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Customer experience | Sales, Customer Insights,...
Suggested answer

How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

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Posted on by 10

Hello, 

I'm building a customer journey using a dynamic segment with a particular leadsource. I want to automate the process and exclude all people who unsubscribed from the newsletter. 

I added a filter to the segment "do not allow bulk emails" "allow". Therefore I see that the amount of members in my segment decreases.

However, there are some contacts that still appear in my segment, though they unsubscribed. The field don't allow bulk emails" is "disallow". Dynamics still sends them bulk emails. I was building separate journeys to send email message to that segment. 

Please help me out understand what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. 

Appreciate your help. 

  • Suggested answer
    Petit Hibou Profile Picture
    on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Hi Oki,

    is there any specific reason why you prefer to use dynamic segment instead of subscription list for sending newsletters?

    Subscription lists can manage the situation you've described in a proper way (person has unsubscribed from this particular newsletter and stops receiving further emails of this type - while still can receive other newsletters, eg on other topics).

    Imho, use of "donotbulkemail" checkbox in this case is not the best choice - as customer will stop receiving ALL commercial emails (newsletters included).

    HTH

    Elena

  • cloflyMao Profile Picture
    25,208 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Hi Oki,

    As what your shared screenshot shows, we can only see "email blocked" message in Contact's interaction history.(Also get speculation with help from Insights glossary of Doc.)

    We couldn't get details about how our email was blacklisted or marked as spam.

    Because blocking email is customer side behavior, our email server doesn't know we had had been blocked and will still attempt to send email to contacts. The only way to stop sending is by setting the field to "Do not allow".

    In other word, email server could only do stop sending behavior based on field data in our system.

    Regards,

    Clofly 

  • Oki Profile Picture
    10 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Thank you so much, this helps a lot to understand. Can I see somewhere in the Insights that the person "he/she might blocked you directly from their own email receiving server side(blacklist or mark as spam)" after they received an email?

    Or I can only see it after I send the next email in the Insights contact history "email blocked" message?

  • cloflyMao Profile Picture
    25,208 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Hi Oki,

    I tested with your description: email 1 -> recipient opened subscription center via link in marketing email ->

    checkd "Do not email" checkbox and submitted form.

    pastedimage1588078833044v1.png

    The field of test recipient was set to "Do not allow" after submission.

    Then I created customer journey 2 and 3 to send different emails to test recipient again.

    pastedimage1588078863661v2.png

    As we can see, two interaction appeared in test contact's timeline: Contact has do-not-email set.

    So for your situation, it seems that your contact didn't unsubscribe from subscription center,

    instead he/she might blocked you directly from their own email receiving server side(blacklist or mark as spam).

    Interaction of your contact could match to situations in the post I shared:

    pastedimage1588079213694v3.png

    pastedimage1588079257173v4.png

    Recipient own behavior won't change the field to "Do not allow",

    So marketing email will still be sent but then get blocked by contact's mail server.

    You should kindly suggest your contacts to do unsubscription via Subscription Center instead of blocking your email directly.

    Regards,

    Clofly 

  • Oki Profile Picture
    10 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    I set up the  segment with filters as at the screenshot below 

    Annotation-2020_2D00_04_2D00_28-074559.png

    After I emailed newsletter #1, some contact decided to unsubscribe. I assumed that he will be automatically taken down the segment as his field "do not allow bulk emails" changed to "disallow". 

    When I sent the next customer journeys with newsletter 2 and then newsletter 3 to the same segment. Meanwhile the same contact ( who unsubscribed earlier ) his record history looks as at the screenshot below.Example-2.png

    Please help me here: how to automaticaly set up the customer journeys runing by dynamic segment to stop sending next emails to people when they unsubscribed. 

  • Oki Profile Picture
    10 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Hello,

    I was

  • cloflyMao Profile Picture
    25,208 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Hi Oki,

    Result of newsletter #2 and #3 both indicate that email is not sent.(For #3, do you mean the reason is "Email feedback loop"?)

    You could find reason for why emails not deliver in the article below: (#2 Email blocked, #3 Email feedback loop)

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/marketing/insights-glossary 

    Could you share me more detailed about your business requirement? Once "Bulk Email" field of contact is set to "Do Not Allow", 

    he/she will no longer receive marketing emails. Thus no segment is required to include them or suppressing them in a segment. 

    Regards,

    Clofly

  • Oki Profile Picture
    10 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Thank you so much for your speedy reply! I'll try to explain my issue in a nut shell again:

    I assumed that after a person unsubscribed from the newsletter the field "do not allow bulk emails" changes to "disallow" and therefore these people won't receive commercial emails from Dynamics anymore. That's why I don't need to exclude these contacts from a certain dynamic segment as I put filters into that segment only to those contacts who "allow" bulk email. I expected the records to be updated and people who unsubscribed will update automatically and they won't receive my message.

    I noticed that the email for some contact that unsubscribed from newsletter #2 was blocked, and #3 was reported as feedback look. Does it mean that that member received the newsletter #2 and #3?

    I will look deeper into Suppresion segment, but as far as I understood i'll  have to to update it manually each time I send a customer journey if people decide to opt out. I'm looking for ways to automate the process.

    I appreciate your help and fast reply. I'm hoping you can help me out here.

    Thank you!

  • cloflyMao Profile Picture
    25,208 on at
    RE: How to stop bulk emails after contacts unsubscribed

    Hi Oki,

    1. Filter to retrieve people who unsubscribed from the newsletter:

    There are 148 contact records in my marketing environment, they all accept bulk email. (Bulk Email field is Allow.)

    In segment below, the filter is "Do not allow Bulk Emails" equals to "Allow",

    as we can see, they are all retrieved.

    So actually the filter is to retrieve people who accepted newsletter.

    pastedimage1587950349625v2.png

    If you want to set a segment which includes people who unsubscribed from the newsletter, the filter "Do not allow Bulk Emails" should be "Do Not Allow".

    2. Dynamics still sends contacts whose "don't allow bulk emails" field is "disallow" bulk emails:

    In theory, when "Bulk Email" set to Do not allow, no marketing email messages will be sent to this contact.

    pastedimage1587951115039v3.png

    Could you confirm that even the "Bulk Email" was set to Do not allow, Dynamics still send contacts bulk emails?

    It would be an issue and further assistance might be needed.

    However, a special situation is:

    when Email is Allow and Bulk Email is Do not allow, contact can still receive transaction email.

    You can see result of different combination between those two fields here:

    pastedimage1587951622472v4.png

    3. How to exclude people who unsubscribed the newsletter from a customer journey:

    Once you had created a segment which includes people who unsubscribed the newsletter, add it to suppression segment field of customer journey.

    pastedimage1587951856425v5.png

    Regards,

    Clofly

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