Delete leads without allowing re-subscribe

[rgallegos]

Hi, we want to delete bad leads but prevent them from being re-subscribed if they get imported again. How do we do this? 

[Michael_Florin]

Marketo has a feature called "Durable Unsubscribe": https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/marketo/using/product-docs/email-marketing/deliverability/du...

If you delete a person that has "Unsubscribed = TRUE", that flag will be reinstated should the person be inserted again. So if you don't do anything additionally, the person remains unsubscribed. 

[rgallegos]

Thank you! Durable unsubscribe is exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate your help!

[SanfordWhiteman]

Just to be clear for future readers, Durable Unsubscribe doesn’t fully “prevent people from being re-subscribed.”

It’s still possible for a person to be switched to Unsubscribed=false later.

Durable Unsubscribe isn’t permanently in effect after the person is recreated, only at the moment they’re recreated.

[Jo_Pitts1]

@rgallegos, I think this needs more context?

What do you mean by bad leads?  What do you actually mean by 'resubscribed'?

I'm hoping the answer @Michael_Florin gave covers your question.

Cheers

Jo

[SanfordWhiteman]

You can use (or abuse) the Durable Unsubscribe feature Michael describes to immediately delete anyone that was previously seen and had Unsubscribed=true when they were deleted the last time.

However, this would apply to truly anyone. You couldn't have some people treated as "was unsubscribed but don't delete" because Marketo only remembers the one thing, that they had Unsubscribed=true.

In order to have a more intelligent restore-or-delete process for previously encountered leads, you need an offboarding process. For example, you send people's key data to a Google Sheet before deleting them. Then, whenever new people are created, you look them up in the Sheet and pull old data into Marketo. One such field might be Delete Immediately.

[solson2]

@SanfordWhiteman I would love to know more about offboarding processes. Do you have any examples or blog posts you could direct me to? 

[SanfordWhiteman]

Hi @solson2 sorry for the delay. I don’t have a blog about it yet, but one approach is:

• offboard by sending records to a Google Sheet via webhook (search for my post on “sending form fills to a Google Sheet”
• onboard by calling the same Sheet via a webhook, passing a Google VQL (Visualization Query Langauge) query to find the person’s stored data