Unsubscribe based on workflow action

[matttunney]

Is there a way I can trigger an unsubscribe for a lead if they complete a particular action in a workflow?

Thanks

[BrettLanguirand · Accepted solution]

Hello @matttunney,

Thank you for your question.  By design, the tool does not allow you to opt out contacts in bulk. The idea behind this is that unsubscribing contacts should be a deliberate action because it cannot be reversed (unless done by the contact). That being said, you could try using the following workaround:

- Create a workflow that you would like to opt contacts out of email based on the relevant actions. Instead of opting them out in the workflow however, simply add them to a static list of "email opt-outs".

- The second part will have to be done manually, but every so often (weekly, monthly, daily - whatever works for you). You could export the resulting static list and re-import it as an "opt-out list", which will mass-opt out the contacts in the list (instructions for this here: http://knowledge.hubspot.com/getting-started-with-hubspot/how-to-import-an-opt-out-list-to-your-acco...). Please do keep in mind that once opted out in this way, your contacts will have to intentionally/manually opt back in before you will be able to send them any email communications in the future. To facilitate this you may want to look into setting up "resubscription emails" for forms, so that if an opted-out contact fills out another of your forms online after unsubscribing, that contact will then be able to receive a follow-up email from which he/she can resubscribe to emails from your portal. You can read about how to set this up here: http://help.hubspot.com/articles/KCS_Article/Email/How-do-I-enable-resubscription-emails-for-forms.

I hope this helps!

Brett

[DevonG]

Hey Brett,

Unfortunately that doesn't sound like a very automated solution. Is there now an improved way to handle this? Uploading an opt-out list whenever you get around to it doesn't feel very compliant.

Thanks!

[AndyMeadows]

Adding my voice to this request as well.  Since there is a property (hs_email_optout) I don't fully understand why this cannot be automated through a workflow.  In the world of compliance, GDPR, and privacy protection, allowing us to automate a more absolute "never contact this person again" flag should be a choice.

Sure, we can create our own opt-out flag and weave it into our workflows, but why duplicate what you have already built into your own infrastructure?  Give me a warning modal or make my type in the number of contacts that may be impacted, but please, give me the option.

[BB1]

We need this too.

Or use case is - we can manually mark a company as unsubscribe and then want to opt out all of the contacts in that company. We can make a workflow to tag all the contacts "unsubscribed" and have them included in an Exclude list, but that would not guarantee that we don't email them by mistake. We want to have a workflow that automatically add them to the HS Opt-out list to ensure we don't email them by mistake.

Not ideal to need to do that every week as it is extra work and also there is the time period during that week when they can still receive emails. 

[stimmer]

I'm confused why HubSpot doesn't allow this feature because it already allows the functionality that would virtually do the same thing.  You do offer the ability to opt out contacts of individual email subscription types through a Workflow (in bluk).  So an automation could be created to opt contacts out of every email subscription within the system.  And since every email created requires an subscription type to send, you're pretty much unsubscribing the contact from all emails without checking the actual box.

[jvionas]

Hi Matt (and everyone else),

I'm not sure if you saw this, but HubSpot recently updated their workflows so that "Manage Subscription Status" is a workflow option and you can now opt-out someone based on an action (i.e. email click, a page view, or even a custom field):

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/workflows/choose-your-workflow-actions (scroll down to "Manage subscription status").

If you have multiple subscription types, you'd just add multiple steps to the workflow.

Hope that helps!

Jessica

[DevonG]

That still does not globally opt them out.

What happens if we delete the contact (because if you cannot email them, why even keep them in your system and have it count against your pricing tier)? They need to still be unsubscribed and legally (can spam) we are required to store their opt out status even when removed from the database.

What happens if someone creates a new subscription type and forgets to add it to the workflow? Are they automatically opted out of that? (no)

This doesn't change the internal hs_email_optout field. For compliance reasons, how do you show who is truly opted out? You can't run a list on "Unsubscribed from all email" is true, nor can you check on the full contact property export nor export unsubscribes/bounces (portal unsubscribe will show as false).

If a contact has been deleted for more than 90 days and is recreated, are the subscription type statuses restored?

Currently, the only alternative is to use the API, but that requires sending the request server side.

[jvionas]

Hi Devon,

You are completely right - it doesn't solve the problem at its core - just looking for options...

As a work-around, you could opt people out using the subscription status workflow (so they quit getting emails immediately) and then once a month export them and import as a unsubscribe list (as Brett suggested) to "hard code" it into the system before you erase those contacts.

Unless you are adding subscription types or purging your database frequently, that would allow you work around the limitation of not being able to edit internal hs_email_optout field and still be compliant.

[katjaritchie]

Many HubSpot customers use other tools integrated with the platform that help manage email opt-outs - so they don't generally happen in bulk (use case for opt-out list) but still need to be automated.

Adding multiple subscription types to a workflow is time-consuming, and it requires updating the workflow accordingly if subscription types are ever updated.

A global opt-out action makes sense here - especially given the improved capabilities of double opt-in and resubscription options since this question was originally posted. 🙂