How can I opt in contacts without sending them an email?

[christiank]

Hello HubSpot community!

I have a newsletter form on my website to collect email addresses. In order to be GDPR compliant, double-opt-in is enabled in the account settings. However, I also want to send marketing emails to my paying customers, who agreed to receive emails as part of a contract (I'm adding these customers to HubSpot using the Contacts API).

How can I automatically (!) set the opt-in status of the contacts that don't sign up via the newsletter form but are instead added with the API without sending them an additional email?

I know that I can change the opt-in status manually in the HubSpot UI but that's impractical for my use case. I have also tried using subscription types (with GDPR tools enabled) and setting "lawful basis to process data" and "lawful basis to communicate" for my contacts but I still can't send emails to them. There's a warning message on the email page that says that the contacts don't have agreed to receive emails. It looks like the double-opt-in setting overrides all the other new GDPR properties.

[JessicaH]

Hi @christiank,

Thanks for reaching out.

This article might be interesting for you.

It is possible to add automatically add the subscription via a workflow.

However, it's not possible to automate the DOI process in the same way.

This quick tutorial explains the functionality in more detail.

Take care!

Jess

[christiank]

Thanks Jessica, your tutorial video was very helpful! 👍

I figured out a way to set the opt-in status for my offline contacts more easily. I created a view that filters all contacts by their opt-in status so that I can set the status for all new contacts in bulk before sending a marketing email. That makes is a little easier but an automated approach via API or workflow would be even more convenient. Is that a feature that's likely to be implemented in the future?

[JessicaH]

Hi @christiank,

I'm glad to hear that the video was helpful.

I can't say if that's a feature that will be implemented in the future, but there are already a few ideas in our ideas forum:
Allow to set DOI Status via API (Subscription API Endpoint) 

Send Double-Opt In Email via Workflow 

I'd recommend upvoting the ideas to get automatic updates.

Take care!

Jessica