How do I allow contacts to manage preferences? How do I allow contacts to edit their details?

The Preference Center feature allows recipients to manage their preferences (rather than opting out of all emails from a particular sender) by selecting which groups they want be included in and/or to update their contact details as stored in your account.

The preference center is entirely configured via Settings. The two primary settings that you may want to edit in order to turn on the preference center for your recipients are Contact Editing and Group Editing. 

In this article

Manage Preferences

To allow contacts to select which groups they belong to within your account:

  1. Click Settings in the upper right.
  2. Go to the My Settings tab > Preference Center > Contact Management section (or search for "Group Editing"), and click on the Group Editing setting.
  3. Select the On option.
  4. Optionally edit the section heading display name and instruction text.
  5. Click the Select Groups button to choose the group(s) that will be displayed as options to contacts, and click the Select button.
  6. Optionally edit the Display Name and Description (such as a brief indication of the types and frequencies of the communications they will receive) for each group as it will appear to contacts.
  7. Click the Update button.

Edit Details

To allow contacts to modify their details (such as first name, last name, email address) as stored in your account:

  1. Click Settings in the upper right.
  2. Go to the My Settings tab > Preference Center > Contact Management section (or search for "Contact Editing"), and click on the Contact Editing setting.
  3. Select the On option.
  4. Optionally edit the section heading display name, instruction text, and which fields contacts can modify.
  5. Click the Update button.

How it Works

After the Contact Editing and/or Group Editing settings have been turned on, a "Manage Preferences" section will appear on the opt out page (accessed by clicking the unsubscribe link) above the opt out options. You may also want to modify your templates to include an additional link to "Manage Preferences".

After clicking the button, the recipient is taken to a window displaying their contact and/or group editing options. And after they have made their changes, they will receive an email confirmation containing a link that they will need to click in order to verify that they are the owner of the email address.

We always recommend completing a thorough review and test of any new or modified functionality after you have made any changes to the above two settings to make sure recipients view what you intend for them to view.

Warning! The "Group Editing" and "Contact Editing" features of the Preference Center are not intended to be or replace a CRM system and may not be appropriate for companies with multiple user accounts.

The Preference Center operates at the one-to-one level, meaning the preferences of a single individual contact as stored within a single user account. If a contact may be stored within multiple user accounts at your company, you would need to turn on Group Editing and/or Contact Editing for a single account that shares groups out to other users in order to ensure that those preferences are known to all users who may send campaigns to the contact. Contact your administrator or us for additional help with Preference Center configuration.

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