Need help with subscription center setup

[Anonymous]

I am trying to set up a subscription center that will allow members who are thinking about unsubscribing to choose alternate options, including receiving one email per day or one email per week. I've set up a new form in the Design Studio, but am not sure it will work as intended. There is still an option to unsubscribe, which is part of a checklist field. However, when I tested the unsubscribe option by checking the box and clicking the submit button, my Marketo account showed that I was still subscribed. Can you please help me figure out what I am missing? I've pasted the form setup I've created thus far below:

Thank you,

Laura

[Anonymous]

Hi Laura,

Can you give us some more information on what your doing outside this form. What mechanisms are you using when the form executes? This will give us more idea on how to give you the best advice.

Ben

[Justin_Norris1]

Laura Kimball​ I would second Ben Robinson​ that more info on what's happening outside the form would be helpful (the Smart Campaigns triggering off it, etc.)

At first glance, it looks like this form will ALWAYS unsubscribe someone no matter what, because you have "unsubscribed" as a hidden field defaulting to true.

Keep in mind that unsubscribing won't remove a lead automatically from any other list mechanism you have set up; rather it just sets the field "Unsubscribed" = true, which prevents any non-operational emails from being sent to that lead.

One other option for this form is you could have the Unsubscribe field be visible as a different option -- "unsubscribe from all emails altogether" or something similar. You can use Forms 2.0 visibility rules to make the other fields disappear when you select that checkbox if you want to make it a bit more dynamic.

Then you can have a separate smart campaign triggered off unsubscribed = true to remove them from any other lists, uncheck any other checkboxes etc. that are relevant so you keep your list of emailable contacts clean.

[Anonymous]

Hi Justin and Ben,

I am working on following the Marketo Subscription Center setup in the PDF located on this page: How to build a Marketo Subscription Center

My plan is to create several campaigns that will add people to different lists and streams based on the option they choose, one email per day, one email per week, or unsubscribe. I've added the visibility rules to the three fields I set up (1 per day, 1 per week, and unsubscribe) so that if either of the other two are chosen then only one will appear. However, I noticed that I'm still getting unsubscribed when I choose one of the non-unsubscribe options...Any ideas what is going on?

Thank  you,

Laura

[Anonymous]

Yes - you have "unsubscribed = true" as a hidden field on your form.  So no matter what people choose on the checkbox array, their "hard coded" unsubscribe status is being set to true, and they won't get anything other than operational emails.

Remove that field, and manage the unsubscribe field w/ your new fields (e.g. marking unsubscribe would set unsubscribe to true)

[Anonymous]

Thanks Rob, I also placed the unsubscribe-related fields in a Fieldset, but not liking how it looks. I will try your suggestion right now.

Laura

[Anonymous]

I"m not sure how to set up the unsubscribe field to true? I've removed the Unsubscribed hidden field, but how do I ensure people are able to unsubscribe using the new unsub field?

[Anonymous]

I think you're trying to do everything through the form editor, when in reality the form is just the entry point into the series of campaigns that will manage your subscription list.

For example, if someone was to check the "please unsubscribe me from all email communication" box in your form above, that's going to set off some kind of chain of events depending on how you've set up the logic in the backend.  It will flip a boolean field (opt-in, for example) to false, which will then trigger the removal of the lead from the static lists that you use to manage your subscription center - and will trigger another campaign to mark "unsubscribed" as true for any lead w/ "opt-in" = false, so one-off email blasts don't go to those leads.

That's just an example - I can't really make specific campaign recommendations without knowing anything about how the fields in your forms are marked to fields on the lead object, and how your campaigns are set up in your subscription center program.  For example, I manage my own subscription center with the Marketo channel tags (advancing people towards opt-in status as channel steps) which isn't how most other people set theirs up.

[Anonymous]

I think I understand what you're saying.  I would need to set up an Unsubscribe campaign that would recognize when someone has checked the "Please unsubscribe me from all communication" field in the form and change the Unsubscribe value to true? I did something like this to test out and it appears to work. Please let me know if I'm off-base with my understanding.

Thank you,

Laura

[SanfordWhiteman]

Laura, whether you need to use a flow or not depends on how you manage your sends. If you use Smart Lists based on custom fields on the lead (announcementsOnlyt=true, etc.) then you don't need anything but the form post. The checkboxes (really should be radio buttons) dictate whether a user is unsubscribed=true or announcementsOnly=true, etc.