Congratulations!
Let's get your unsubscribe automation up and running in your account!
Here's what you'll need to do:
Domain your Funnel
First off, we'll domain your funnel.
On the left sidebar, go to Sites > Funnels > Unsubscribe.
Click on the funnel's name, then go into the funnel's settings (you'll see the Settings option under the funnel's name).
On the top of the right-hand column, click on the dropdown menu for domains and select your domain to create URLs for these two funnel steps.
Scroll down and click save.
You'll be automatically brought out of the Settings section and back to where you can see the steps and thumbnail picture of the funnel page.
Above the thumbnail, you should now see a URL for your unsubscribe page. Highlight it and copy it, and you're ready to move on to the next tutorial!
Add the Unsubscribe URL to your Custom Values
We are going to take that copied value and put it in two places.
The first will be in a trigger link so that you can use it in your fancy emails (made in the Email Builder - newsletters, things with graphics and headers, etc).
The second will be in your email signature that you can attach to any random email you type out, kind of like how you can save an email signature for your personal or other work emails.
For both, we're actually going to save it as a Custom Value because the custom value is already saved in the Trigger Link. This may seem like a silly intermediary step, but there is good reason for it.
1. You only have to visit one place to put in your URL and it can update across any place you have the value saved, which saves you from having to add it to multiple locations.
2. If you ever need to change the URL, you only have to update it in one place.
So on your navigation menu (sidebar menu, whatever you want to call it), go down to Settings > Custom Values.
Find the Unsubscribe custom value and paste the URL you just copied into it.
Update & Enable your Email Signature
Almost done!
Now that you have your value/key copied - that information inside the {{ }} curly brackets - we're ready to click on your Profile (still in the Settings menu).
Scroll to find Email Signature in the left-hand column of your profile.
If you need to, create your signature real quick! Put in your name, phone, and email, and then add the word Unsubscribe at the bottom.
Higlight the work unsubscribe and click on the hyperlink icon (the thing that looks like chains). Paste the Unsubscribe URL into the bar at the top and click OK.
IMPORTANT NOTE: After much testing I found that the only way to guarantee the unsubscribe hyperlink will work is to put an actual URL into it - custom values and trigger links will NOT populate when you pull up the signature custom value (it's ok if this doesn't make total sense right now - I'll cover it in a video later on in this training!
Now above your signature, you'll see two checkboxes:
Enable Signature on All Outgoing Messages
Include this signature before quoted text in replies
Check both of them so that you see a blue checkmark in each. This will ensure that your signature block goes onto your emails anytime you send something out via the Contacts or Conversations tabs.
How to include Unsubscribe Trigger Link in Email Builder Footer
If you use the Email Builder to make fancier marketing emails and newsletters, there is a footer option that has an unsubscribe built into it.
Unfortunately, that unsubscribe link goes nowhere and does nothing. So anytime you use the footer, make sure to swap out the system link with your own Unsubscribe trigger link.
Make sure DND contacts are removed from Smart Lists
So important to do this next step!
If someone is marked DND, emails and messages will not be delivered to them. But if they are on a smart list and you send messages to that list, your system will TRY to deliver the messages and when the DND contact's email server blocks it, it can hurt your ability to send communication out to the people who do want to receive it.
Luckily, there's an easy fix because smart lists are, in fact, smart.
Check each smart list you've build so far for the following filter:
DND NO
If it's not on your lists, add it on right now. And add it on as an additional filter for every smart list moving forward to ensure that anyone marked as DND is not included on any of your smart lists.
This might raise the question for you - why don't I just delete this contact from my system? If you delete them and then find and import an old list of contacts you find, they might be on that list and then they'll be in your system again but without that DND label and you may start sending messages when they've already asked to be removed from your list. That results in angry contacts!
So keep them in your system, keep them marked as DND, and move them to the Do Not Contact stage of your pipeline as another visual reminder!
Add your Signature to Templates, Workflows, & Bulk Messages
When you go to send an email directly to a contact - either via their profile or the Conversations tab - your email signature will autopopulate. Yay!
But what happens when you want to send emails via the bulk actions (using those little icons in the Contacts tab) or workflows?
You can add your signature via a Custom Value to your message templates and bulk/workflow emails to ensure the unsubscribe value is attached to all emails.
(Disclaimer - you don't have to have something for a 1:1 conversation because you're showing up like a human being and talking to them, but you really should have them built into automations and email campaigns!)