Thank you for the great feedback about the new Outpost interface! We've been making some upgrades, including podcast integration improvements and adding the ability to create posts for unlisted YouTube videos - perfect for paid subscription tiers.
📒 Outpost members page refactoring
🎧 FeedPress integration UI updates
📊 Gated PDFs (Lab beta feature that's almost fully done) Insert a PDF in your post that requires being a member or paying subscriber to get
❗️YouTube integration update, adding ability to create posts for “unlisted” videos.
📢 Megaphone integration improvements
🏘️ Group subscriptions upgrades
🧾 Upgrades to the 1-Person Subscription to allow invoices payable by check and with fancy-ish invoices
💬 New CTA text-only module
📈 Trending posts updates (better handling of tags and showing you what posts are trending at the start)
📬 Shipping page updates (custom for sites that need a physical address)
🧪 Experimental features: Ad insertion tool for ads in posts, Event metadata creation (super Alpha, requires theme work)
Outpost has been busy! Outpost is now at V3, with a whole new interface for clients, easier ways to setup custom email sending domains, DIY group subscriptions, Angler AI integration and more:
🛸 New Outpost Control Center layout and UI
🧹 Free and unsubscribed members email list clean-up
📢 New CTAs including a new homepage pop-up option
📊 New tiered group subscriptions e.g. Users choose how many to buy
🪄 A Wizard for setting up custom Mailgun domains for sending emails
🏫 Ability to apply Institutional subscription benefits to existing members
🤖 Angler AI integration
💸 Ability to create one-person subscription plans with discounts
🐞 Bug fixes and improvements
To learn more about Outpost or to start your free, no credit-card required free trial, visit our homepage and click Get Started.
We've been building out the capabilities of the Auto Display function bit by bit.
In this go round, we added our first ad option, as well as more call to action (CTA) options, and the ability to target CTAs by tag, with lots more to come.
The latest updates include a feature that enables websites to utilize the auto-display tool's in-post calls-to-action (CTAs) for displaying leaderboard ads, as well as the option to show different CTAs for the same slot depending on the post tags.
Other the big changes is the ability to send different messages to different tiers of paid users within relevant Autoresponder actions. A welcome message to your top tier can now easily be different than the one sent to your basic tier!
We also added a new version of the Popup that allows customized actions in buttons (like linking to external event registration pages).
Finally, we added an updated version of the Outpost API integration to let external apps refer to users with their own unique IDs, rather than by email addresses.
🖼️ New Ad CTA - allows sites to use the auto-display tool's in-post CTAs to show leaderboard ads
🔖 Ability to show different CTAs for different post tag(s)
🐛 A few bug fixes
💬 Added the ability to show different messages to different tiers of paid users in the relevant Autoresponders
🔀 New version of the Popup that allows arbitrary action in the button (e.g. link to an external event registration page), rather than just typical Ghost actions such as subscribing
📇 Added a new version of the Outpost API integration to allow sites to refer to subscribers using an external ID, in addition to the usual method of using their email address as the unique identifier
Just before the holiday deadline, we shipped some new integrations, did a little cleaning and added a nice new CTA for our upcoming Auto Display launch.
🔌 Salesforce integration
🔌 Hubspot integration
🔌 Recharge integration
➕ New Auto Display CTA type that is a slim signup box that sits nicely in the middle of posts
🏷️ CTA UI improvements, including being able to hide CTAs on posts with specified tags
🧹 New format for member labels
🐛 Improved our internal reports
🐛 Minor bug fixes
Lots of enterprise connections being built, and filling out the Beta Auto Display before launch. Connecting Ghost to Salesforce, Recharge, and Hubspot.
We also started cleaning up our labels, settling on a format like This_Is_Outpost_Label_Format. More on this soon.
We added some very cool default Popups and Slide-Ups that let you create unique discount offers in those modules on your Ghost site, which are an addition to the main ones asking people to subscribe. This feature is headed to the moon, unlike the rocket above which is just going up and down.
Today's push also adds some options to the Beta feature that lets you automatically create Ghost posts from your YouTube feed. The new options include letting you decide if the post is automatically published or simply added as a draft post to be reviewed before publishing.
🖥️ Changed the name of the new feature formerly named Auto CTAs to AutoDisplay
🚀 New default modules and settings in AutoDisplay, including discount offers in Popups and Bottom Slide Ups
📲 Additional settings for the YouTube to Ghost post feature
Today's push fixes a couple of bugs in Outpost, adds new Beta feature that lets you automatically create Ghost posts from your YouTube feed, and adds some improvements to the beta feature for showing smart and dynamic Pop-Ups and other CTAs in Ghost.
📽️ Added a new BETA system for that turns YouTube Channel videos into Ghost posts.
🏷️ Fixed a bug where labels indicating who has opted out of marketing emails and who has not were not applied. We are also retroactively fixing this for the missed members over the previous two weeks.
💸 Fixed a bug where a complimentary member who became a paying member was still seen as complimentary by Outpost.
🦺 Added some new default models and styling controls for the beta Auto CTA feature.
A little bit of everything in this new version, including upgrades to notifications, reports, Tip Jars and Gift Subscriptions. We even fixed some typos.
Probably the biggest change is that Gift Subscriptions now live on your own site (if you are on the Luna plan), and you'll get more notifications from Outpost.
✉️ Added new email notifications to you, e.g when people convert to paying via an Outpost Action email
🎁 Moved the Gift Subscription page for Luna clients so it shows up on the client's own site at /gift-subscriptions/
📭 Added some email notification settings
📫 Fixed some bugs in the daily reports
📊 Added new info to the reports, including what new subscribers converted from an Outpost Autoresponder
🧧 Added new çontrols for the display of the Tip Jar page on Luna sites
👷♀️ Some necessary backend stuff that's too boring to list here
🅾️ Fixed some typos in the default Action templates (Thanks Missing Witches!)
To learn more about Outpost or to start your free, no credit-card required free trial, visit our homepage and click Get Started.
Lots of work going on with the Tip Jar and reports, and, fittingly, NASA's picture of the day has the title Bringing More Power to Space Station. Yes, indeed, that's what we are doing!
✨ Updated the reports to include more information, and let you know what Autoresponder Actions have converted free members into paying members, and kept readers who canceled auto-renewal as paid subscribers
✨ Added the ability for Outpost publishers to cancel and restart their Outpost subscription
👨👩👧👦 Updated the Staff page to let sites edit and delete staff users
🛑 Added a way for Outpost subscribers to cancel and restart their Outpost subscription
🐛 Fixed some bugs in the report undercounting new paid subscribers
🎨 Added tools to let you change the appearance of Outpost-powered tip, gift subscription, Intelligent CTAs, and User Preference buttons. Controls include button color, font, font size and text color.
🐛 Refactored some backend code, including making retention offers work better for users with soon-to-expire subscriptions
🐞 Fixed some data errors in Outpost Daily Reports
We also simplified and upgraded how sites connect to Outpost to make it simpler:
✨ Updated Connections page to hide API keys and to add clarity to items on that page
✨ Added Stripe Connect/Disconnect button/action.
✨ Auto create needed Stripe webhooks/connections when using Stripe Connect at sign-on
And, just a mid-winter mood booster, here's a photo of Snoopy in his astronaut outfit. All that training in dogfights versus the Red Baron came in useful, it seems.
We've finished a lot of plumbing and built what we think is an easy way to sign up for Outpost's Space Station level of service. This includes the Best Damn Autoresponder for Ghost, Plausible Analytics, Tip Buttons, and analytics reports.
These features aren't just nice - they make sites more money than they cost. We're excited to be launching a self-serve system that we think will be of help to Ghost sites of all sizes, after more than a year of working with some of the biggest sites using Ghost to publish.
Our final tweaks before launching:
✨ Changed behavior at sign-on so that the Outpost Autoresponder triggers work off users' Ghost sign-up date. So if an existing user signed up a week ago, they would not get an email sent 3 days after a new user signs up. They would get the one sent to users 10 days after sign up.
✨ Added a new sign-on feature to help sites easily add Plausible Analytics and Tip Buttons via a draft post in Ghost
We're getting so very close to Outpost 2.0, which will be open to self-signup for Ghost publishers of all sizes.
We've been hard at work at lots of plumbing changes, and we added a whole new coat of paint. Now with this update live on production, we're just testing, and making final tweaks before we announce and release Version 2.0 to the world.
🚀 Slight technical changes to make complimentary subscriptions work better with Ghost
🚀 Built new on-boarding flow for Space Station users
💻 Simplified connecting accounts to Plausible Analytics
🎊 New look for Outpost Control Center
🛸Substantial architectural changes to Autoresponder to make it simpler to edit templates and track how well each Autoresponder Action performs
This is a rather small update, but we're getting close to the full public launch. Ao I guess today's NASA image-of-the-day is appropriate, despite the small update.
✨ Changes to the report template to make them a bit prettier, including icons in the email that look like planets, not Pokemon balls. Who knew that the Death Star was the inspiration for a Pokeball?
✨ UI changes to the Outpost Control Center
🐛 Fixed some issues with sign-up process for new Outpost clients
This was a big summer update for Outpost. The Autoresponder got a whole new look and feel, dividing them into better sections and making it simpler to use.
We added a whole new way to handle cancellations so that annual subscribers who cancel auto-renewal long before their auto-renewal date get treated differently from those who cancel close to the expiration date.
We also built a way to put your Plausible Analytics dashboard into your Outpost Control Center, and started pulling some info from Plausible into the Outpost Reports.
The reports also now have data on donations that come in via Stripe, and more info including open rates on Outpost Autoresponder Emails.
We highly recommend checking out the new Outpost Control Center and turning on new options.
New Autoresponder Features and Changes:
✍ Added new variables to use in the Autoresponder emails, including Subscriber First Name, Subscriber Full Name and Subscriber Email Address
✍ Show site owners, in the writing interface, the email variables you can use in the Autoresponder email templates
✴ Added new Autoresponder flow to let site owners know when complimentary subscriptions are about to expire, let them choose to renew or not, and send non-renewing subscribers through an upsell/notification flow
🚛 Re-organized the Autoresponder tab in the Outpost Control Center into better sections
💲 Made it simpler to choose what discounts go with which Autoresponder Action email
🆓 Added a new Autoresponder welcome email for complimentary subscribers (different from the one for free and paid)
Data Features:
📈 Integrated the Plausible Analytics dashboard into the Outpost Control Center
✍ Added more info to the Outpost Reports, including web traffic stats from Plausible, donations, cancelations and more
Other features:
✨ Added a way to create Complimentary subscriptions with lengths from months to 50 years
🏢 Added an option for sites to set their physical address (rather than Outpost's) as the email address at the end of Autoresponder Action emails to be CAN-SPAM compliant
Housekeeping:
🧹 Streamlined the Outpost Control Center homepage by removing options to start a new post or newsletter
🧹 Cleaned up the Add Members tool
🐛 Fixed a bug that was preventing full member sync on sites still on Ghost 4.x
💤 Deprecated the ability to send bulk emails to members or groups of members from Outpost (Ghost now allows this)
