Email Unsubscribe Investigation in Marketing Cloud

Purpose

Use this article when a contact says they are not receiving your emails sent through Marketing Cloud (this does not apply to emails sent through other platforms, such as Outlook), or when a contact requests to re-opt in and you need to identify which email communication they unsubscribed from.

This article helps Salesforce Marketing Cloud users (if you are not a Marketing Cloud user, you will need to submit a Mass Email ticket to investigate):

• Check the contact’s unsubscribe status in Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC)
• Review the related Communication Preference record in Salesforce EDA
• Identify the correct email unsubscribe footer used in the original email
• Gather the information needed to prepare the re-opt-in email in SFMC

This article is for the investigation and identification of an unsubscribe ONLY.
Use the separate re-opt-in article to send the approved re-opt-in transactional email.

How unsubscribe works in our environment

At St. Thomas:

• Unsubscribe is checked in SFMC
• Related communication preference details are checked in Salesforce EDA
• Do not manually change All Subscribers status
• For email audiences other than the SFMC users or the users' immediate teams, use the re-opt-in email after you identify the correct unsubscribe email footer

Step 1: Check whether the contact is in the recipient audience

Open the Data Extension used for the send and confirm the person is in the audience.

Step 2: Check whether the contact was included in the send

If the contact who didn’t receive the email is existing within the list, then you go to "Email Studio > Email > Tracking > Sends"

Click on the sent job you just made and click the “Total Sent” link under the "Overview" tab. 

Then, click on "Search" button to use the search bar. You can search for user using their email address or their 18-digit subscriber key (you can use Email Studio to look for their subscriber key).

Result

• If the record appears, the person was sent the email. Ask them to check inbox, junk, quarantine, and search by sender name or subject line.
• If the record does not appear, continue to the next step.

In this step, it’s most likely that the person unsubscribes from your mailing list. Follow the checklist below to check their status. 

Step 3: Check subscriber status in Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC)

Check the subscribers list in SFMC by "Email Studio > Email > Subscribers > All Subscribers".

Use "Search" button to search for the user by the email address or subscriber key(contact ID) 

Status meanings

• Active = can receive email
• Unsubscribed = cannot receive email from that BU
• Held = suppressed due to delivery issues

If the status is red, it means unsubscribed in the business unit level. None of the emails can be sent to that person’s inbox (including transactional). Do Not edit their status manually here. 

If everything looks good here, follow the steps to check their "Communication Preferences" in Salesforce EDA in the next section.

Step 4: Check a Contact’s Email Subscription Status in Salesforce EDA

First, login to SF EDA and click on the 9 dots at the top left of the page if you do not see "Communication Preferences" in your SF EDA user view. 

Click “View All” and look for the HEDA app.

Then, use the search bar to search for the contact by the email address or full name. Their "Communication Preferences" will pop up the communication tab.
 

If the Opt Out box is checked, which means they are in the suppression list and unsubscribed. Do not edit their preferences manually unless you have their consent (keep their written consent/email in a dedicated folder on your team's SharePoint site and retain it for record-keeping indefinitely). The correct way to re-opt someone in is to send a transactional re-opt-in email that lets them re-opt back in. 

Use the details to identify the correct record, especially:

• Business Unit Name
• Sender name - for you to use to send the Re-opt-in email
• Email name - to locate the unsubfooter in SFMC

If there are multiple records, click View More.

Step 5: Opt-out at Individual Email Communication Preference 

Find the correct Communication Preference record via the Business unit name and Sender name. You will click “View More” to check all the records if the person has 5+. Click the record hyperlink “CP-XXXXX” to view the details of that opt-out activity. 

In the screenshot below, you can see the email name, which is the name in Content Builder from SFMC. Email address, Opt Out status and Created By who and what time. You can use this information to locate it in SFMC. Only if you are an SFMC user and you correct an accidentally opted-out case for yourself or someone at your team and you have his or her request to re-opt back in, you can do this step: click the pencil icon to edit it. If you are investigating an unsubscribe for all other audiences, you CANNOT edit this opt-out. Editing this opt-out manually violates the CAN-SPAM law. 

Note: Updating a contact in EDA will take until the next morning to update in Marketing Cloud. This is because our Automations that update Auto Suppression Lists in Marketing Cloud run daily around 4:00 AM to 5:00 AM. 

Step 6: Find the unsubscribe footer used in the original email 

Using the send job and Communication Preference details, locate the original email in SFMC.

Identify the unsubscribe footer used in that email.

You will need that same footer for the re-opt-in email.

Before moving to the re-opt-in article, note these details:

• Email job ID
• Sender key
• Email name
• Business Unit
• Sender name
• Unsubscribe footer used
•  Email communication name

Next step for Re-opt-in ONLY

How to Send a Re-Opt-In Email in Marketing Cloud

Related article: How to Send a Re-Opt-In Email in Marketing Cloud