Subscription Center in a nutshell 

A subscription center is a very good way to give customer a way to personalize the topics and brands they are interested in and also lets the customer engage with the company. Basically, a Subscription Center is also a marketing page, it can let customers unsubscribe from all email messages, setting the "do not bulk email" field for the corresponding contact, but also allow them to set up targeted emails about the company's product and brand offerings using subscription lists.

The Subscription Center is a required component of the entire marketing process because it ensures that legal requirements are met by giving customers the opportunity to look at their preferences and to unsubscribe.

RTM and OBM

Currently, there are two strategies to do marketing with customers in Dynamics 365 Marketing. “Traditional” outbound marketing has been around for a while and subscription centers have been a part of it. Here, the marketing process starts with an audience which can be a segment (static or dynamic list of contacts) or a combination of segments, updated contact information or the submission of a form.

This Customer Journey can be further designed. Typically, emails are used during the design process where the Subscription Center is a component. Using the Form Editor and Marketing Page editor in Dynamics Marketing, users can provide a consumer-facing page that can be formatted and validated based on their needs and standards.

Microsoft recently introduced Real-Time Marketing, which builds on the segment-based communications previously available and adds the concept and tooling for companies to engage with their customers in specific relevant moments, for example when opening a new service request or raising an issue with a product.

The design flow of a marketing process is somewhat different here, as it caters to a high level of personalization and real-time communication across multiple channels (email, SMS, push notifications). Nevertheless, segments are also a possible starting option here.

“Unsubscribe” 

Email is another one of these channels and must include unsubscribe information for commercial emails. Until now, the only way to manage consent for email was to use the settings in email designer in RTM. These capabilities are limited and did not allow for content design.

With the possibility to reuse the subscription center from outbound marketing, this situation changes; and fortunately not everything has to be reinvented. The subscription centers from outbound marketing can be used right away in real-time marketing for emails.

1. Turn on the "Configurable compliance settings in email editor" by going to Settings > Other settings > Feature switches
2. Configure the setting for "Compliance" by going to Settings > Customer engagement > Compliance
3. Create a new setting with subscription center and provide the:
   1. Name
   2. Company address
   3. Consent model
   4. Tracking consent
4. Select the subscription center.
5. Save the record.

To make use of this new setting, design a new email in RTM and choose the just created record in the compliance section of the wizard, using the email in your RTM journey. When selecting the email header section in the designer, the following dialog allows you to specify the new compliance setting.

Wrap-up

Subscription center is now available in emails for RTM. This brings even more value to RTM because it provides a way to customize and design  not only the information on unsubscribing, but also brands, topics, etc. It provides a more flexible branding look and feel solution than the existing consent center, while also covering additional scenarios like the ability for consumers to subscribe to specific lists or update contact data.