Give contacts a self-service form to opt out of email open and link click tracking, without turning tracking off for everyone.

Applies to: All Vuture sites (Vx, InterAction, Microsoft Dynamics and Intapp); Email campaigns and forms

Overview

Some privacy laws require that contacts can choose not to have their email activity tracked. Vuture now lets contacts opt out of email open tracking and link click tracking through a tracking opt-out form, which works in the same way as your unsubscribe form.

By default, all contacts are treated as opted in to tracking, so your reporting carries on as normal. When a contact opts out, Vuture stops recording their email opens and link clicks. Tracking stays on for everyone else, and the contact still receives your emails.

Before you start

• Tracking opt-out is available on all Vuture sites. You don’t need to ask Support to turn it on.

• You can create and edit forms in Vuture. The Subscriber Consent field is available in the standard and Microsoft Dynamics form editors.

• You can edit the email templates your campaigns use.

• To view the Subscriber Consent Change Log, your role needs both of these permissions:

• Admin Healthchecks, which is on by default for the Vuture Admin, Super Admin and Admin roles.

• ISPFeedbackLoop_Access, which must be turned on for each role that needs to view the log.

Set up tracking opt-out

Add the Subscriber Consent field to a form

You can add the field to a new form, such as a Tracking preferences form, or to an existing form like your unsubscribe form.

1. Open the form in the form editor.

2. In the list of fields, scroll to Privacy and select Subscriber Consent. The Subscriber Consent field is added to your form, with a checkbox labelled I do not consent to have my engagement tracked.

3. To change the wording, select the field and edit it in the field settings, as you would any checkbox.

4. Make sure the form has an Email field, so Vuture can identify contacts who open the form without pre-filled details.

5. Save and publish the form.

This is how the field appears to contacts on a published form:

Link to the form from your emails

1. Open the email template your campaigns use.

2. In the footer, insert the tracking opt-out merge field next to your unsubscribe merge field, in the same way. The merge field links each contact to the form, pre-filled with their details.

3. Save the template.

Emails built from this template now include the opt-out link. To offer tracking opt-out in some containers only, add the link to the templates in those containers.

How it works

Opting out and back in

A contact selects the opt-out link in your email and submits the form:

• Checkbox ticked: the contact is opted out of email open and link click tracking.

• Checkbox not ticked: the contact is opted in to tracking.

The contact can change their choice at any time by submitting the form again. When they reopen the form from an email, it remembers their last choice.

What changes for opted-out contacts

• Emails sent to them don’t include the open tracking pixel.

• Vuture doesn’t record their email opens or link clicks, including for emails sent before they opted out. This applies whether or not Email Analytics is turned on.

• Their opens and clicks aren’t added to your campaign reports.

• Link clicked and email opened triggers don’t fire for them.

• Links in your emails still work. Pre-filled forms still open with their details filled in, but no click is recorded.

In the Email Sending History, an opted-out contact shows as sent, with no open date and no link clicks.

View the Subscriber Consent Change Log

Every change to a contact’s tracking choice is recorded in the Subscriber Consent Change Log, newest first. Submitting the same choice again doesn’t add a new entry.

1. Go to Admin > Healthchecks.

2. Select Subscriber Consent Change Log.

3. In Looking at the last, enter the number of days to show. To find one contact, enter their email address, or part of it, in Email. Select Update.

4. To download the results as a spreadsheet, select Export to Excel.

Each entry shows the email address, the date and time of the change, the previous and new status, who made the change, and the IP address and browser used. SentGuid links to the email the contact came from, and shows a dash when there isn’t one.

Good to know

• Tracking opt-out is linked to an email address, not to the whole contact record. If you email a contact at more than one address, for example a primary and an alternative address, they need to opt out from each one.

• On a pre-filled form, Vuture uses the email address the email was sent to. On a blank form, it uses the email address entered in the form.

• Opting out of tracking doesn’t unsubscribe the contact. They keep receiving your emails.

• Opted-out contacts show no opens or clicks in your reports. If a contact’s activity looks missing, check the Subscriber Consent Change Log.

• Test sends aren’t tracked, as before.

• Opt-out status isn’t written back to your CRM.