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How are custom opt-out categories used?


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I cannot find anything in the Gainsight documentation that details how the opt-out categories are applied. I've read the January release notes and documentation on how to configure the opt-out pages, as well as how to apply the category to the template.



But on deployment, how is the opt-out category applied to the list? If I have a list of 1,000 contacts for a'newsletter' send, only 2 of which have submitted their preference and only 1 opted out of newsletter, does the system only suppress the one contact that opted out of that category? Is the actual functionality detailed anywhere?


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Best answer by ashish_ahuja 7 May 2019, 18:07

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Hi @kelly, the application of the feature is focused on minimizing the scope of unsubscription to specific user defined categories unlike the earlier available global categories survey and customer success communication which covers almost all outgoing emails from Gainsight.



The other is to provide better control to the admin over managing and analyzing the user unsubsciptions.



You can associate email templates with specific opt-out pages and opt-out categories and after the email is distributed and the user chooses to unsubscribe from the email via unsubsciption link or manage preference; user would more likely be opting out only from the restricted category and could still recieve emails associated with other categories.



In your case for eg: if the user unsubscribes from an email associated with newsletter category, he/she could still receive email assocaited with another abstract categories like webinar, announcement, etc. limiting the scope as well as filtering down the exact reasons for the unsubscription bounded by a domain.



This is unlike customer success communication (default categories) where almost all communications from gainsight apart from cases like survey gets unsubscribed.



Hope this helps! :)


Userlevel 6
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Hi Ashish,



Thanks, yes I understand the purpose of the categories and the reason to offer them, but it's not clear how the categories are actually applied in delivery.



So in the example, 1,000 recipients. 998 have not indicated any preference. 1 has opted in to Newsletter and 1 has opted out of Newsletter. Does the email go to 999 (1 opt in and 998 no preference)?


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From what I can tell, mailings respect the contact choices of categories. If the contact has opted out of a category associated to an email, this email will not go to this contact. A contact that has not opted out will receive the mailing. It's the same logic as the previous model.


Hi @kelly, By default all users are opt-in for any category until they opt-out.



In your case out of 1000 recipients; given two categories newsletter & webinar, if the following conditions are true :




  • 998 have no preferences saved


  • 1 recipient has preferences saved -> Opted-out from webinar


  • 1 recipient has preference saved -> Opted-out from newsletter

Then, Yes 999 receives email leaving the user who has opted-out for newsletter would be sent if the email template being distributed is associated only with newsletter category.



If the email template is associated with both categories, 998 emails would be sent.


Userlevel 7
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@neelam_mukherjee - opportunity here to improve the detail and use case descriptions in our documentation.


You can also create a Rule to automatically update the list of Contacts who opted out of an email communication. The detailed article to configure the rule is present here.


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