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Gather Requirements

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

  • Gather business requirements for your preference center.
  • Explain the difference between a private domain and personalized URLs.

Custom Preference Center

Managing your subscriber's preferences is an important responsibility of marketers. And for good reason—because understanding how your customers want to hear from you (and adhering to their wishes) is the only way to build a successful, trusted relationship. It’s important to take the time to get it right. 

There are a few ways to manage preferences. Before you decide on a custom preference center, check out the Personalized Email Marketing badge. In that badge, you learn about the default profile and subscription centers in Marketing Cloud Engagement, along with the benefits of creating a custom preference center. If you already know a custom preference center is for you, then you’re in the right place. In this module, we review the requirements and steps to create a preference center using CloudPages. Since custom preference centers are just that—custom—we cover one specific use case in this module that provides a template to help you create your ideal preference center.  

Note

While there are different ways of storing data and sending emails in Marketing Cloud Engagement, this module provides a solution for an account using data extensions. If you want a solution for sending through Salesforce CRM, check out Create a Custom Preference Center Solution Kit.

Preference Center Basics

Preference management in Marketing Cloud Engagement includes two standard pages: a basic profile page that collects subscribers’ personal information and a subscription center which handles campaign-specific opt-ins. Creating a custom preference center combines these two pages into one and allows you to tailor it to your audience and brand. Because it is a custom solution, you can create it to perform specific actions depending on your needs and workflow. For example, here is a Salesforce preference center that manages employee communications. 

Salesforce Communication Preferences page with communication options.

A good preference center makes it easy for subscribers to tell you exactly how they want to hear from you. Which is an invaluable tool for marketers.

Gather Requirements

Before you create a custom preference center, you need to discuss requirements with your team. Let’s review some of the topics you should cover. 

Content Considerations

Other than the compliance requirement of having a prominent and accessible unsubscribe option, the content of your preference center is up to your team. However, you shouldn’t collect data unless you plan to use it. Start by listing out everything you want to know about your customers, then narrow your focus by asking these questions. 

  • What information is relevant and needed to send your campaigns? Connect each data point to a communication or strategy.
  • How do your communications benefit the customer? Clearly explain each communication and how often it is sent.
  • Are you requesting sensitive data like a birthdate? If you do need to collect sensitive data, clearly describe how it is used.

Design Considerations

Next, consider the design and user experience of your page. Your preference center should be an extension of your brand and have a similar design to your emails and website. As you design your page and review requirements with your design team, consider these questions.

  • Is it mobile-friendly with large, easy-to-use buttons?
  • Is the unsubscribe button clearly visible and easy to find?
  • Is it consistent with your company branding?
  • Does it follow accessibility guidelines?
  • Does it include alt text for any graphics or images?

Process Considerations

In addition to content and design, think about how the user can unsubscribe or change communication preferences.

  • Do you want an option for a one-click unsubscribe? If so, plan to create a separate processing page for your unsubscribe confirmation.
  • Do you want to send an email confirming preference updates? If so, you also need to create a triggered email campaign.
  • What success and error messages do you need to account for? Error messages should be clear with an explanation of the next steps.
  • Do you want to have an opt-down alternative along with an unsubscribe option? If so, define the cadence and how you plan to support sending fewer emails to that subscriber.
  • Is the subscriber coming to the page from an email or a website? Depending on your setup, consider the information you already have on that customer and how you can retrieve it.

Account Considerations

Finally, discuss the account considerations of using CloudPages. Let’s review.

  • Calculate impressions based on your subscriber list. An impression is logged every time a customer visits your preference center, which impacts an account’s super message usage. Have questions about super messages? Speak with your admin or account executive for more details.
  • Obtain a private domain with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate. You might also want a personalized, private domain to better reflect your brand. This is especially important if your page URL is visible to a customer and is accessed directly through that URL. You should purchase a branded and personalized domain with SSL before building your preference center to ensure it is set up properly. Check out the SSL certificate Trailhead badge for the process needed to obtain a certificate from Salesforce or to use your own SSL certificate. It’s important to note that you need one SSL per custom CloudPage domain.
  • Use personalized and friendly URLs. You can also use personalized and friendly URLs for your page. Personalized URLs, or PURLS, refer to the personalization of the page key (pages.cumulus.com/PAGEKEY) versus a purchased private domain (pages.cumulus.com). PURLs provide greater campaign customization, making messages more directed and relevant.

Allow Custom Links

In order to use a custom link in your email footers, an admin needs to confirm that custom links are allowed in your account. Then your account admin can follow these steps to enable custom links by disabling two settings.

  1. From Marketing Cloud Engagement Setup, search in the Quick Find bar for Email Optional Features.
  2. Confirm the Profile Link Check (1) and Unsubscribe Link Check (2) are marked as disabled.  Email Optional Features page in Setup showing Profile Link Check and Unsubscribe Link Check as Disabled.

Next Up: Data Management

Now that you have an idea of your content, design, and account considerations, let’s cover the most important aspect of planning for your preference center: data management.

Resources

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