Customers are unintentionally unsubscribing from all subscription types

[Clubman]

We are sending newsletters incl. offers to our customers. We send them via a workflow as subscription type "Newsletter".

Some customers click on "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email, which unsubscribes them from ALL subscription types immediately.

Since they are our customers, they still need assistance from our agents. When our agents try to send them direct messages in Hubspot, they are not allowed to do this anymore, because the user unsubscribed (unintentionally) from all subscription types.

First solution was: Sending emails without "unsubscribe" and only "manage preferences", but users tend to unsubscribe still from all subscriptions types, because they dont know what each type is for.

Second solution was (from a community post here): Manipulate the unsubscribe-link in the footer, so they land on a dedicated page which triggers a workflow and only unsubscribes them from the type "Newsletter". This didnt work, because Hubspot does not allow to send emails without an unsubscribe-link (due to data protection settings in the EU, which we do not want to turn off).

Third solution was: If a customer unsubscribes from all subscription types, a workflow resubscribes them at least for direct messages. This is prevented by hubspot mechanism. A workflow cannot resubscribe a customer, when the user manually unsubscribed before. ("ILLEGAL_RESUBSCRIPTION")

Fourth solution (which works): An active lists, which filters for "customers" and unsubscribed from direct messages, and I check it once a week for entries and manually resubscribe (this is possible) each one of them to direct messages. I feel a bit stupid doing it that way, but I have not found another solution for this issue.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Clubman,

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@Clubman wrote:

First solution was: Sending emails without "unsubscribe" and only "manage preferences", but users tend to unsubscribe still from all subscriptions types, because they dont know what each type is for.

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... and that's exactly where you have options to change this behavior: simply provide descriptive explanations of what each subscription type entails and what contacts will not receive anymore if they unsubscribe.

The default subscriptions are typically bad and companies tend to not spend much time on optimizing them. A lot of HubSpot customers also create too many subscription types.

Spend some time on making this the best possible version of this page and you'll see unsubscribe numbers go down (unsubscribed from all email).

Of course people will unsubscribe if they see ticked boxes / toggles for communication they can't make sense of.

That + your fourth approach.

Best regards!

[MJBetito]

What an insightful thought!

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Clubman,

---

@Clubman wrote:

First solution was: Sending emails without "unsubscribe" and only "manage preferences", but users tend to unsubscribe still from all subscriptions types, because they dont know what each type is for.

---

... and that's exactly where you have options to change this behavior: simply provide descriptive explanations of what each subscription type entails and what contacts will not receive anymore if they unsubscribe.

The default subscriptions are typically bad and companies tend to not spend much time on optimizing them. A lot of HubSpot customers also create too many subscription types.

Spend some time on making this the best possible version of this page and you'll see unsubscribe numbers go down (unsubscribed from all email).

Of course people will unsubscribe if they see ticked boxes / toggles for communication they can't make sense of.

That + your fourth approach.

Best regards!

[Clubman]

Hi Karsten, I've read some of your other posts already regarding this issue. Very helpful and gave much more insight on those subscriptions! Thank you for this.

We already shrinked down the list to two subscription types. "Newsletter" and "Blog-Articles". The other ones "direct messages" and "communication with customer services" cannot (or shouldn't?) be deleted, since they are system defaults, as far as I understood.

We enhanced the description already, because I thought, a user most likely does not understand exactly which type of subscription he unsubs for. This might bring down the numbers, but I know users and they usally just tick the lowest box "unsubscribe from all".

We will monitor this, but a great improvement would be to offer us an option for an unsubscribe link, specific for the subscription type we set up the automation for. 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

@Clubman there's a private beta for this 😉 https://app.hubspot.com/l/product-updates/?rollout=253911

Since it's in private beta, I can't share the details here publicly.

If you don't have access to this yet, you can either reach out to your customer success manager and ask to be ungated or you need to be patient for a bit longer.

[Clubman]

Wow, that was very helpful! I just requested access for this beta.

Thats EXACTLY I was looking for. Hopefully the request gets approved. Else I have to contact our account manager to make this possible.

[BérangèreL]

Hi @Clubman, and happy Friday!
 

Thank you for reaching out to the HubSpot Community and for detailing your process, it's incredibly helpful to hear what’s worked for you!
 

Here are a couple of helpful articles on this topic:

- Set up email subscription types
- Customize your email subscription pages
- Display different email subscriptions for different contacts
 

I’d also love to connect you with some of our Top Experts. @danmoyle, @karstenkoehler and @VLarue, do you have any any tips or insights for @Clubman, please?

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks so much!
Bérangère