Unsubscribing from Emails and Email Categories

All of your marketing emails must include an unsubscribe link. 

To insert an unsubscribe link in an email you need to add a merge tag. 

To do that in the drag and drop email builder, select the section where you want to insert the unsubscribe link, click on Merge tags, then select one (or more) of the unsubscribe merge tags – "Unsubscribe from category", "Unsubscribe from all categories", or "Manage Preferences".

That merge tag will generate a link like the one below where your contacts will be able to unsubscribe from.

Email Categories

Note that emails sent before 30 Jul 2021 will not have email categories. For these emails, the unsubscribe link will unsubscribe from all email message.

Instead of unsubscribing your contacts from all of your emails, Encharge allows you to create email subscription categories. Your contacts can unsubscribe from one or more of the categories and choose what emails to receive from you, that way reducing your unsubscription rate and increasing the relevancy of your email messages.

You can create categories based on topics, for example, "Promotional emails", "Product updates". Or you can group your emails based on the email frequency "Weekly emails", "Monthly emails", etc.

To manage your Email categories go to Settings → Categories or click on this link - https://app.encharge.io/settings/communication-categories

Encharge has two default categories:

  • Marketing Emails – the default category for all marketing-related emails. All marketing emails require an unsubscription link and mailing address. Failing to any of these to your marketing emails will result in your email being automatically paused by the system.
  • Transactional Emails – This is a default special category for system-based emails like password reset, order confirmation, etc. Emails in this category do not need an unsubscribe link and mailing address. Your contacts can not unsubscribe from this category. Because of that, this category will never show in the Communication Preferences center. Note that this category is only available to subscribers to the Premium plan.

You can rename these default categories, but you can't deactivate them.

To add a new email category, click on the blue plus sign at the bottom left. Then, enter the category name and description — these are the name and description that your contacts will see on the Communication Preferences page:

Note that you can't create a new category for transactional emails. In other words, there's only one category for transactional emails – the default one (as explained above). All other categories require that you have the mailing address and unsubscribe links included in the emails that belong to them.

Deactivating a category

Note that you can't remove an email category, however, you can deactivate categories. To do that click on the three dots on the right of the category and select "Deactivate". Deactivated categories will not show on the Communication Preferences page.

Selecting a category for your emails

To select a category for your emails, go to the email in the drag and drop builder or the simple email builder. Then, click on the Category dropdown and choose the right category for the email. Note that the "Marketing emails" category will be selected by default. 

Communication Preferences page

When a person clicks to unsubscribe from a category or all emails, they will be taken to a confirmation page like the one below (see screenshot). 

This page includes a list of all of your categories (except Transactional emails). A contact can decide what email categories to unsubscribe (or subscribe) by clicking the category they want. There's also a default option to unsubscribe from all emails.

How do categories work?

There are 3 possible subscription statuses for categories:

  • Opted in – the person is subscribed to receive emails from this category.
  • Opted out – the person has unsubscribed from this category.
  • Not opted in or out –  the person is neither subscribed nor unsubscribed from this category. 

Encharge sends emails to both "Opted in" AND "Not opted in or out" categories. Currently, when a person is created in your Encharge account the default status for all of their email categories is "Not opted in or out". Meaning that the contact has not explicitly opted in for a specific category, but they will receive emails for all categories. 

When a person opts out from a category, the category status is changed to "Opted out", and they will stop receiving emails for this category. Encharge will not send emails to "Opted out" categories. However, note that even if a person opts out from all of your categories, they can still receive emails from you for new categories that you create. In other words, they are still subscribed to your communication - their "Unsubscribed" field value is still "false".

The other way is also valid. If a person has unsubscribed from all emails (i.e., "Unsubscribed" field value is "true") but they opt in for one or more of your categories, they will become subscribed, and their "Unsubscribed" field value will change to "false".

Manage contact preferences from the person's profile

Apart from the Communication Preferences page, you can manually change the subscription preferences of a person from their profile.

Go to their profile, click on the Edit button, and scroll to the bottom of the fields. You will see the Communication Categories section. It will include all of your email categories and the subscription preference selected by the user: There are three possible options:

  • Opted in – the person is subscribed to receive emails from this category.
  • Opted out – the person has unsubscribed from this category.
  • Not opted in or out – the person is neither subscribed nor unsubscribed from this category. Note that Encharge will send emails to contacts with this category status.

If you want to see what people have subscribed or unsubscribed from a specific category, you can create segments. If the email category is named “Marketing emails”, for example, you can create a segment using the Field condition “Marketing emails” is “Opted in”, "Opted out" or "Not opted in or out".

Unsubscribe Merge Tags

Encharge supports three types of unsubscribe links (merge tags):

  • Unsubscribe from category – this link will unsubscribe the contact only from the category of the email. When clicking this link the contact will be taken to the Communication Preferences center with the category un-checked and highlighted. The contact needs to confirm unsubscribing from the category by clicking on the "Update communication preferences button"
  • Unsubscribe from all categories – this link will unsubscribe the contact from all categories/emails. The contact will be taken to a confirmation page and has to click on "Unsubscribe from all emails" to confirm unsubscription.
  • Manage preferences – will open the Communication preferences center where the contact can choose what emails to unsubscribe from.

You can include one or more of these links (merge tags) in your marketing emails.

Type Unsubscribe Link merge tag Unsubscribe Link text Unsubscribe URL merge tag
Unsubscribe from category {{person.unsubscribeLink}} Unsubscribe from category {{person.unsubscribeURL}}
Unsubscribe from all categories {{person.unsubscribeAllLink}} Unsubscribe from all emails {{person.unsubscribeAllURL}}
Manage Preferences {{person.managePreferencesLink}} Manage Preferences {{person.managePreferencesURL}}

Unsubscribe Link merge tag VS Unsubscribe URL merge tag

If you want to set a custom unsubscribe link text you need to use the Unsubscribe URL merge tag in a link, as explained below.

  • Usubscribe Link merge tag – The Unsubscribe Link merge tag will generate a line of HTML code that includes both the unsubscribe URL and a default link text. For instance, <a href="https://app.encharge.io/public/subscription-preferences?unique-unsubscribe-url">Unsubscribe</a>.  Where "https://app.encharge.io/public/subscription-preferences?unique-unsubscribe-url" is the URL and "Unsubscribe" is the link text. You can not change the text of the link with this tag.
  • Unsubscribe URL merge tag – The URL merge tag will only insert the URL – i.e., "https://app.encharge.io/public/subscription-preferences?unique-unsubscribe-url". This allows you to use custom text for your unsubscribe links. For example, you can change the unsubscribe link text to a different language. Then, all you need to do is insert a link with the URL merge tag in the URL section like the screenshot below. Alternatively, you can insert the URL using the "Special links" button.

Unsubscribe Header

Encharge automatically adds the unsubscribe button in the Header of the Email as shown below.

However, please note that this option only appears to senders who have acquired enough positive reputation. Otherwise, the link shows as follows:You can find more information about the Unsubscribe Header reputation here and here

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