The Active Patient Limit is setting unique to Peptalkr that allows you to control how patients are added to your email marketing list, in turn controlling costs and ensuring your marketing list is up to date, and more inclined to pay attention to the marketing emails you send.
The Active Patient Limit is essentially a rule that defines what you consider an 'Active' Patient - i.e. someone who is actively in treatment, or had treatment recently enough where marketing email would be relevant to them.
This limit varies from clinic to clinic, and country to country, for example:
Clinics offering acute treatment therapies might consider a patient whom has attended an appointment in the last month 12 months as active.
Clinics offering one-off treatments on a less frequent schedule might choose 24 months as the timeframe.
Clinics where patients tend to only come in several times in short succession, but unlikely to come back again in the future might choose 6 months.
Clinics where patients come sporadically throughout their lives might choose to import All Patients.
How the Active Patient Limit helps you
Setting a limit means you do not pay for patients that are not active.
It reduces the risk of spam complaints from patients who haven't had an appointment in a long time.
It keeps your marketing list fresh automatically.
If you've used Mailchimp, you may be familiar with the cost problems that arise when your entire database is considered 'Active'. This setting allows you to avoid that problem with Peptalkr.
Where Active Patients are synced to
Your Cliniko patient email marketing list is stored in Peptalkr in the Email manager on the 'Lists & Subscribers' tab, in a list titled Patients:
Warning: Do not manually import Cliniko patients into Peptalkr. Only use the Active Patient Limit to sync patients between Cliniko & Peptalkr. Importing patients manually will prevent special features from working.
This list is:
Always in sync with Cliniko.
Updated every 5 minutes with new patients & updated details about patients.
Able to be segmented into groups of patients with similarities.
Used to send marketing email.
Can be opted-out of easily by patients if they choose to.
Free trial mode
When you sign up for Peptalkr you get a free trial. During the trial, there is only one limitation applied to your account:
A maximum of 250 patients will be in your email marketing list.
Once the trial ends, you can remove this limitation by setting an Active Patient Limit:
👉 You can end the trial early (very common) to sync in more patients sooner. Send us a message using the chat bubble to end your trial . Ensure you've added a valid payment method first.
How to set the active patient limit
You can find the Active Patient Limit control on the Settings page of your account.
You can only make a selection once the trial ends. We will remind you to do this. We put the power in your hands so you know the price you'll be paying for Peptalkr moving forward.
If you don't select an Active Patient Limit after the trial ends, you'll be moved onto the 24 month limit automatically from your second month.
Use the dropdown to select the number of months within which a patient must have attended an appointment:
In the above example, the 24 month option indicates that 1042 emails will be in the Patient list once syncing is complete. Refer to the pricing table to work out what this will cost.
Keep in mind, if you have created custom subscriber lists and imported people manually - these also contribute to your subscriber count.
What the months mean
If you select All - every patient/client with a valid email address will be imported into your marketing list, including those with no appointment history.
If you select a monthly limit - only patients who attended an appointment within that range will be imported, PLUS any patients with an upcoming appointment.
💡 Tips:
The number in brackets is the number of patients that will be imported to the Patient list if you select this setting.
You can then refer to the Pricing page to get an indication of the plan you'll be on once you change the setting.
Your plan will change automatically. Read about how pricing works here if you want to understand this better.
It's a good idea to select 24 months in most cases. This ensures patients who have not visited in more than 24 months will not be contacted with marketing email. If an old patient books an appointment - they'll be included as they have an upcoming appointment.
👉 It's also quite common to start with All to try and reactivate some old patients with a marketing campaign, then change to a smaller limit once you've completed your reactivation campaign.
What features are affected by the Active Patient Limit
Feature | Impact |
🚀 Campaigns | Marketing campaigns will only be received by active patients. |
▶️ Automations | Automated marketing journeys will only be received by active patients. |
📅 Transactional | Transactional email that are set to marketing will only be received by active patients. Non-marketing email are not affected. |
🥒 Segments | Segments (patient groups) inside your marketing list will only contain active patients. |
🚫 Unsubscribes | When an Active Patient unsubscribes, they will be removed from the marketing list. |
SMS are not affected by the Active Patient Limit. Instead, marketing SMS will only be received by those who are opted in for SMS marketing in their Cliniko communication preferences.
Cliniko's email marketing communication preference
If you check the box pictured below - this will activate a two-way sync with Cliniko which preferences Cliniko. Meaning - we will ONLY import patients into your marketing list IF they are already opted-in for email marketing in Cliniko.
Most of our users choose to leave this box unticked and instead let Peptalkr takeover completely. If you leave it unticked, you should import your unsubscribes from other email systems you've used in the past.
Note: Cliniko's email marketing preference is rarely used by Cliniko users. As such, we ignore it by default. Only enable this if you are 100% certain you actively use it in Cliniko.
A lot of our users find that if they check the box - their database is tiny and it would require a lot of manual effort to audit their Cliniko patients and manually opt people in/out.
Unfortunately Cliniko only allows you to manage opt-in on a per patient basis manually (read more in Cliniko's help centre here) making it a cumbersome feature to use and hence why we give you the option to bypass it.
If you tick the box
Peptalkr will only import patients who are already opted in for marketing in Cliniko.
If someone unsubscribes from a Peptalkr email, they'll be unsubscribed in Cliniko (two-way sync).
If someone is manually subscribed in Cliniko, they'll be added to the Peptalkr list automatically.
Your list size might end up being very small if you select this option.
If you do not tick the box
Peptalkr will import everyone with a valid email address.
Peptalkr will automatically de-duplicate patients who share an email address so you're not sending double ups of emails or paying more than once for a single contact.
Peptalkr will automatically handle unsubscribes.
Peptalkr will automatically add anyone who is added to your Cliniko patients into the Patient email marketing list.
Your list syncs with Cliniko every 5 minutes.
FAQs
Why am I limited to 250 subscribers during the free trial?
Why am I limited to 250 subscribers during the free trial?
We do this because:
We want to protect your patients from unsolicited email while you set up your Peptalkr account.
We want you to understand how Peptalkr works before you send mass email.
We want you to know the price you'll be paying before your trial ends.
We want to reduce instances of spam email being sent.
So it's really there to protect your database from mishaps, and your domain from being reported for spam - which can impede your email deliverability.
Can I manually import my patients instead of using the Active Patient Limit?
Can I manually import my patients instead of using the Active Patient Limit?
We don't prevent you from doing it, but we strongly advise against this. Peptalkr does the syncing of patients automatically, thanks to the Active Patient Limit. Manually importing patients may compromise the accuracy of your patient data in Peptalkr and may cause your plan usage to inflate the price you pay. We cannot be held accountable if you ignore this advice.
Is there a two way sync with Cliniko for the opt-in status?
Is there a two way sync with Cliniko for the opt-in status?
This is only the case if you enable the checkbox mentioned here.