Workaround for unsubscribe with an email address mismatch?

[Jared_Eliason1]

We've had an email recipient reply to one of our recent emails stating that they have unsubscribed multiple times but when we checked, the *replying* email wasn't in our database but the email we *delivered* to was in our database.

For the email in question: 

"To:" shows first.last@domain.com 

But ab123@domain.com was in the auto-added unsubscribe HTML, "This email was sent to ab123@domain.com."

In this case would the ab123@domain.com be an alias, forwarding email, or retired email?

Is there a workaround to force MKT_TOK to associate unsubscribe action with the delivered email?

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Is there a workaround to force MKT_TOK to associate unsubscribe action with the delivered email?

No, the body of the email is static.  If I forward the email (server-side forward, that is) from server to server, the last SMTP recipient is going to see the same links.

That recipient's mail client cannot change query parameters (let alone knowing how to change the random mkt_tok, which only has meaning to Marketo).

The only way to protect against this situation is to instruct the person that they must unsubscribe the original recipient. They can't simply change the email address on an Unsubscribe form: that'll just create a new lead that's unsubscribed, and a ton of confusion.

[Jared_Eliason1]

Thanks. We hope to add a profile center alongside our preference center (would maybe add unsub original recipient instructions here) so hopefully we can mostly reduce, if not eliminate, (rare) cases like this, giving the user additional visibility and control. 

[Grégoire_Miche2]

The best practice is indeed to provide a "change email" functionality to your preference center. The way we usually do this is with a process that also checks the new email address. So, when the user enters her/his new email address into the "change email" form he/she is sent and email with a link to be clicked in order to validate the change. And to prevent false (phishing software) clicks the person has to come back to an email change validation page and revalidate the change. 

This seems heavy a process, but GDPR is at this cost : you cannot allow someone to change their email address and provide that of someone else, lest a serious potential GDPR breach be created.

Greg

[Jared_Eliason1]

Good idea, thanks. We're out of GDPR territory but CCPA is looming. 

By "revalidate change" do you mean re-entering email or just looking for page visit from the validation email?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

He use an LP with a form with the 2 fields (old email, new email) locked. The person has to visit the page and just click the summit button. We could just fire the validation on web page visit, but usually, customers will go for that secure validation.

-Greg

[Blane_McMichen]

Sanford is right. (As usual!). There is no way to see if an email is forwarded, because it would only be in the email header of the outbound email. When the message is replied/forwarded, the original header is not visible and is replaced with a new email header. Therefore there is no way to associate the email address with each other. 

Sanford Whiteman‌ if Jared goes into the lead database and merges the records with the different email addresses, will the system treat them as one lead with two emails?

[SanfordWhiteman]

if Jared goes into the lead database and merges the records with the different email addresses, will the system treat them as one lead with two emails?

Nope, the resulting (winning) lead will still only have one Email Address field.

However, with a proper "Change of Address" form (which can't be a plain-vanilla Marketo form as it requires some Forms 2.0 API JS to manipulate values on submit) you can set (a) let the person change their address, (b) save the old address to a secondary email field, and (c) have both addresses be added to durable unsubscribe.