One-Click Unsubscribe Action option on Emails

Ideas and Feature Requests
1

My idea is:

I can see a various threads around Categories v Segments and also around One-Click Unsubscribe marking Do Not Contact so removing from all mailing lists rather than specific ones. I also see some issues where it seems quite easy to send an email without actually making sure someone is opted in, as subscription requirements appear to be equal to other segmentation options, when really in GDPR countries the requirement to be subscribed is higher and should probably be embedded into the interface to ensure good practice and prevent mistakes

One-Click Unsubscribe just removing from a specific segment or category I think wouldn’t go against the unsubscribe guidelines (mentioned in some places) as long as it is removing people from the correct subscription - it will reduce emails each time it is used - and if they click Unsubscribe on an email from each category/list then it would stop all emails so still be acceptable.

I’m thinking something like the following might be a good idea / feature when creating emails to embed front and centre subscriptions rather than having them hiding in the background:

  • You have an option when creating an email that says “Require subscription to:” - this has an option “Ignore (Send to all contacts in segment)” (default) and then additional options for each Subscribed Category e.g. “Newsletter”.
  • You have an option when creating an email that says “One-click unsubscribe action:” - this has an option “Mark contact as Do Not Contact” (default), and then additional options “Remove from segment” and “Remove from subscribed category” (the latter option perhaps not visible if category not selected in first option)

When sending email Mautic should:

  • Filter contacts by the requirement on subscribed category if one is selected
  • Unsubscribe link should follow given action

Default options would maintain current behaviour but allow greatly flexibility and control especially where using categories.

Perhaps could be improved too to show a warning if Ignore is used where the source segment is not a public segment. “Warning: The selected segment is not public. Users will not be able to subscribe or unsubscribe from this segment via the preference centre.”

For countries requiring GDPR controls where you should never send to anyone not opted in there can also be a settings option to change the defaults to be more strict.

  • Default of “Require subscribed category” becomes a new empty option “-- Select an option --” and it is required so you have to select either send to all in segment or a category. Reducing chance of accidentally leaving it to send to a segment you didn’t filter by opted in people.
  • Perhaps the “Require subscription to” “Ignore” option disappears completely unless the segment is public. Forcing your users to select a public segment, or a category, and inherently then really ensuring proper subscribe/unsubscribe is adhered to

It feels like the one-click unsubscribe Do Not Contact is fairly indicative of the easy nature of Mautic to allow sending without any controls on people being subscribed and perhaps the above additional flexibility will really help.

I know there is a Category v Segment discussion happening in various places and it seems Segments are seen as the better option as can be made public. But in our case this is not entirely simple as segments are seen by most of our users as target audiences rather than who opted into something. They can be easily deleted and edited whilst doing day to day activities. And in a full list of segments becomes lost. It’s also hard to see with public segment what lists a specific contact is subscribed to as it just shows the full list. Categories as a dedicated contact controlled opt-in feels better. Public segments still have a place for one-off lists though but I feel categories are better for those permanent lists you want to maintain and integrate. Probably a wider discussion needed about the two.

I think these groups of people would benefit from this idea:

Marketers
Auditors making sure emails are sent properly
Marketers in GDPR countries

Why I think they would benefit from this idea:

Better control in the email sending flow of who receive an email based on subscriptions / opt-ins

Are you willing to work on this idea?:

Yes

What skills and resources do you need to explore this further?

UX/UI

2

Your solution totally makes sense but is a specific use case
Multinational customers use categories to differ communication by country, for example
So instead of having a “Newsletter” category, they have [Italy, Germany, …], then using Segments to show within the preference center for Newsletters etc

Re.

You have an option when creating an email that says “One-click unsubscribe action:” - this has an option “Mark contact as Do Not Contact” (default), and then additional options “Remove from segment” and “Remove from subscribed category” (the latter option perhaps not visible if category not selected in first option)

Defining a “One-click unsubscribe action” per email could be problematic when thinking from a company perspective, you want to avoid GDPR issues as depending on the unsubscribe action you’d have to print different messages within your footer, for example

Alternative:

  • Many apps offer this behavior “You’ll no longer receive *[category]|*tips emails. To unsubscribe from all marketing communication, click here”, you could implement the “One-click unsubscribe action” selection within global settings WHEN preference center is disabled to avoid redundancy

Re.

You have an option when creating an email that says “Require subscription to:” - this has an option “None (Send to all contacts in segment)” (default) and then additional options for each Subscribed Category e.g. “Newsletter”.

You already have this option as part of segment filters, I see no value in adding extra things to bloat the email configuration page

3

Thanks for the feedback. I just want to add a bit more feedback as I think there might still be some overlap here with others and be useful feature. Possibly though maybe this is an area that does indeed differ from the usual but just want to elaborate a bit more

Multinational customers use categories to differ communication by country, for example
So instead of having a “Newsletter” category, they have [Italy, Germany, …], then using Segments to show within the preference center for Newsletters etc

I assume this is as they send a different newsletter to each country. In the proposed solution I would see that they select the country in the email setup “Require subscription to” instead of having to remember to add it to the segment. I assume they’d have a segment for each country called “[country] - Newsletter” which has 2 filters, so this means saving on creating all those segments. I guess in this case, that label “Require subscription” is not correct so something like “Require category” I guess fits and they can then reduce segment counts - one segment for Newsletter - a category for each country - and then target emails accordingly in a much simpler way that creates a direct relationship between the email list (Newsletter) and the email. They could then select “Remove from segment” on the unsubscribe action to remove from newsletter public segment only when someone uses List-Unsubscribe in their client

Defining a “One-click unsubscribe action” per email could be problematic when thinking from a company perspective, you want to avoid GDPR issues as depending on the unsubscribe action you’d have to print different messages within your footer, for example

I don’t necessarily mean the “Unsubscribe” link in the footer. That will go to preferences page in our case. But indeed where it does not, in the proposed solution this could unsubscribe same as the one-click (which I mean the List-Unsubscribe header). Currently we’re seeing small numbers of people hit the Unsubscribe in their email link that pings this endpoint and it throws a Do Not Contact - removing them from everything - when actually they only intended to unsubscribe from the specific mailing list they received.

This has raised concerns and reported as a bug to us. We don’t want to have to ask users to edit their email template with unique links every time for different lists - we feel it should be easy - and the email should know which list it is from so it knows what it is that needs unsubscribing from (that direct relationship)

You already have this option as part of segment filters, I see no value in adding extra things to bloat the email configuration page

I think this is where we are having issues. Indeed it can be used in filters but it’s an additional step for our users and something that can be easily forgotten (and was in one case) and there’s no way we can enforce it that they only ever send to a list with an opt-in. And as noted above, the lack of direct relationship between a publicly accessible opt-in (category or public segment) and an email send is problematic and means List-Unsubscribe just removes all email sends.

If you still think it’s a cluttering of the UI I can understand that and I guess we’ll reconsider if we implement this as a patch to Mautic or if we look to have it as a plugin or something.

4

Perhaps for the Category = country and a separate Newsletter public segment scenario, there is the gap then of if they do more targeting and more segments (one thing I described is something we do). In that case the sending segment is not Newsletter, but one filtered by it perhaps.

In that case I can see perhaps that the “Require subscription to” dropdown has a list of public segments too as well as categories. Then that ties that relationship. And the unsubscribe action maybe can be shifted to global config as “Add Do Not Contact” (default) or “Remove from selected segment/category”. Simplifying this feature to just 1 optional element on email creation (that can be made required if desired).

5

Some current behaviour that I have discovered:

  • Emails can have a category selected against them
  • Email sending will not send to someone who has unsubscribed from that selected category, but WILL send if that person never subscribed to that selected category

This feels a confusing thing in its own right as it doesn’t clearly indicate this in the UI, but is also not useful for where opt-in is required as this seems to only obey an “opt-out” pattern. Similarly, you can select a non-global category in this dropdown that can never be opted out from by a contact.