‘Compliance made easier’ in Dynamics Marketing: Consolidated Double Opt-in
One of the new features of release wave 1 2020 was a very humbly titled ‘Compliance made easier’ [1] - in my mind compliance = boring but actually it’s got some really cool stuff that is not so boring and deserves to be talked about. I looked at one of these features in an earlier blog post on the Accessibility Checker but there is more. Lets take a look at how we can now consolidate double opt-in requests for an enjoyable and compliant customer experience.
Whats ‘Double Opt-in’?
In a nutshell is when a contact ‘opts-in’ i.e. signs up for any kind of email marketing list they will be sent an automated email asking them to confirm their intentions and wish to join the marketing list. Only once the confirmation is received will the email be added to the subscription lit of choice.
Do you have to implement it? From a legal GDRP perspective no absolutely not, however it’s highly recommended/encouraged/endorsed. There are many benefits and downfalls of implementing Double Opt-in (further reading [2] ) but I’m assuming since your here you have made the wise decision that you do want to do double opt-in, and you want to do it well!
Types of double opt-in for Dynamics Marketing
There are now two way you can configure double opt-in process in Dynamics Marketing either global level or form level. Only one of these approaches would be used in an organisation, never both so lets look at how each one works and how to get your double opt-in process running smoothly and compliantly in Dynamics marketing.
Pre-release wave 1 2020: Explicit opt in
Global level double opt-in i.e ‘explicit opt in’ in means that if the customer subscribes to a list anywhere in your system on any form or page, they will be required to confirm each subscription by email. The same confirmation email will be used for all subscriptions.
Before releases wave 1 this was the only option for double opt-in - all or nothing. The customer receives an email for each individual subscription and would have to confirm each one individually so I sign up for four new subscriptions - I will receive 4 separate emails I have to click to confirm. Its top marks for compliance and clarity on what the customer is signing up to plus its super simple to set up and maintain. However, its a not so great user experience to be on the other end of and I can imagine the follow through rate on this is very low! Killing off your marketing contacts one click at a time.
Creating the Confirmation Email
There is an existing template called ‘diamante’ which has all the required elements so its an easy click and go but it is built on the ‘old’ email designer so no layout formatting is possible and its rather clunky.
Realistically you already have some great company branded templates and you want to use them rather than reinvent the wheel on another email. Here are the rules for building your own:
Must not contain:
‘view as webpage’ links
a subscription center link
Must include the following (you can use content assist builder or just paste the text in from below)
The name of the subscription list or lists the customer has signed up for - {{Message.ConfirmationObjectName}}
A link to allow the customer to click something (button, image, link, whatever) to give their consent - {{Message.ConfirmationRedirectURL}}
I highly recommend you build your confirmation email from your own tempates over using the outdated and restrictive template. If you want to know more about configuring the global double opt-in experience or more about the who/what/why on double opt-in check out this blog from Jesper Osgaard [3]
Post release wave 1: Consolidated opt-in
Form level double opt-in i.e ‘consolidated opt in’ allows customers to subscribe to multiple lists and confirm their opt-in through a single confirmation email. It also means that different emails can be sent for different form submissions plus you don’t need to enable double opt-in for all forms. Why is this cool? Because now we can accommodate for multi-brand and multi-country deployments. We can ensure each brand/country is sent an appropriately matched confirmation email or maybe even none at all for countries who do not require double opt-in.
Set up Consolidated opt-in
First things first - we need to turn OFF global double opt-in (if it is already enabled). Go to Settings -> Default Marketing Settings -> Open your active marketing settings -> In the ‘Global level double opt-in’ tab -> Set ‘Enable double opt-in’ to ‘No’.
Create the Confirmation Email
You need to create a marketing email that will be used for the confirmation of the opt-in. The particular nuances and required elements differs from that of global opt-in or a ‘normal’ marketing email. There are two options - use a pre-built template or build from scratch.
Pre-built template
There is also a new template called ‘form-doubleoptin’ which is set up on the new layout editor, has all those elements for a click and go experience and a nice clean design to work with/tweak to your branding.
Build from scratch
Make use of your branded and formatted templates - here are the rules for building your own:
Must not contain:
‘view as webpage’ links
a subscription center link
Must include the following (you can use content assist builder or just paste the text in from below)
The names of the subscription list or lists the customer has signed up for - {{FormDoiSubmission.SubscriptionListNames}}
A link to allow the customer to click something (button, image, link, whatever) to give their consent - {{FormDoiSubmission.ConfirmationUrl}} for consolidated double opt-in experience.
Turn on form level double opt in
Now we are ready to turn on form level double opt-in. Head to your subscription centre form (or set up a new one [4]) in your release wave 1 enabled Dynamics Marketing instance. Under the ‘Summary’ tab turn ON ‘Enable double opt-in’. You need to select your confirmation email, content settings and redirect marketing page when the opt-in is confirmed. Then you are good to go!
Consolidated double opt-in in action
There you have it - a much cleaner, simpler user experience that you would expect from a mature Marketing solution.
My only slight concern of this method if the potential increase in risk for GDPR impacted organisations to ensure each form has the opt-in enabled then the appropriate confirmation email/thank-you pages assigned. Otherwise they could be unintentionally breaching legislation. So long as a rigorous management and administration process is in place I see no reason why this method can’t be a roaring success.
Being able to customise confirmation emails to the specific brand, country and business unit ensures a more personalised, seamless experience for your customers. This is a really great feature which allows organisations to scale globally and enterprise wide with Dynamics Marketing, without loosing the unique individual customer approach.
PS. After some soul searching I did eventually find the Microsoft documentation on this feature configuration should you need any further reference [5]
[2] https://www.signupto.com/news/gdpr-double-opt-in-and-re-consent/
[3] https://lystavlenhistoric.home.blog/2020/04/19/double-opt-in-in-dynamics-365-marketing/
[4] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/marketing/set-up-subscription-center
[5] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/marketing/form-double-opt-in