediate, 3 days for a follow-up.
Activate and go
When a new subscriber confirms, EP Newsletter calculates send times and queues every email in the series. The cron system sends each one when its time arrives.
| Delay | Subject | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 days | Welcome to our newsletter! |
| 2 | 3 days | Here’s what you might have missed |
| 3 | 7 days | Our most popular content |
| 4 | 14 days | Stay connected |
Automatic cancellation: When a subscriber unsubscribes, all their pending autoresponder emails are automatically cancelled. They won’t receive any further messages from any series.
EP Newsletter integrates with PageMotor and the ElmsPark Plugin Suite to automate your email marketing workflow.
EP Newsletter can automatically generate content digest newsletters from your recently published pages.
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Daily, Weekly, or Monthly |
| Day | Day of week (weekly) or day of month (monthly) |
| Send Time | HH:MM in 24-hour format (default: 09:00) |
| Target List | Which list receives the digest |
| Subject | Template with {site_name} and {date} placeholders |
If no new content has been published since the last digest, no email is generated. Your subscribers only hear from you when there’s something to share.
When EP GDPR is installed and active, EP Newsletter integrates automatically:
| Feature | What happens |
|---|---|
| Consent Checkbox | Automatically appears on subscription forms. |
| Consent Logging | Subscription consent recorded in EP GDPR’s consent table. |
| Data Lookup | Subscriber data included in DSR “View Data” results. |
| Data Export | Subscriber profile and tracking history included in exports. |
| Data Erasure | All subscriber data removed: profile, lists, tracking, queues. |
EP Newsletter works perfectly without EP GDPR. The consent checkbox won’t appear, consent won’t be logged, and DSR integration is gracefully disabled. All other features work identically.
Every email includes a personalised unsubscribe link using the {unsubscribe_url} placeholder.
| Setting | Details |
|---|---|
| Unsubscribe Page | Create a page with the
shortcode and enter its URL here. |
| Success Message | Message shown after unsubscribing. |
| Collect Feedback | Optional feedback form (too many emails, not relevant, never subscribed, other). |
When a subscriber clicks unsubscribe, their status changes to unsubscribed and all pending autoresponder emails are cancelled automatically.
Use these placeholders in campaign bodies, autoresponder emails, welcome emails, and confirmation messages:
| Placeholder | Replaced with |
|---|---|
{name} | Subscriber’s name (or “Subscriber” if blank) |
{email} | Subscriber’s email address |
{unsubscribe_url} | Personalised unsubscribe link with token |
{site_name} | Your PageMotor site title |
{date} | Current date |
{confirm_url} | Confirmation link (confirmation emails only) |
First, check that EP Email is installed, active, and configured with a working SMTP provider. EP Newsletter cannot send without it. Then verify your campaign status is “Sending” — batch processing runs on admin page loads, so visit any admin page to trigger the next batch. Check EP Email’s delivery log for errors.
Check the subscriber’s status — it should be pending after form submission. Verify your confirmation email template includes the {confirm_url} placeholder. Check your spam folder. Review EP Email’s delivery log for error details.
Ensure Enable Subscribe Form is ticked in Subscription Forms settings. Verify the shortcode is The newsletter subscription form is currently disabled.
Open tracking relies on image loading, and many email clients block images by default. Open rates are always a lower bound — actual engagement is typically higher. Privacy-focused clients like Apple Mail may pre-fetch images, which can inflate rates. Use open rates as a trend indicator rather than an absolute measure.
Autoresponder queue processing runs on admin page loads, throttled to once per minute. Check that the autoresponder series status is active (not paused). Verify the queue items have a scheduled time in the past. You can also use the Process Queue action in the campaigns dashboard to trigger processing manually.
Yes. Subscribers can be members of any number of lists simultaneously. Each subscription form can target a specific list using the list parameter, and subscribers can be moved or added to lists from the admin dashboard.
If a previously unsubscribed person submits the form again, their status is reset to pending (with double opt-in) or active (without). A new confirmation token is generated and they go through the confirmation flow again. Autoresponder sequences are re-queued.
No. EP Newsletter works perfectly without EP GDPR. The consent checkbox won’t appear on forms, consent won’t be logged, and DSR integration won’t be available. All other features — subscription, campaigns, tracking, autoresponders — work identically.