Subscribe and Unsubscribe Campaigns

Subscribe and unsubscribe campaigns let you to send communications directly to customers who subscribe to your conversations with them. The customer is also able to manage their ability to receive messages by unsubscribing to the conversation as they wish. Subscribe and unsubscribe campaigns differ from other campaigns in that they are automatically generated by the system for each customer who opts in or out of a conversation. When you create subscribe and unsubscribe campaigns for a conversation, you define the rules for the campaigns that Connect generates for each person who is opting in or out of the conversation.

Designing Subscribe and Unsubscribe Campaigns

Subscribe and unsubscribe campaigns are a type of external event-triggered campaign. The campaigns are generated each time Connect receives a notification that a customer is opting in or out of a specific conversation. By doing so, the subscribing customer will receive messages on a particular subject or unsubscribe and stop receiving messages. These campaigns work individually from the other campaigns and are generated based on defined rules. They exist to communicate with individual customers as they join or leave a particular conversation.

Note: Each conversation you define can only have one subscribe and unsubscribe campaign associated with it.

There are a variety of ways a customer can trigger a subscribe or unsubscribe campaign. The two most common ways are:

Receiving XML data from a website form where a customer signs up for (or asked to be removed from) a specific conversation
Replying to an e-mail in which the customer is invited to join or remove themselves from a specific conversation. For example, a customer already participating in a conversation could receive a message inviting them to join another conversation for different correspondence.

The most common use for subscribe and unsubscribe campaigns is to send a confirmation message to an individual customer, confirming their decision to join or leave a conversation and its associated campaigns. Once the confirmation message is sent, the customer is opted in or out of the associated conversation and any campaigns using that conversation.

You can also use a special "double permissions" reply handler for subscribe campaigns. This reply handler forces the customer to confirm that they wish to join a particular conversation. If Double Permissions are used, Connect generates a subscribe campaign that sends the customer a message requesting they reply to indicate that they wish to join the conversation. If Connect receives the reply from the customer, the customer will be opted into the conversation. If Connect does not receive a reply from the customer, the customer is not subscribed to the conversation. For more information about this feature and Connect's automated reply handlers, see Set Double Permissions.

Keep in mind that when a customer subscribes to a conversation, they are involved in all of the campaigns associated with the subscribed conversation. This can affect how you create and manage your conversations and campaigns. Use caution when configuring your campaigns.

For example, if you have two conversations, one for sending out messages regarding special promotions and another for sending out customer order receipts, a customer can unsubscribe from the promotions campaign, but still receive order receipts. If you have both of these types of communications associated with one conversation, a customer could inadvertently cut themselves out of the conversation that gives them order receipts when they unsubscribe from a special promotion e-mail. Keep this in mind to ensure the best experience for your customers.