Claim Invitations emails the owners of unclaimed listings and lets each one claim theirs from a personal link, at a daily pace you set. It is for directory owners who imported businesses with email addresses and want owners to take over their own pages.
Before you start
- Business claims must be on. Go to Directory > Settings > General and tick “Enable business claims (turning this off also stops claim invitations)”. It is on unless you have saved it off.
- Listings need an email address stored on them. The plugin looks in
_sdp_email, then_business_email, then_sdp_contact_email. A CSV import with an email column fills this in. - Connect an SMTP or mail service plugin. The screen shows a warning if it cannot detect one, because plain PHP mail is often filtered as spam.
- You need the
manage_optionscapability (Administrator).
How to use it
- Go to Directory > Reviews & Claims and open the Claim Invitations tab.
- Check the six counters at the top: Waiting to invite, Sent today, Opened the link, Claimed, Unsubscribed and Failed.
- In the Sending box, tick “On” next to Send invitations.
- Leave Practice mode ticked for a first run. Untick it when you are ready to send real email.
- Set Maximum per day. The default is 25 and the field accepts 1 to 500.
- Set “Claim link valid for” in days. The default is 30 and the field accepts 1 to 180.
- Choose what happens on claim. “Hand over the listing immediately” is ticked by default. Untick it to approve each claim yourself on the Claims tab.
- Edit the From name, From address, Reply address, Subject and Body under The message. Click Save.
- Type your own address in “Send yourself a test” and click Send test. It uses a real listing, records nothing and contacts no business.
- To send now, enter a number in “Send a batch now” (1 to 50) and click Send now. A banner reports how many were sent, failed and skipped, and whether the mode was practice or live.
- Read Recent activity at the bottom for the last 50 invitations, with business, email, status and sent time.
What the owner receives
The email is plain text. The default subject is “Is this your business on {site}?” and the default body names the business, links to the claim page, shows the listing address and ends with an unsubscribe link. Placeholders you can use in the subject and body are {business}, {site}, {link}, {listing} and {unsubscribe}.
What the owner sees when they click
- The link opens a plain page headed “Claim your business”, showing the business name and “Verified by email to” the address on file.
- If no account uses that address, the owner enters “Your name” and “Choose a password” (at least 8 characters). This creates their account.
- They click “Yes, claim this listing”.
- With “Hand over the listing immediately” on, the page reads “Your listing is yours” with a “View your listing” button. Otherwise it reads “Claim received” and the claim waits on the Claims tab.
Good to know
- One invitation per listing. A listing is never invited a second time. A failed send is retried, up to 3 attempts in total.
- Who counts as waiting. Published listings that are not claimed, have a valid email, have not been invited and whose address has not unsubscribed. If several listings share one address, only the newest is invited in a run.
- Practice mode uses up listings. Practice mode records each listing as a dry run and marks it as handled, and the code does not offer a dry-run listing again. Use Send test to preview the email, and use practice mode only when you accept that.
- Pacing. An hourly job sends about one twelfth of your daily limit (at least one) until the limit is reached. Sent today counts every invitation recorded since midnight, site time, except failed ones (practice runs are included).
- Existing accounts. If an account already uses the address, the owner is asked to sign in first and then reopen the link. The plugin does not hand over the listing to a signed-out visitor.
- New accounts get the plugin’s business owner role and are signed in straight after claiming.
- Link safety. Only a hash of the token is stored. Links stop working after the number of days you set, and show “This link has expired” with a “Go to the listing” button.
- Consent and unsubscribe. The plugin does not record consent. It mails the address already on the listing, so you are responsible for having a lawful basis to contact those businesses. Every email carries an unsubscribe link and List-Unsubscribe headers. Opening the link asks “Stop sending claim invitations to (address)?” and only the “Yes, unsubscribe me” button, or a mail client’s one-click request, unsubscribes. That stops a mail scanner from opting people out by fetching the link. The address is then suppressed for future invitations. Keep the {unsubscribe} placeholder in your body.
- Claims that arrive this way are stored as owner claims verified by email link, so they appear on the Claims tab like any other.
FAQ
Why does the Waiting to invite count show zero?
No published, unclaimed listing has a usable email address. Import a CSV with an email column, or add addresses to the listings. Claimed, already invited and unsubscribed listings are never counted.
Can I turn invitations off without losing my settings?
Yes. Untick “On” next to Send invitations and click Save. Nothing is sent and the hourly job does nothing until you switch it on again. Turning off business claims in General settings also stops all invitations.
Does Send now ignore my daily limit?
Send now sends up to the number you enter (1 to 50) even if sending is switched off, but it still follows practice mode and needs business claims to be on. The daily limit applies to the hourly schedule.
What happens if the owner already has an account?
The page asks them to sign in first, with a Sign in button, and then to open the email link again. They can claim once they are signed in.
Can I change the wording of the email?
Yes. Edit the Subject and Body under The message. The body is plain text, and the five placeholders are replaced for each recipient.