Follow up email doesn't work - GDPR issues?!

[AZander]

Hi everyone,
We’d like to launch an eBook and people have to submit their contacts to receive it. After doing so, they should receive an follow up email including a download link.

What I did so far:

I created an ebook sign-up form, which sits on our (non-Hubspot) landingpage. I also created a follow-up email and published that as well. So in theory, everyone who subscribed to it should receive a follow up email.

I tested it with my own email address, but the email didn’t make it through. I had a look into my own contact at Hubspot just to check if there is more information. In my contact I found a field, saying there was an issue sending an email, see below. Is that the reason why the follow-up email didn’t arrive? I m unsure what the issue is, I know I used my email a few times to subscribe/unsubscribe so maybe my contact is flagged as spam? I went into my settings too and made sure everything is OK in terms of GDPR, so all relevant boxes are ticked.
I’m thinking it could have something to do with it, but unsure…I want to avoid using other email addresses and flag them as spam as well…
I really appreciate your help,

Thanks, Annie

[karstenkoehler]

Hello @AZander,

Each marketing email in HubSpot is assigned to a certain subscription type (see the Settings tab of your automated email), this could be something like “Marketing email” or “Production information”. What’s happening here is that HubSpot is trying to send that email to you under this subscription – but you’re not opted into this subscription type yet. (With the HubSpot GDPR settings enabled, HubSpot is only letting you send an email to contacts who have an opt-in for a subscription type.)

I know this is unintuitive: Why would there need to be an opt-in for such a follow-up email? Are we not just fulfilling a request? Well, for this type of confirmational communication, HubSpot has a specific (pricey) add-on called transactional email. This would allow you to not have to think about the opt-in. You could send the email without any of the opt-in fuzz.

But without this pricey add-on, HubSpot requires that opt-in, so here we are

To provide that opt-in, there are multiple options: Manage your contacts’ email subscriptions

In this case, what makes most sense is to add a step in your workflow right before the email is sent. In this step, you give each contact the opt-in for the subscription that you chose for your marketing email (Settings tab of the email). For example, if your email is sent under the “Marketing information” subscription type, you would have to add the opt-in for “Marketing information” in the workflow. You can find the action at the end of the list, “Manage email subscription status”:

You would then have to provide information as to why that opt-in is given. I cannot guide you here, my reply does not constitute legal advice. When in doubt, consult your DPO or a legal professional:

To make sure that HubSpot can store this information about the contact, I’d recommend a 1 minute delay:

This workflow is now giving the contact the opt-in for an email subscription type. A moment later, an email is sent with that subscription.

Not intuitive, very confusing – I agree. But I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

[AZander]

Fantastic! That’s it It works now…

[karstenkoehler]

Nice!

[DoraMeleg]

Hi! I have one issue with the solution. I was told by Hubspot support that this will not opt back the people who previously unsubscribed. If you hover over the question mark ,it even says so.

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @DoraMeleg,

That’s correct, the transactional email add-on would be needed for contacts who previously opted out. The original question was referring to net-new contacts who did not have an opt-status yet. They aren’t opted out, they’re simply not opted, they have an empty field that can be changed. If it’s an opt-out, correct, this workflow step can’t change that.

Best regards

[DoraMeleg]

Thanks that makes it clearer