Creating an unsubscribe preference centre

Decide which email campaign channel you want to allow your recipients to opt out of, e.g. your newsletter, your weekly alerter, your triggered email series following signup. In this example, let's say it's your Newsletter.

Now, if you haven't already done so, create an address book in dotMailer called, for example, 'Newsletter subscribers'. To do this choose 'My contacts' from the left hand menu and click 'ADD NEW' beneath the 'Address books' tab, and follow the wizard.

The next step is to make that address book 'public' so your recipients can select to opt out of it if they click the 'unsubscribe' link in any of your email campaigns.

To do this click 'My contacts' in the left hand menu and click on the 'i' icon to the right of the address book you want to make public. 

Then click in the box next to 'Show advanced options', click the tab labelled 'Contact preferences' and click the button 'This address book is public', then hit SAVE.

Next, if you haven't already done so, use dotMailer's 'Signup Forms' creator tool  to create the form script for your website that will ensure anyone who signs up to your newsletter on your website, gets added automatically to the right address book.

To do this, click on 'My contacts' in the left hand menu, then click on 'Signup forms'. Now follow the wizard by choosing one of the 'address book subscribe' options from list 1, the name of your address book from list 2 (in this case 'Newsletter subscribers') and the fields you want to include in your webform.

Complete the rest of the wizard fields and click 'CREATE FORM'. Now scroll down to find and copy the form script that should go to your webmaster or website designer to enable them to create your signup form.

Find out more here.