8 Replies Latest reply on May 19, 2015 6:25 PM by Sanford Whiteman

    Email Address Change - Automatically Resubscribe?

    Jenn DiMaria
    Jenn DiMaria Champion Dec 12, 2014 8:50 AM
      Hello! We've recently come across an issue where if the email address changes in SFDC, Marketo changed the "EMAIL OPT OUT" field to "FALSE". This is a problem when someone has requested an unsubscribe, but then changes their email address for contact from our support staff.

      Is this supposed to happen? Or is something larger at play?

      Thanks!
        • Re: Email Address Change - Automatically Resubscribe?
          Dory Viscogliosi
          Dory Viscogliosi Dec 12, 2014 10:07 AM (in response to Jenn DiMaria)
          Hi Jenn, have you looked at the activity log of a person to determine if you have a smart campaign running that is changing their EMAIL OPT OUT to FALSE? Or maybe it's a workflow that's set up in SFDC so you would just see the data value change in Marketo (not associated with a campaign).
          • Re: Email Address Change - Automatically Resubscribe?
            Grant Booth
            Grant Booth Dec 12, 2014 10:15 AM (in response to Jenn DiMaria)

            This is actually built in to Marketo, as Jenn described.
            Think of the behavior as part of Marketo's durable unsubscribe. In each Marketo instance, whether or not an email address is unsubscribed is recorded separately from individual leads, and actually saved on the back-end. For example, if you delete a lead with an email address which is unsubscribed, and then create a new lead with the same email address, it will be automatically unsubscribed:
            https://community.marketo.com/MarketoResource?id=kA650000000GxXxCAK
            If you look at the lead's activity log and double-click the change data value activity for Unsubscribed, it gives this as a reason: "System flow action sysActionChangeDataValue resetLeadEmailStatus": the same reason it gives when someone is set to true by the durable unsubscribe I described above.

            While I can't speak to the legal side of this, as I'm not an attorney, my understanding is that when someone opts out of receiving emails, they are opting out of receiving emails at a particular email address, not out of receiving emails from you in general. Since this is an "opt out" field, not an "opt in" field, there's no reason to keep the lead unsubscribed when their email address changes. If you're using the Unsubscribed field as an opt-in field (setting everyone to true and then setting the field to false if someone opts in), I recommend using a custom field instead.

            2 of 2 people found this helpful
            • Re: Email Address Change - Automatically Resubscribe?
              Josh Hill
              Josh Hill Dec 12, 2014 11:00 AM (in response to Jenn DiMaria)
              That is my understand too, Grant.

              I usually have a separate field(s) handling the actual list subscriptions. Often I will also have flows that block people who did not explicitly opt in, which might help you if you do not want this automation to subscribe people without their clear permission.
              • Re: Email Address Change - Automatically Resubscribe?
                Dory Viscogliosi
                Dory Viscogliosi Dec 12, 2014 11:30 AM (in response to Jenn DiMaria)
                I completely understand the durable unsubscribe and guess we might use some fields differently because we have all custom mailing lists, but wouldn't EMAIL OPT OUT = FALSE mean that they aren't opted out? I guess I was interpreting this the opposite of how you did, Grant and Josh. 
                • Re: Email Address Change - Automatically Resubscribe?
                  Sanford Whiteman
                  Sanford Whiteman May 19, 2015 4:20 PM (in response to Jenn DiMaria)

                  You might find the text of the CAN-SPAM act helpful. In the act, neither opt-in nor opt-out actions carry over to alternate addresses. (To my mind, this is deeply flawed, as it should be the underlying mailbox, and not a single alias/address, that is the subject of consent.)

                   

                  Section 3(14): RECIPIENT.—The term ‘‘recipient’’, when used with respect to a commercial electronic mail message, means an authorized user of the electronic mail address to which the message was sent or delivered. If a recipient of a commercial electronic mail message has one or more electronic mail addresses in addition to the address to which the message was sent or delivered, the recipient shall be treated as a separate recipient with respect to each such address. If an electronic mail address is reassigned to a new user, the new user shall not be treated as a recipient of any commercial electronic mail message sent or delivered to that address before it was reassigned.