GDPR handling of consent to marketing

[Anonymous]

Another GDPR related question from me!

How are you dealing with consent if someone does not consent to marketing comms/opt-in? I.e. Are you linking this up with the unsubscribe field?

If not, how are you implementing it so that those preferences are respected?

[Dan_Stevens_]

We are not associating "not opt-in" to "unsubscribe".  Rather, we're just making sure that - unless the person has "opt-in = true" - they won't receive marketing emails.  Actually, in our case, our main opt-in field - the one that appears on all of our forms - is an opt-in to all marketing emails.  We also have a preference center that we drive folks to from the "unsubscribe" link in our emails - where they can opt-in/out of specific types of content, instead of unsubscribing fully. 

So what we have done is create a series of "master" opt-in smart lists in our global/default partition (we have 23 country lead partitions) - which are then shared across all workspaces.  Each smart list is aligned to our preference center groups, along with an all-up opt-in smart list:

• Opted-in to all marketing emails
• Opted-in to campaign-related emails
• Opted-in to event invitations
• Opted-in to country newsletters
• Opted-in to blog updates

Then for every email send, we must filter against the appropriate audience smart list (in addition to whatever other filters are necessary).  These filters are baked into all of our program templates to ensure no one forgets to include them.  And since the country partitions only have access to their country data, there's no need to create these smart lists within each partition.  Only those people within those countries will be exposed and qualify for any send campaign in each country workspace.

[Anonymous]

HI Dan,

Is there any reason you don't consider Marketing Suspended being triggered on non-opt in people and then creating a process of un suspending them if someone opts in? Putting filters in the template program is great, but mistakes do happen...

[Dan_Stevens_]

Two primary reasons why we don't do this:

• We don't have an all or nothing approach when it comes to opt-in consent.  We allow people to opt-in to specific types of content
• As mentioned below, some of our emails (e.g., small, intimate strategic events to our key (and active) clients; or post-event activity) will fall under "legitimate interest"

We have revoked the permission to activate a batch email/send campaign from some of the members of our extended field marketing team.  Now, this must be done by a member of my core Marketo Operations team (there are only 5 members). 

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Dan,

We have revoked the permission to activate a batch email/send campaign from some of the members of our extended field marketing team.

That was a strong decision!

Was it hard to explain? did you have to go through a lot of change management ?

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

Hi Greg - not really.  Only a few of our field marketers had this capability/permission to begin with.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Unlike Dan, we prefer to associate the 2 fields, so that we are sure that we remain error proof in case a local user forgets to use an opt-in list.

But we do that association with some JS at form level, not with smart campaigns.

We also have a some preference centers that enable people to fine tune their opt-in.

So in fact, the "Opt-in" field is only used on lead capture forms such as event registration, content download or contact forms. And it is shown only for new comers (unknown leads). In these forms, if the person opts in, the in the form background, the unsubscribed field will be unchecked.

The preference center does not show the "global" opt-in field but rather the options and the unsubscribe field (which corresponds to the "subscribe from all communications" option). in the PC, if the person opts out, in the form background, the opt-in field will be unchecked.

-Greg

[Dan_Stevens_]

Hi Greg - the reason why we don't do this is because of the specific scenarios when we are sending specific audiences an email and it falls under "legitimate interest".  For example, after a client event, we'll send out post-event communications that relate directly to the event.  But that's it - they won't receive any future marketing emails, unless they have opted-in.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Dan,

That's a good point. You can also use an operational email anyway in this case.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

This is the route we've taken too - and also the same in terms of mainly only showing opt in for unknown leads. 

Would be interested to hear how you're managing this with JS at form level? I feel like my smart campaigns are overlapping each other a little, in order to account for every eventuality.