It's important to understand your contacts' email preferences and have them recorded, not only for compliance reasons but to ensure you are engaging donors and contacts in the most effective way. Keela makes it easy for users and contacts to manage email preferences to ensure that emails are sent to the right people!

Tracking Email Preferences

Solicitation and Email Subscription Status refer to a contact's preference for email communications. These preferences are stored on the Contact Profile in the Admin section under the fields Solicitation and Email Subscription Status. Both can be edited by selecting the Edit button in the Admin section.

Solicitation

There are three options for Solicitation status:

• No - contact will not receive any emails from Keela, including Email Marketing and Direct Emails. Note that if you try to send a direct email to a contact whose Solicitation status is set to NO, you will receive a 'Do Not Solicit' notification. Tax receipts are exempt from this rule.
• Yes - contact allows emails from Keela, including Direct Emails and Email Marketing (if permitted under email subscription status).
• Unspecified - contact will receive Direct Emails from Keela, and for Email Marketing, you will have the option of sending or not sending to contacts with Unspecified status.

Email Subscription Status

There are three options for Email Subscription Status:

• Opted Out - contact will not receive any Email Marketing from Keela, but will still receive Direct Emails (if permitted under solicitation). Tax receipts are exempt from this rule.
• Opted In - contact will receive Email Marketing and Direct Emails from Keela.
• Unknown - contact will receive Direct Emails from Keela, and for Email Marketing, you will have the option of sending or not sending to contacts with Unknown status. 

Subscription Status History

This is a log of the Email Subscription history for the contact. This includes the updated status, the date, and location it occurred and, if done manually, the user who made the change. This will include any changes after December 22, 2020 when this feature was released.

Updating Email Preference via Email Marketing

Contacts also have the option to manage their own email preferences through the unsubscribe link in any Email Marketing they receive from you.  When your recipient clicks on the unsubscribe link they will be brought to this page:

Once they select an option and confirm the unsubscribe, their email subscription status will automatically be changed to 'Opted Out'. You can find details on the unsubscribe choice they selected under the contacts Interactions.

Updating Email Preference by Import

If you're just starting out and need to bulk adjust email preferences, you can do this through a Contact Import. 

FAQ

I have contacts who share an email address. What happens when the subscription status is updated for one of the contacts?

• If two contacts share an email address, when a user manually changes the subscription status of the contact it will only change for that contact, not others.
• The only exception to this is when an email address is unsubscribed via Email Marketing as the system will then unsubscribe all contacts that have that primary email address.
• If two contacts share an email address, and one contact changes their email address, the subscription status will be kept for that new email address.

I want to send Email Marketing to a Company in Keela. Is this possible?

• Company Contacts have the same Subscription Statuses as Individuals. So yes, Company Contacts can receive Email Marketing!