Unsubscribers not being tracked in Marketo reports. Why?

[Anonymous]

When we send out newsletters we know some people are unsubsribing. However, our Marketo reports consistently show 0 subscribers for all the months of emails and newsletters we've sent. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any direction of where I could start trying to fix that glitch so we're able to accurately track our unsubsribe rate? 

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Are you sending out the newsletters as Operational, by any chance?  Operational emails will show 0 unsubscribes.  You could also test it out - send a live test to yourself, unsubscribe, and see if your unsubscribe shows up in the reporting.  You can always go into your lead record afterwards and re-subscribe yourself.

It also depends on what reporting you are using - are you just pulling a smart list on unsubscribes, are you looking at the members tab, the email tab?  The members tab and overall program summary will not report on unsubscribes unless you are using a Progression Status trigger - if unsubscribes from email, change program status to unsubscribe.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Laura. I'm very new to Marketo so just getting the hang of it all. Your response is very helpful.

The Progression Status trigger you talk about - is that something I'd have to set up within the Flow section of each of my Emails Launch campaigns? Currently in that section I just have 1) Send email, and 2) Change program status - program: newsletter, new status - email blast > sent. 

Perhaps I need to add another item in that Flow section? Or am I misunderstanding where to add the Progression Status Trigger? 

Thanks again for helping out this beginner! 

[Anonymous]

For Progression Statuses, you can set up an individual smart campaign for each program you want to track these statuses for.  The smart list would be "Trigger - Unsubscribes from Email" and the flow would be "Change Program Status."  Just select the correct email, program, and status that you want to update and activate it.  We use these for all relevant statuses for email sends - clicked, opened, and converted.

If you have not been using progression statuses, then when you click on the Program name, nothing will show up for the overall summary metrics (your program will show sends since you used that in the flow, but no opens, clicks, or unsubscribes)

You could instead click on the smart campaign that sent your newsletter, and on the right side click the "email" tab.  This will also give you a snapshot of performance - you will see any unsubscribes there even if they're not showing up in your program reporting.

Hope that all makes sense!

[Anonymous]

That's where it's really strange, though, Laura, as when I click on the campaign that sent the newsletter, and click on the "email" tab I see how many people opened it, clicked on it, bounced, etc. but for all the newsletters we've sent, no one has ever unsubscribed. In that column it always says 0, which I don't believe to be accurate. It seems that regardless of what filters/triggers/etc we had set up, it should definitely show the unsubscribers in that "email" tab. Could there be some problem there with it not pulling or tracking that info? Anything I needed to have set up beforehand that I can do for future campaigns? 

I so appreciate your detailed responses.

[Anonymous]

If it's tracking opens and clicks correctly I'd be surprised that unsubscribe isn't working.  I'd definitely send yourself a live test and unsubscribe - see if it shows up or if there are any issues with the link, and also check that the emails are not marked as operational.

You can also pull a smart list of people who are unsubscribed to take a look at your database stats.  Add in the filter, "was sent email" for the newsletter as well and see what that comes up with.  Check it with other emails as well.  Are unsubscribes showing up for other emails? Maybe people just really love your newsletter!

[Anonymous]

That's why I was surprised too! I sent myself a live test and was able to unsubscribe to the newsletter successfully, but it doesn't show up anywhere - not even in the 'email' tab, let alone in the reports/analytics. I double checked and they're not being sent as operational, so that must not be the problem. Unsubscribers aren't showing up for anything we've ever sent. I can't believe our content is that good! 😃

[Anonymous]

Does that unsubscribe show up in your lead record?  If it's not registering you as unsubscribed, I'd go into Admin and check your unsubscribe text/HTML.  There may be an error there.  Our HTML for the link is this (and I think this is default to Marketo) <a href="%mkt_opt_out_prefix%UnsubscribePage.html?mkt_unsubscribe=1&mkt_tok=##MKT_TOK##">unsubscribe</a>

Otherwise, I am out of ideas and I'd suggest putting in a ticket.  There may be something weird going on on the back end.

[Dory_Viscoglio · Accepted solution]

Allison, do you use the standard Marketo unsubscribe link/page or do you lead people to a custom unsubscribe page? If you aren't going via the standard Marketo route, then you will show zero unsubscribes. 

We have a totally separate email preference center, so in all of our email program statuses we track unsubscribes, and then manually enter those people into our reporting. It's definitely a bit tedious, but if you aren't using the standard Marketo route for this then you'll have to do this.

You can set this up in your campaigns by having a smart campaign looking for a (triggered) data value change of your email preferences, and a (filter) clicked link in email - constraint: link is or contains something to do with your unsubscribe URL. The flow step would be to change program status to unsubscribed. It still won't show up in the email send reports, but at least you'll be able to track who unsubscribed and from which emails.

[Anonymous]

Dory - You're right! We use our own page and form instead of the standard Marketo route. I am going to look into switching over to the Marketo route so that tracking will be easier. Thanks so much for digging that up for me!