Your contacts’ suppression or resubscription status can be synced between Dotdigital and Salesforce. You can also issue resubscribe emails direct from Salesforce to allow your contacts to opt back in to your communications.
Suppressed contacts in Salesforce
Your contacts and leads can opt-out of receiving your emails by using the unsubscribe link inside an email campaign. This unsubscribe request then syncs back to Salesforce.
Contacts who are suppressed by you in Dotdigital, or who become suppressed due to hard or soft-bounces or complaints are also synced to Salesforce. These contacts appear on a suppression list in both Dotdigital and Salesforce.
Learn more about suppressed contacts in Understand email contact suppression reasons.
To view the suppression list in Salesforce:
Select Configuration.
Select the account name.
Select Related.
Select Suppressions.
You can also select View all.
A list of suppressed contacts is displayed, along with the date of and reason for the suppression. This list is synced with the suppression list in Dotdigital.
List level suppressions
Your subscribers might use a preference centre to control which of your communications they want to receive. When a subscriber opts-out of a particular Dotdigital list, this syncs back to Salesforce and the contact or lead is removed from the related Email address book.
Salesforce Email Opt Out
There are steps you must take in Salesforce to ensure that the email opt out field can be populated when a contact unsubscribes from a Dotdigital email campaign. The standard Salesforce field needs to be made visible for leads and contacts.
Before you start
This action must be performed by a Salesforce administrator.
1. Configure email opt out field visibility
Select the Setup cog and then Setup in the top right.
Search for Object using the Quick Find search bar.
Select Object Manager, and then go to Lead > Fields & Relationships.
Select Email Opt Out.
Select Set Field-Level Security, then select the Visible checkbox at the top of the column to set the field to visible for all profiles.
Select Save.
Select View Field Accessibility, then expand the Field accessibility for Field drop-down menu and select Email Opt Out.
Select Hidden for any of the Field Access results to access the edit page.
Select the Visible checkbox under Page Layout, then select Save.
Return to the Object Manager, then go to Contacts > Fields & Relationships, and repeat steps 4 - 9.
2. Refresh field mapping and synchronise suppressions
Select Configuration.
Expand the Settings drop-down menu and select Account Settings.
Under Suppression options, select both checkboxes .
Select Save.
Expand the Settings drop-down menu and select Field mapping.
Select Refresh now.
Expand the Settings drop-down menu and select Sync options.
To update all existing email campaigns with the related suppressions, select the Sync now checkbox for Suppressions, then select Synchronise Now.
Suppress a contact or lead in Salesforce
It’s possible to prevent a contact or lead from receiving further email communications directly from inside Salesforce.
To do this:
Select Contacts or Leads, depending on the member type you want to edit.
Select the contact or lead name.
Select Details.
Select the Edit icon to the right of the Email Opt Out checkbox.
Select the Email Opt Out checkbox, then select Save.
The contact or lead is no longer synced to any Dotdigital list, and is added to the suppression list in Dotdigital with the suppression reason Unsubscribed. During the next suppression sync, the contact or lead is added to the suppression list in Salesforce.
Learn more about suppressing contacts in Dotdigital in Suppressed contacts and domains.
Resubscribe a contact or lead in Salesforce
When a suppression against a contact record is removed in Dotdigital, for example, when a contact resubscribes to your communications through a signup form, this is reflected in Salesforce following the next scheduled suppression sync.
Alternatively, you can trigger a resubscribe request for the contact or lead direct from Salesforce. If the contact has unsubscribed or bounced, this request triggers a resubscribe confirmation email. If you manually suppressed the contact, they are resubscribed during the next scheduled sync without the need to additionally confirm through email.
1. Configure resubscribe request field visibility
Before you start
To access the resubscribe request functionality, you might need to upgrade the connector. Learn more in Upgrade your Dotdigital for Salesforce package.
This action must be performed by a Salesforce administrator.
To trigger a resubscribe request, you must first ensure that the necessary fields are visible within Salesforce.
These steps only need to be performed once, so if the fields have already been configured in your Salesforce instance, you can proceed to issuing the resubscribe request.
To enable the Resubscribe Requested Date field:
Select the Setup cog and then Setup in the top right.
Search for Object using the Quick Find search bar.
Select Object Manager, and then go to Suppression > Fields & Relationships.
Select Resubscribe Requested Date.
Select Set Field-Level Security, then select the Visible and Read-Only checkboxes at the head of the relevant column, to set for all profiles.
Select Save.
Select View Field Accessibility then expand the Field accessibility for Field drop-down menu and select Resubscribe Requested Date.
Select Hidden.
You can select this for any of the listed profiles.
Under Page Layout select the checkboxes for Visible and Read-Only.
Select Save.
To enable the Is Synchronised field:
Select Back to Custom Object: Suppression.
Select Is Synchronised.
Select Set Field-Level Security, then select the Visible and Read-Only checkboxes at the head of the relevant column, to set for all profiles.
Select Save.
Select View Field Accessibility then expand the Field accessibility for Field drop-down menu and select Is Synchronised.
Select Hidden.
You can select this for any of the listed profiles.
Under Page Layout select the checkboxes for Visible and Read-Only.
Select Save.
To enable the Request Resubscribe field:
Select Back to Custom Object: Suppression.
Select Request Resubscribe.
Select Set Field-Level Security, then select the Visible checkbox at the head of the relevant column, to set for all profiles.
Select Save.
Select View Field Accessibility then expand the Field accessibility for Field drop-down menu and select Request Resubscribe.
Select Hidden.
You can select this for any of the listed profiles.
Under Page Layout select the checkbox for Visible.
Select Save.
2. Add resubscribe related lists
Select the Setup cog and then Setup in the top right.
Search for Object using the Quick Find search bar.
Select Object Manager, and then go to Contact > Page Layouts and select a page layout.
Select Related Lists.
Select the Related List Properties icon for Suppressions.
Add Request Resubscribe and Resubscribe Requested Date to Selected Fields.
Select OK.
Select Save.
Return to the Object Manager, and then go to Lead > Page Layouts and select a page layout.
Repeat steps 4 - 8.
3. Issue a resubscribe request
Select Contacts or Leads, depending on the member type you want to resubscribe.
Select the contact or lead name.
You can search for the record using the Search field.Select Suppressions.
Expand the drop-down menu on the right, and select Edit.
Select the Request resubscribe checkbox, then select Save.
At the next scheduled suppression sync, as long as the sync is successful, two things happen:
If the contact was suppressed by you, they are immediately resubscribed.
OR
If the contact was suppressed for any other reason, they are sent a resubscribe confirmation email.
This will be either the default Dotdigital resubscribe email, or a customised triggered campaign, depending on your settings.
To learn more, check out the article Customise the resubscribe confirmation email.
The Resubscribe Requested Date is populated and the Is Synchronised checkbox is checked.
Once the contact has confirmed their resubscription using the link in the email campaign, they are removed from the suppression list and can be included in your email communications.