SFDC Email Opt-Out Field Deep Dive

[Brian_Law_MKTO]

SFDC Opt-Out field on the Lead and Contact Objects is mapped to the Marketo Unsubscribed field.

Whenever a sales rep checks the SFDC Email Opt Out box, the Lead will be unsubscribed in Marketo.

If the Unsubscribed field in Marketo changes to false the Email Opt Out field in SFDC will change as well.

Marketo has a “True opt-out” policy. If one record is unsubscribed, Marketo will automatically unsubscribe all records with a matching email address. The data value change will be noted in the Marketo activity log for each of the records.

If you delete the unsubscribed record from Marketo, when a new lead is created in Marketo from any source (e.g. inserted via SFDC or API, form submission, list import or manually created, Marketo automatically check it against your Marketo instance master email status table.  If the lead was unsubscribed when you deleted it in Marketo, we will update the record to be unsubscribed. If you set Unsubscribed to false using a hidden field on the form or smart campaign the master email status table will be updated. Thus, if you delete the record and Unsubscribed is false and the record is created again in Marketo the Unsubscribed field will remain false.

Here is a great article about durable unsubscribes by Raul Fonseca.

Please check out the community for the different ways to re-subscribe records in Marketo for records caught by the durable unsubscribe rule.

Additional resources for learning about the Marketo integration with SFDC.

[Anonymous]

Does Marketo automatically remove those that have opted out from any smart list or do I need to add a filter in?

[Brian_Law_MKTO]

Marketo will not automatically remove those who have opted out from a smart list. You will need to add the filter Unsubscribed = False to remove those who have opted-out from your Smart List. Please note that Marketo will not send a promotional/non-operational email to a record which has Unsubscribed = True.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

You may also want to read this: Feeding the Durable Unsubscribe List without increasing the database

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Is there an option for creating an alternative field in either SFDC or Marketo such as "Do Not Market To" to indicate that the lead has not unsubscribed; however, for whatever reason, sales/marketing does not believe they should receive emails yet? This is pertinent for certain industries where an individual must opt-in to receiving email first before receiving marketing communications.

[Anonymous]

And along that line - if folks have been marked as Unsubscribed in Marketo, is there a way to easily re-subscribe them assuming it was an Email Opt Out error?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Jasmine,

Yes, you can create such a field. You will just need to make sure that this opt-in field and the opt-out one always have inverted, yet synchronous values. This is done 2 ways:

• in opt-in / opt-out forms, you will add both fields in the form as hidden fields, with a default value of False and True and NO Prefill
• for other sources, with smart campaigns that make sure that if one field is changed, the other is also changed.

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

You can always uncheck the "Unsubscribe" field in Marketo Legally speaking, you need to be able to prove you were entitled to do so.

In the unsubscribe confirmation pages, we always add a link to a resubscribe page.

and we also set a transactional email that is sent to any unsubscribed person who fills out a new form with a message saying "you just filled out a form on our site and we noted that you had previously unsubscribed from our communication. In case you would like to receive them again, please click here" with a link to the "resubscribe" page. We get a quite good rate of resubscription this way.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Greg, thanks for the quick response! While the information regarding forms is very helpful, we're more focused on how to classify leads in SFDC and Marketo internally. So we're more looking for a means of classifying the lead record as unmarketable until the sales rep is able to then go and update their respective leads.  If we created an additional field in SFDC such as 'Do Not Market To', we could theoretically just add a limitation in the Smart Campaign to not include those individuals in emails, but not classify them as permanently Unsubscribed - correct?

The other question I have is whether or not the Opt Out/Unsubscribe classification is reversible in Marketo. Our reps have been marking "Email Opt Out" until we know that we can contact individual leads, but I'm just learning that that reflects in Marketo as Unsubscribed. Can we go through and retroactively change that for specific leads or is it a lost cause?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi again Jasmine,

1/ Yes, this is correct. You can even make you life easier in check the "marketing suspended" box for all the "Do No Market to" leads. "Marketing suspended" has roughly the same impact as the unsubscribe one for the Marketo email engine, with the big difference that you are totally allowed to check or uncheck it.

2/ You should really not let the sales manage the Opt-out field, and especially let them uncheck them. In case of control, traceability of who requested the field to be unchecked and the reason why it was unchecked would be essential to prove you are complying with the regulations. If some internal users (who, furthermore are mostly unaware of the regulation details) play with this field, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Hence the usage of the "Marketing suspended" field instead. The only people who should be allowed to change the value of the unsubscribe field should be the MARKETING staff in charge of dealing with the unsubscribe requests that arrive by email (it happens).

-Greg

[Anonymous]

This is very helpful - thanks. So we could map something in SFDC like 'Do Not Market To' or 'Marketing Suspended' to that field in Marketo as well?