MANAGING UNSUBSCRIBES IN REAL MAGNET Properly managing unsubscribes is critical to the success of your email program. For one thing, it s a requirement of the CAN-SPAM Act if you re sending commercial messages (roughly defined as messages whose content is primarily promotional in nature). But perhaps more importantly, it can have a major impact both positively and negatively on your sender reputation and, by extension, your deliverability. So from the email marketer s perspective, the stakes are high. Here at Real Magnet, our goal is to help you comply with CAN-SPAM and offer a range of flexible options for managing unsubscribes. One action we take is to add an unsubscribe link to every message sent from our system. While customers do have the option of removing this setting, it is the default for every new account. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The remainder of this document explains the ins and outs of managing unsubscribes in your Real Magnet account. UNSUBSCRIBE APPROACHES IN REAL MAGNET Real Magnet provides four basic approaches for managing unsubscribes: 1. Unsubscribe to All Groups 2. Unsubscribe to a Group Only 3. Unsubscribe Categories 4. Management of Unsubscribe by Customer None of these approaches are absolutely right or wrong. It comes down to which approach works best for your organization. Here s a description of how each one operates: 1) Unsubscribe to All Groups Definition: When a recipient clicks an unsubscribe link, she is unsubscribed from ALL groups in your Real Magnet account - both existing and future. Sample Scenario: Jan Doe is a member of two Real Magnet groups, and. Jan receives an email sent to the group and unsubscribes. Jan is treated the following way: Group Status List Upload Implications: If a user attempts to upload Jan into any group, the system will block her record from being added.
2) Unsubscribe to Group Only Definition: When a recipient clicks an unsubscribe link, she is unsubscribed to the group the message was sent to ONLY. Sample Scenario: Jan Doe is a member of two Real Magnet groups, and. Jan receives an email sent to the group and unsubscribes. Jan is treated the following way: Group Status Subscribed List Upload Implications: For this approach to work properly, you must re-use existing groups and replace the old data with new data on the list uploads. So, if Jan is included in a new list and you upload the list to the group using the replace option (see screenshots below), Real Magnet remembers that Jan unsubscribed to that group and will block her from being added. Conversely, if you create a new group (or add the list to an existing group that Jan has not unsubscribed from) Real Magnet has no idea that Jan unsubscribed and will add her to the group. When uploading a list, first select Add to existing group 2
3) Unsubscribe Categories Then select Replace existing list? Definition: This is a hybrid of the Unsubscribe to Group ONLY option and cannot be used with the unsubscribe to ALL approach. Users create an unsubscribe category and associate one or more groups with it. If a recipient unsubscribes to one group, she will be unsubscribed to the other associated groups. Sample Scenario: Jan Doe is in the Real Magnet groups, Product, and Webinar. Product and Webinar are associated with the unsubscribe category. (unsubscribe category) Webinar Product Jan receives an email sent to the Webinar group and unsubscribes. Jan is treated the following way: Group Product Webinar Status Subscribed 3
List Upload Implications: To work properly, Unsubscribe Categories requires you to re-use existing groups and replace the old data with new data on the list uploads. So, if Jan is included in a new list and you upload the list to the Webinar group using the replace option, Real Magnet remembers that Jan unsubscribed to that group and will block her from being added. Also, if you attempt to add the new list to a group associated with the unsubscribe category (e.g. Product ), Real Magnet knows that Jan has unsubscribed to an associated group (i.e. Webinar ) and will not add her. However, if Jan is included on a list and that list is added to a group not associated with the unsubscribe category, she will be added. 4) Management of Unsubscribe by Customer The final approach provides for customers to manage unsubscribes on their own. These customers create their own unsubscribe link and insert it into the Real Magnet message. This causes the unsubscribe to be returned to them and/or their database system. WHAT IS SUPPRESSION AND HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM UNSUBSCRIBE? Suppression is an absolute Do Not Send status. If a recipient is suppressed, no more messages will be sent to her regardless of the unsubscribe approach. A good example of when to use suppression is after a recipient notifies you that she no longer wants to receive any of your messages. Recipients can also be suppressed from receiving faxes and SMS messages. There are a number of ways that a recipient can be suppressed: Manually via the Edit Recipient page Contacts>Simple search>details>modify suppression status Manually via List Upload (en bulk) Tools>Suppression>Upload a suppression list Automatically for Spam Complaints Real Magnet automatically suppresses recipients who register a spam complaint against your mailing. Automatically for User Unknown Bounces Real Magnet automatically suppresses email addresses that generate user-unknown bounces two times or more over a 30 day period where there has been no intervening successes in those 30 days (e.g. an open or a click). We do this because user-unknown bounces can hurt your deliverability. Automatically via a Campaign With the Campaign functionality, user-defined business rules can be created to suppress a recipient for a variety of reasons most notably, for generating a certain bounce type or types (e.g. bad domain, hard bounce, etc). At any time, you can run a report that shows the suppression status of all recipients: Tools>Suppression>Manage Suppressed Recipients There is no practical difference between suppression and unsubscribe IF your unsubscribe approach is Unsubscribe to All. Either way, no more messages will be sent to the recipient from your Real Magnet account. There is, however, a substantial difference between suppression and unsubscribe IF your unsubscribe setting is Unsubscribe to Group Only or Unsubscribe Categories. Under these approaches, recipients will not receive messages sent to groups they unsubscribed to or groups associated with a category containing a group they unsubscribed to. They will, however, receive messages sent to any other group to which they are members. When a recipient is suppressed, they will receive no future messages sent, regardless of what groups they are in. 4
REVERSING A RECIPIENT S UNSUBSCRIBE OR SUPPRESSION STATUS Sometimes recipients will inadvertently unsubscribe to your mailings. You can reverse the recipient s unsubscribe status by taking the following steps: 1. Click the Contacts tab. 2. Click the Simple Search button and locate the recipient's record by either last name or email address. 3. On the Search Results page, click the Details button associated with the recipient. 4. On the Edit Recipient page, scroll to the bottom where the groups are displayed and click the checkbox for the group (list) to which you wish to re-subscribe the recipient. 5. Click Submit. SUBSCRIPTION MANAGEMENT PAGES Another tool for managing unsubscribes (and subscriptions) is a Subscription Management Page (SMP). This is a branded web page where your recipients and web site visitors can subscribe to, and unsubscribe from, your various messaging offerings. You control the Real Magnet groups that are displayed on the SMP. Visitors choose the groups they want to belong to by checking or deselecting a checkbox associated with the group name. Once a recipient submits, the data is automatically updated in your Real Magnet account. Here is an example of a SMP: 5
CRM AND AMS INTEGRATIONS Real Magnet is integrated with leading CRM and AMS applications. These systems are designed to be the main repository for your data. Accordingly, it makes eminent sense and is a best practice to store unsubscribe data in these systems. Each of our integrated solutions transfer unsubscribe data from Real Magnet back to CRM or AMS. With proper data management, unsubscribed recipients should never leave the CRM or AMS. Should this happen, however, Real Magnet s unsubscribe functionality will act as a back-up and block the message from being sent to the unsubscribed recipient. Real Magnet is integrated with: Salesforce.com Avectra s netforum Enterprise TMA Resources Personify Aptify Go Members CONCLUSION To provide flexible options for managing unsubscribes, Real Magnet was required to develop a series of sophisticated solutions some of which may seem confusing at the outset. We re here to help. If you have any questions or would like Real Magnet to work with you to identify and implement the solution that s best for your organization, contact Customer Support at 301-652-5074 or email support@realmagnet.com. 6