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Competition entrants being pulled into accepts marketing list despite opting out

  • 20 March 2024
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Userlevel 1
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Hi There, 

I’m testing an embedded form I set up and when I tick the ‘no’ option for receiving marketing on my list when trying it out - my email address still goes into the accepts marketing segment.  I have the segmentation definition in the second screen shot below - can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong please? 

 

 

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Best answer by bluesnapper 21 March 2024, 16:51

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7 replies

Userlevel 6
Badge +24

Hi @User 1990, welcome to the community!

 

Thanks for sharing these screenshots, it’s helpful context to have so I can help you troubleshoot this. The first answer to your question is this “accepts marketing” property is not going to be tied to the Klaviyo consent status of “is unsuppressed - aka an active profile” or “is suppressed - aka has unsubscribed, bounced, or been manually suppressed by you.”

 

Can you please help me understand why you’re wanting this optin form to give people the option to say “no I don’t accept marketing” as part of a giveaway entry? That will help me identify a solution that you can implement to accomplish your goal…

 

Warmly,

Gabrielle 

Userlevel 7
Badge +36

Hi @User 1990 

I expect you to be in the segment when you test the form with those two OR conditions. They will include any contact who has opted in via Shopify (Accepts Marketing is true) OR has opted-in to a Klaviyo list (email status is subscribed). 

The fact that you have submitted the form means your test profile's Klaviyo email status will be subscribed (there will be an extra confirmation step if the list is set to double opt-in) and therefore you'll be in your segment ('can receive email marketing'). It won't matter what value is in your Accepts marketing profile property.

I do suggest creating a different custom profile property for your competition email opt-ins. Accepts Marketing is a Shopify variable that indicates if a contact has opted-in via Shopify. If you have the Shopify/Klaviyo bidirectional sync set-up, Accepts Marketing and Klaviyo email status will also be in sync for your contacts on both platforms. Updating Accepts Marketing in your approach will lead to unpredictable outcomes for the Accepts Marketing value!

I echo @ebusiness pros questioning offering entrants an option not to opt in. I think it's reasonable for a competition to say they are opting in for the chance to win a (wonderful?) prize 😁 After all, the purpose from your side is to gather email opt-ins?

I hope that helps, but any questions, please let me or @ebusiness pros know.

Regards

Andy
 

Userlevel 1
Badge +1

 

Hi Both. 

Thanks very much for this, with the two buttons for receiving marketing or not I followed the guidance on opting in from a Klaviyo tutorial on setting up a competition, I don’t believe in the UK you can automatically sign someone up to an email marketing list without them ticking that they accept marketing, they have the right to just enter the competition without having to sign up to get marketing emails.  The weird thing is when I look at the customer properties of people who haven’t opted in they have ‘accepts marketing’ as false. When I change the filter on my accepts marketing group to only the definition in the second screen shot below then it doesn't pull all competition entrants into that group, is that the way to make sure people aren’t sent marketing emails by mistake? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +36

Hi @User 1990 

No problem. Consent can get a bit complicated!

Usually, to ensure you only send emails to contacts who have opted-in, your original segment definition of 'Accepts Marketing is true' OR 'can receive email marketing' covers all bases for Shopify/Klaviyo.

You are updating the value of 'Accepts Marketing' on your form - I've never understood why Klaviyo has 'Accepts Marketing' as a user-editable property as it’s being updated by the Shopify integration.

To explain...

When a Klaviyo form is submitted, the contact's email status is set to 'Subscribed'.  

If the Shopify/Klaviyo bi-direction sync is enabled, and depending on its configuration, the contact’s 'Accepts Marketing' is set to true in Klaviyo and pushed back to Shopify - that could be updating an existing Shopify contact or creating a new one (optional in sync set-up). Opt-in status will be in sync across both platforms.

Consider if that same ‘subscribed’ contact enters your competition and chooses NOT to opt-in with your custom property buttons. You now have contact with 'Accepts Marketing = false' and Klaviyo email status of 'Subscribed' - which is correct? They haven't unsubscribed; they've just chosen not to opt in after having opted in previously. I would say they are still subscribed.

As to your segment issue, is your form's Accepts Marketing custom property set to required? If not, and they don’t choose an option, their Accepts Marketing status won't change - could be true, false, or not set. Or it could be that Shopify is changing their Accepts Marketing status? My head’s spinning 😀

Let me know if this (lengthy) response has helped in any way!

Regards

Andy

Userlevel 1
Badge +1

Hi Andy, Thanks for that, the opt in/out question is set to required (now) thanks for flagging. my head is spinning too, hope my understanding below is correct, Essentially if someone enters the competition via the Klaviyo form they are automatically subscribed to receive marketing, despite having the  custom property value of receives marketing = false. So the only way I can avoid having them in my accepts marketing segment would be to only use the first boolean statement on the screenshot below and not the second (however this will cut out a significant proportion of my accepts marketing list). I was thinking of creating an additional list of ‘hasn’t subscribed to received marketing from X competition’ using the definition in the second statement below and then manually adding this list into audiences not to send emails to for campaigns. I’m assuming this would work but really isn’t ideal. Any other work arounds?

 

 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +36

Hi @User 1990 

Apologies for my late follow-up! To answer your questions:

“if someone enters the competition via the Klaviyo form they are automatically subscribed to receive marketing, despite having the custom property value of receives marketing = false. “

Correct. Their Klaviyo profile will have ‘email = subscribed’ and ‘Accepts marketing = false’

To segment competition entries that 'Accept marketing = true' (irrespective of their Klaviyo email status), I would create the YES competition segment as below, replacing the $source with the name of your competition form. This will only select contacts who have submitted your competition form and chosen ‘Accepts marketing = true’. Conversely, set 'Accepts marketing = false' to select for competition entries that did not 'opt-in', this is the competition NO segment.

The second screengrab is for your general opt-in segment for campaigns. Once your competition has ended, convert your competition NO segment to a list then use that list in place of my 'AD test list'. That segmnt will include all contacts who have subscribed via Klaviyo or Shopify but exclude competition contacts who have Accepts marketing is false even if their Klaviyo email status is 'subscribed'.

A consideration is that you will likely end up with contacts in your NO list who subscribed prior to the competition, and some who subscribe after. You'll be missing those contacts from your campaigns.

As I mentioned earlier, I think it’s better to use Klaviyo as the 'single source of truth' for opt-ins. That's why, for competitions, I prefer stating that participants are opting in to marketing by entering. That avoids the issues you're having and, ultimately, a competition is a way to grow your opt-in list; otherwise, you're just adding profiles that you can't market to (at least not in the UK).

I hope that helps.

Headspin out 😉

Regards

Andy
 

YES competition 'Accept marketing = true'

 

general opt-in segment for campaigns

 

Userlevel 1
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thank you so much for the help and support!

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