Today we’re excited to share a better way to understand how someone subscribed to your email marketing, what is changing, and a hint at some of the exciting upcoming features that will take advantage of this new data.
What is it?
Every profile now has a few additional pieces of consent information–status, method, method detail, custom source, and if they’ve double opted in or not–that provide a more granular view into how someone subscribed or unsubscribed from your email marketing.
Going forward, this information is automatically recorded by Klaviyo when someone (un)subscribes through a Klaviyo form, our subscribe pages and APIs, or supported integrations. This ensures that you always have an accurate and reliable record of consent that can be easily actioned on with some exciting upcoming features for segmentation, flows, and reporting.
Is this all that different from how we track consent today?
Not really!
Klaviyo is a powerful tool that gives users the flexibility they need to deliver the personalized experiences their customers expect. One of the most important aspects of this is knowing whether or not, and how, someone has consented to receive your email marketing.
When someone consents to receive your email marketing, this is tracked by adding them to a list, receiving a subscribed to list event, and updating their $consent related profile properties (such as $consent and $consent_timestamp).
You can segment for these profiles where $consent is set to email (see our help doc for more information).
What’s new is the addition of a more granular and automated record tracking of how someone subscribed to, or unsubscribed from, your email marketing.
Here’s what you’ll see with your new email consent records.
| Consent field | Example values | What they mean |
| Status | Subscribed | They are very interested in your email marketing and have explicitly consented to receiving it. |
| Never Subscribed | They gave you their email address, perhaps while at checkout, but have not explicitly asked to receive your email marketing. | |
| Unsubscribed | They are no longer interested in receiving your email marketing and have explicitly revoked their consent for receiving it. | |
| Timestamp | 2022-03-01 11:32:03 | When they subscribed or unsubscribed. |
| Method | Klaviyo form | How they subscribed or unsubscribed. A few of the other example values include API, Shopify, and Subscribe page. |
| Method detail | Form id and version | Additional information like the form used to subscribe, which Klaviyo user uploaded their information, or the last four characters of the API key used to subscribe them. |
| Custom method detail | BFCM 10% promotional form | This is the only field in the record where you can record whatever additional information you would like about how they subscribed or unsubscribed. |
| Double optin | True, False | Whether or not they confirmed their subscription. |
So how can I use these new fields?
The newly redesigned Channel Status box on every profile’s page now displays this data when it is available.
If you use our APIs, you can now retrieve this information from the newly updated Profiles API.
Stay tuned for more! Upcoming new features will give you the tools you need to begin using these fields to further personalize your messaging based on subscription history through segmentation, events, and flows.
What about profiles that have already subscribed?
In preparation for these new features, we populated these additional consent fields using as much data as possible from profiles where consent status was recorded. However, not every profile received these new consent fields.
Klaviyo has been automatically recording subscribed to list events and/or updating a profile’s $consent property to email whenever someone subscribed through a Klaviyo form, subscribe page, subscribe API, supported integrations, or manually in the application. Profiles that subscribed through these methods will have received these additional consent fields with appropriate consent information.
However, if you tracked consent in a non-standard way, like through your own custom consent fields, adding them to a list without setting $consent to email, or by manually setting certain profile properties without using the Subscribe APIs, then these fields will not be populated.
If you have profiles that you believe should have these new consent fields, then check out the FAQ below for actions you can take!
FAQ
Does this impact my campaigns, flows, or segments?
Nope!
These are new fields, automatically maintained by Klaviyo on your behalf, and they do not change who can or cannot receive email marketing. As of today, they do not impact your segments or who receives your email marketing from your flows or campaigns.
What if someone was suppressed?
This release has not changed any profile’s suppression status. If someone could receive your email marketing before this release, then they still can. Similarly, someone was suppressed before this release, and therefore could not receive your email marketing, then they are still suppressed today.
When can I use this new consent information in my segments or flows?
Soon! These fields will become available in our segment and flow builders, making it even easier to create personalized messages based on how your profiles’ subscribed.
Why does my profile no longer have a green checkmark?
Klaviyo attempted to populate these additional consent fields using as much data as possible from profiles where consent information was recorded. However, if you tracked consent in a custom way, perhaps through your own custom consent fields, then these fields could not be populated. For example, if you tracked email consent by directly setting the $consent_timestamp property with the Profile API or by setting $consent to a value other than email with the Subscribe API.
Historically, a green check mark could have shown in error or without reliable data to confirm the profile had explicitly opted into email marketing when recording consent in a custom way. The new channel status box, which uses the newly added and automatically maintained email consent records, has resolved these issues and ensures the status of all profiles is accurately displayed.
What can I do if I think a profile should have a green checkmark?
If a profile has given you explicit consent to receive your email marketing, but they did not receive the new email consent record, then you can reupload them with consent to get these consent fields and the green checkmark. If you choose to do this, it’s best practice to keep a record of everyone you uploaded this way.
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Create a segment for all the profiles you believe should be subscribed and are currently not suppressed.
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See our guide on building segments and be sure you exclude anyone that is suppressed.
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Export your segment as a csv.
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Although you only need the email address in your export, it is recommended you include the $consent_timestamp field in your export if this field was being used to track consent. For more guidance, see how to export your segment as a csv.
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Create a new list. See our guide for more help if needed.
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Upload csv with email marketing consent to this new list.
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When uploading, be sure to subscribe them to email marketing so they will receive the new email consent fields. Note that this will give them a timestamp at the moment of the upload. If you included $consent_timestamp in your export, then be sure to map this field to a new custom property for your records. See our guide guide for uploading your CSV with email consent.
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