Subscription Center Help

[Allison_Proehl]

I've been following a few tutorials (primarily Marketo Rockstars Guide) on building our Subscription Center, but I'm having a little trouble on the campaign/smart list side of things.

Our subscription center has three subscription options (Sub Newsletter, Educational Content, and Product Updates) and I want to make sure that if a person unsubscribes to one it doesn't automatically unsubscribe them from all. Does anyone have any good tool or ideas on how to set up my campaigns and smart lists?

[Darrell_Alfons2 · Accepted solution]

Ali, have you seen this guide as well?

Build an Email Preference or Email Subscription Center in Marketo in 10 Steps

The campaigns and smart lists look pretty well outlined.

Hope the helps!

[Allison_Proehl]

Thank you Darrell, that link was helpful!

[Casey_Grimes]

Hi Ali,

A few tips on this specific issue:

• I generally recommend making a "quick unsubscribe" area separate from the preference options for people who just want to unsubscribe to just do that and be done with things. There's a lot of UX friction from making people uncheck things.
• That said, make sure you have some sort of campaign that says "if someone selects/unselects everything, update subscription status accordingly" because some people...just do that instead.
• A correctly set-up SPC should have the user's choices pre-loaded by the time they hit the subscription preference center. If that's not happening, you may want to investigate why. This will prevent auto-unsubscribes from everything. In terms of setting up smart lists for filters, I've seen both smart list and segment use; it really just depends on your company's preference.
• And not be a Debbie Downer, but I've been doing SPCs for a while, and even with big databases, I have just not seen that many people opt in/out selectively to communication types. Areas of interest do a little better, but not significantly so. I'm moving more towards predictive email cadences rather than asking someone to confirm what I can tell from behavior (i.e., they're only opening certain types, so only send them those.)

[Allison_Proehl]

Hi Courtney,

That's an interesting idea to base their subscription on their behavior. That might be something our team could use down the line. Thanks for the help.

[Josh_Hill13]

Hi Ali,

Thanks for using my Guide. As I discuss, each preference is a separate field. You should continue to have the Unsubscribed field/button there and perhaps consider Courtney's suggestion about javascript to do

If Unsubscribed=T, then Unsubscribe all. You can also do that in the flow steps - if Unsubscribed=T, then uncheck the others.

And I wouldn't be surprised if your unsubscribed rate doesn't move much. In order to get people to opt in, you'll need to specifically invite them to do so. better to have a separate campaign for each type, based on their behavior as Courtney suggests.

I find that unless you've built a great Naming Scheme or have clear Personas and identifiable preferences, the behavior filters will not always get you to a great spot for targeted programs. Totally possible to automate that though with a batch and separate Persona/Interest fields.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Ali,

Also, be aware that the biggest issue with subscription centers is not to create the form, but to make sure that Marketo users comply with user requirements on the long term. This is a whole manual thing as you need to add the proper filters to any smart campaign target you will create.

Vote here:

-Greg

[Allison_Proehl]

Greg,

I see what you mean, it would defiantly be beneficial to have an easier process for excluding people so they dont accidentally receive content.