How to Update/Replace an Asset & Notify Customers

Sometimes digital products are going to be updated to a newer version, and you want to send an update email to everyone who has purchased that asset. Luckily, with DDA, you can do this really easily. Follow our guide below:

What plan is this feature available on?

• The ‘Update & notify‘ feature is available on the Basic plan. Already installed DDA? Upgrade here.
• The ‘Editing email templates‘ feature is available on the Growth plan. Already installed DDA? Upgrade here.

Updating an asset & notifying customers

Updating an asset

• This function will replace the old asset with the newly uploaded asset
• All previous download links from the old asset will continue to work for the new asset

Notifying customers (if clicked “Yes”)

• This function will send a new download email to every customer who has ordered the Shopify products that the asset is attached to (at the time of updating of the asset)
• This function will also send a download email to any order that the asset is attached to. This is if you have used the “Attach additional asset” button on the order page
• The emails will use the “File replace” email template

Notifying customers (if clicked “No”)

• Update emails will not be sent

Video walkthrough

Simply:

1. Edit the “File replace” email template (optional). See default.
2. Update the asset with the new version
3. (optional) Inform customers who have previously purchased that asset that there is a new version available

(optional) Step 1 – Edit the email message

You will need the Growth plan or above to edit email templates. If you don’t want to send an email notification, then skip to Step 2.

1. Go to the ‘Settings’ page
2. Click the button ‘Edit email template’
3. Click the button ‘Replace File Template’

This will load the editor where you can customise the message.

Default email

If you do not edit this template and leave it empty, the default message below will show:

Standard

HTML

<p>Hi (customer name),</p>

<p>We have updated some files from your recent order with (store name).</p

<p>You can download your files with the following links:</p>

<ul><li>Assets</li></ul>

<p>Thanks!</p>

Step 2 – Go to the asset you want to update

1. Go to the ‘Assets’ page
2. Click on the asset that you want to update so it opens the asset page

Step 3 – Click the ‘Replace asset’ button

Step 4 – Upload your new asset

You can click the “Choose file” button to upload your new version of the asset.

Clicking the link in the blue box will bring you to the “Asset replace” email template so you can customise it before updating the asset.

Step 5 – Notify previous customers

DDA does have the ability to notify customers, but it will notify everyone who has bought the Shopify product that the asset is attached to.

DDA doesn’t have rule-based features at this current moment to inform customers of specific properties, but it will be coming soon. If you don’t mind informing all customers who have bought it, then use “Method 1” below. If you want to inform specific customers in a time period or similar, use “Method 2“.

Method 1 – DDA’s method

Once you have chosen your file, you will be prompted with a box asking if you want to send the update email.

If you click ‘Yes’, an email will be sent to everyone who has purchased the Shopify product that the asset is attached to.

If you click ‘No’, then no one will be notified at all.

Important – the update email will only send to people who have bought the Shopify product that the asset is attached to at the time of updating. For example, if the asset is not attached to any Shopify products, then no one will be notified.

Method 2 – Using your own email software

If you are wanting to add rule-based properties to only send emails to certain customers, then this is possible, but you will need to use your own email software, such as Omnisend, Klaviyo or similar. This is because their sole purpose is email delivery, and they have amazing rule-based systems to email users.

DDA doesn’t have the ability to filter customer properties at the moment, but it is on our roadmap.

How to do it:

When you have updated your asset and get asked if you want to notify customers, you will need to select “No”. You will be notifying them in your own way.

You will need to inform customers in the email template that they can access their downloads in two ways:

1. Enable customer account downloads in DDA. Then you will need to inform your customers that they will need to log in or create a customer account using the same email that they used for their order.
   
   They will find the newly updated file download links on the order page.
   
2. Enable checkout thank you page downloads in DDA. Then, depending on your email software, some of them support Shopify’s email liquid variables. For example, Omnisend allows you to use Shopify variables in their email templates.
   
   You can simply add a button or hyperlink in the email linking to the Shopify Thank You page. If you have enabled thank you page downloads, then the newly updated file download links will show on the page. The variable to use to link to the thank you page is: {{ order_status_url }}
   
   Please make sure you test this before sending an email to all customers to make sure it works as it should.

If you get stuck with anything, please feel free to contact us.

Done!

Now an email will be sent instantly to your customers who have purchased the product that the replaced as was attached to.

Remember, you can check your Email Tracking on the order pages to see your file replacement email actions.

1. Go to “Orders”
2. Click on an order, and then scroll down to “Email tracking” to see the email tracking information. Or you can simply go to “Settings” > “Customer emails” to see all emails that are sent.

Updating a URL Asset

(optional) Step 1 – Edit the email message

You will need the Growth plan or above to edit email templates. If you don’t want to send an email notification, then skip to Step 2.

1. Go to the ‘Settings’ page
2. Click the button ‘Edit email template’
3. Click the button ‘Replace File Template’

This will load the editor where you can customise the message.

Step 2 – Follow these steps

To update a file when using URL assets, you will need to:

1. Go to the cloud service where you want to upload your new file
2. Upload your new updated file
3. Copy the download URL of that new file
4. Go to the DDA app > “Assets” page > open the URL asset that you want to update.
5. Click the “Edit” button

6. Click “Next” until you get to step 3. Here you can paste the new download URL

7. In step 4, you will be asked if you want to inform previous customers who have purchased this asset that the download has been updated.

You can edit the “File update” email template by going to “Settings > “Edit email templates” > “File Replace Template”.

FAQ