Opt-Out from newsletter

Dominique_Gilli
Level 2

Opt-Out from newsletter

Here's my use case:

  • User receives Newsletter (created from Marketo, sent to all users who are on the 'Newletter Recipient' smartlist)
  • User clicks on 'opt-out' link jn the body of the Newsletter (my understanding is Marketo only has global unsubscribe, and if the user opts-out from the newsletter, we don't want them to be unsubscribed from all communications from Marketo)
  • Opt-out click action adds user to a Newsletter Exclusion smartlist which is added as an 'exclude anyone from this smartlist' to the Newsletter Recipient smartlist

Reading documentation it seems like I should be using the Flow Actions for this but I'm new and trying to figure out how to make it work.  Do I create one campaign to send the newsletter to the 'Newsletter Recipient' smartlist minus the Newsletter Exclusion smartlist, but then how do I create the flow step 'if the user clicks this link in the newsletter, then add them to the Exclusion Smartlist?

Dominique Gaillard
3 REPLIES 3
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Opt-Out from newsletter

but then how do I create the flow step 'if the user clicks this link in the newsletter, then add them to the Exclusion Smartlist?

You don't.

But that's for multiple reasons, the primary one being that you must not treat a Clicked Email activity as being done by a human. Clicked Email may be the result of human activity or mail scanner activity. And as a result, though this wasn't true say 5 years ago, you cannot offer "one-click" anything anymore. Unless you really don't care about people being removed from mailings when they actually didn't click anything... and I strongly doubt you want that!

So fundamentally, you must require the lead to perform a humans-only interaction with your page. And in this case, that means clicking a button to submit a form. The form need not have any other fields on it, just a big ol' button. But only if somebody clicks that button do you know that, well, somebody clicked the button, instead of somebotty.

Do I create one campaign to send the newsletter to the 'Newsletter Recipient' smartlist minus the Newsletter Exclusion smartlist, but then how do I create the flow step 'if the user clicks this link in the newsletter, then add them to the Exclusion Smartlist?

There's no concept of Add to Smart List in Marketo. Smart List qualification is decided by SL filters, which in turn may refer to field values, activity log entries, segment membership, list membership, program membership, or any combination of these factors.

So instead of "add to Exclusion Smart List" you must mean "ensure the person qualifies for an Unsubscribed Smart List".

And there are, as you can see above, a lot of ways to manage subscription preferences in Marketo. There is no one best way for all people. But I recommend you explore program membership for this task (rather than field values or static list membership). You'll learn a lot more from the docs and past posts than I could possibly recite here.

Dave_Roberts
Level 10

Re: Opt-Out from newsletter

"somebotty" Love it.

SanfordWhiteman
Level 10 - Community Moderator

Re: Opt-Out from newsletter

Alas, while I thought I was coining that, there's prior art. But thanks!