Segments in Customer Insights - Journeys: Consent, Purposes and Topics

A quick tip on how to create real-time segments in Customer Insights - Journeys based on marketing consent Opt In or Opt Out for a Contact or Lead.

In 100 words or less summarise consent in real-time marketing

Marketing permissions in Customer Insights - Journeys is found in the ‘Consent centre’ and also on the ‘Communication’ tab of the Contact/Lead form. Consent is stored in ‘contact point consent’ rows in Dynamics 365, but ‘Contact Point COnsent’ does not have a database relationship to Contact or leads. Instead they are ‘related’ by email address from the Contact or Lead with the ‘Contact Point’. It makes wonderful sense from the point of view of managing consent across multiple rows and tables but less useful when trying to create segments and views in Dynamics 365.

How do you create a segment using contact point consent?

Once you know, it’s simple but it’s not the most intuitive naming of things (nothing new there!). Under ‘Related tables’ in the ‘Attributes pannel of the segment builder you will see ‘Topics and Purposes’. From here you can select ‘Purpose name’ or ‘Topic name’. Either way you select the purpose first and then the topic if you chose to segment on ‘Topic name’.

I am yet to find an environment where this option was missing from ‘Related tables’ so you should not need to add this one in.

You can filter both Consent and Purposes by ‘Will Send’ or ‘Will not send’ which evaluates the send-ability based on whether your compliance profile is ‘Restrictive’ or ‘Non-restrictive’ as well as the contact point status (Opted In, Opted Out, Not Set).

Filter by purpose type

Filter by specific topic and purpose type

Why bother?

So what’s the point on segmenting on consent when this is already done automatically in the journey? Consent is checked at the point of sending an email or SMS in a journey, if there is no consent the message will be blocked with the reason ‘No consent’ so from a compliance point of view you do not need to segment for opted in recipients only. However, using consent filters in segments will help you to understand the true size and reach of your campaign before executing as all the segment members are eligible to receive your marketing. Your delivery delivery issues will be reduced to issues such as ’Suppression list’ and ‘Duplicate’ which you may want to actively address.

More Customer Insights - Journeys Segment related content here.

PS. at time of writing this I have come to the awkward realisation that I have no idea if this is checking consent for email, SMS, or both? Update with clarity on this pending…