Manage Email marketing categories

Documentation Index

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Email marketing categories let you organize Email Broadcasts and Sequences into five distinct types. Instead of a single all-or-nothing unsubscribe, contacts can opt out of the email types they don’t want while staying subscribed to the ones they do. When you create an Email Broadcast or Sequence, you select one of the following categories. Only contacts subscribed to that category receive the email.

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Enable Email marketing categories

Before enabling Email marketing categories, click Assign categories to your existing emails to re-categorize unsent Email Broadcasts, as well as currently running or unsent Email Sequences. If you have multiple sites, you can switch between sites and apply your selections across all of them at once. Any existing unsent emails left unchanged will default to General Marketing. To enable Email marketing categories:

1. From the Dashboard, navigate to Settings > Marketing settings.
2. Locate the Email marketing categories section.
3. Review the description and click the toggle to enable.

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Assign a category to an email

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Email Broadcasts

1. From the Dashboard, navigate to Marketing > Email Campaigns.
2. Click + New Email Campaign to create a new Email Broadcast or open an existing one.
3. On the Select recipients screen, locate the What type of email marketing is this? section.
4. Select a category from the list.
5. The subscriber count will update to reflect only contacts subscribed to that category.

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Email Sequences

1. From the Dashboard, navigate to Marketing > Email Campaigns.
2. Click + New Email Campaign to create a new email sequence or open an existing one.
3. On the email sequence home page, locate the What type of email marketing is this? section. This section also appears on the Subscribers tab.

Select a category. General Marketing is selected by default.

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How contacts manage their preferences

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Email footer link

Marketing emails will contain either an Unsubscribe or a Manage your email preferences link in email footers depending on the editor used. When a contact clicks it, they see a preference page where they can:

• Toggle individual categories on or off
• See which category the email they clicked from belongs to
• Unsubscribe from the individual Email Sequence
• Unsubscribe from all marketing emails at once using the master toggle

If a member returns to an email where they previously unsubscribed and clicks on the same link, they will be able to modify their preferences again.

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Member settings

The Member settings page, where contacts manage notification preferences, also includes the marketing email category toggles, giving contacts another way to manage their subscriptions.

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Contact profile and Marketing status changes

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Marketing status

With Email marketing categories enabled, a contact’s marketing status can display as:

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Contact profile detail

On a contact’s profile, the Info section now shows each of the five categories with their individual subscription status and the date they initially subscribed to marketing updates.

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Filter and segment by category

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Contact segments

The Email Marketing Subscribed segment includes both fully and partially subscribed contacts.

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Contact filters

Filter by Marketing Category Status to see the contacts within a given category. The options per category are:

• Subscribed: Contacts currently subscribed or not subscribed to that category
• Opted out: Contacts who opted out of that category within the selected time frame
• Can be subscribed: Contacts who are eligible to be subscribed to that category

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Bulk actions for category unsubscribes

1. From the Dashboard, navigate to Contacts.
2. Select the contacts you want to update.
3. Open the Bulk Actions menu and locate the Marketing Consents section.

Select Unsubscribe from [category name] for the desired category.

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Upload contacts with category preferences

When uploading contacts via CSV, the upload flow includes subscription options for each of the five categories in addition to the overall marketing email subscription. If the Subscribe to marketing emails checkbox is unchecked, all five category checkboxes are automatically unchecked and disabled.

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Add a single contact with category preferences

When adding a single contact from the Contacts page, you can set their subscription status for each of the five categories individually.

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FAQs

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Can I turn off Email marketing categories after enabling them?

No. Enabling Email marketing categories is a one-way change. Reverting would require collapsing individual category preferences back into a single setting, which could result in contacts being unsubscribed from emails they still want to receive.

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What happens to my existing contacts when I enable this feature?

All contacts currently subscribed to marketing emails are automatically subscribed to all five categories. All contacts unsubscribed to marketing emails are automatically unsubscribed to all five categories. Their experience doesn’t change until they choose to manage their preferences.

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What happens to my existing scheduled emails?

All existing scheduled Email Broadcasts, Email Sequences are assigned to the General Marketing category. Automations emails will also be sent via the General Marketing category, and Event emails will always be sent via the Event Information category.

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Can I change the category after an email has been sent?

No. Once any email within an Email Broadcast, Email Sequence, or Event action has been sent, the category is locked and cannot be changed.

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Do contacts choose categories when they subscribe?

No. When a contact subscribes, they are automatically opted in to all five categories. Category-level preferences are managed through the preference page only.

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Does this affect Newsletters?

No. Newsletters have their own separate subscription management and are not part of email marketing categories.

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Does this affect transactional emails?

No. Transactional emails, such as receipts and app notifications, are not marketing emails and are not affected by this feature.

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How does the “Manage Your Email Preferences” link work?

The link replaces the previous Unsubscribe link in email footers. It opens a preference page where contacts can toggle individual categories on or off, or unsubscribe from all marketing emails at once.