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Groups* Marketing Cloud Engagement *A M's Question
A M (Admin) asked in * Marketing Cloud Engagement *
Sep 23, 8:33 AM

A way to get unsubscribe reason and unsubscribe date from all subscribers in parent bu

I'm currently trying to get a data extension to fill with all subscribers unsubscribe fields: 

 

Unsubscribe Date

Unsubscribe Reason

 

 

- but ive been told that its not possible to retrieve. I was also told that those two fields are custom and have been added to my all subscribers list.  

 

I didnt set up the account so i dont have knowledge on what they did but does anyone have any insight or examples of how to get this information. im using it to enrich our crm so our reps can see if people have complained or unsubscribed.

1 answer
  1. Asim Ansari (Intellectual Clouds)
    Sep 23, 9:21 AM

    Hi @A M

     

    A few things worth untangling here, because "not possible to retrieve" is only half true depending on where those two fields actually live: 

     

    Unsubscribe Date this is retrievable 

    Marketing Cloud maintains this natively in the _Unsubscribe Data View (one of the standard tracking Data Views). It includes SubscriberKey, ListID/PublicationListID, EventDate (the unsub timestamp), and IsUnsub. 

    • Build a SQL Query Activity in Automation Studio against _Unsubscribe, targeting your subscriber population, and write the result into a Data Extension.
    • Schedule it (Automation Studio) to refresh regularly.
    • Watch the ListID - if there are multiple publication lists, decide whether you want "unsubscribed from anything" or "unsubscribed from list X"  that's a scope question to confirm before building the query.

    Unsubscribe Reason - depends entirely on where it's stored

     

     

    Marketing Cloud does

    not

    natively capture a "reason" on unsubscribe there's no out-of-the-box field for this. So if it exists in your account, someone built it. The person who told you "it's not possible" is probably right about native functionality but the custom field changes that. Two likely setups, and you need to confirm which: 

     

    1. It's a Data Extension field (e.g. populated by a custom Preference Center CloudPage where the subscriber picks a reason before confirming unsub) → straightforward, just SQL Query Activity / direct query against that DE like any other field.
    2. It's a Subscriber Attribute (account-level custom attribute visible on the subscriber record in Email Studio, not a DE column) → cannot be pulled with a plain SQL Query Activity, since Subscriber Attributes aren't part of the relational DE/Data View model. You'd need to retrieve it via the SOAP Retrieve call on the Subscriber object (requesting the Attribute in the Properties node), typically from a script (SSJS in Automation Studio, or an external integration hitting the SOAP/REST API)  not a SQL join.

    Before building anything, I'd check: open a subscriber record in Email Studio → Subscribers → does "Unsubscribe Reason" show up under Subscriber Attributes

    , or is it a column when you preview the underlying Data Extension for the Preference Center? That one check tells you which of the two paths above applies, and it's the difference between "one SQL query" and "an API integration." 

     

    For your actual goal (CRM enrichment) 

      

    Once you have both fields landing in a Data Extension, the path into CRM is the standard one:

    Marketing Cloud Connector

    (if this org has it) will sync Data Extension data into Salesforce, or you build a scheduled export/API push if Connector isn't in play. Worth confirming which sync mechanism this org already uses before designing a new one - mixing a fresh integration with existing Connector sync is a common source of duplicate/conflicting data. 

     

    I hope you find the above information helpful. If it does, please mark it as Best Answer to help others too.

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