Understanding Consent Differences Between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next

Marketing Cloud Next Consent: Subscriptions

Marketing Cloud Next uses subscriptions, like newsletters, and channels, like email and SMS, to send marketing content to individual records. These subscription-based preferences determine a person's consent—-no higher-level preference or opt-in field is available. A subscriber’s consent is managed only via subscription preferences. 

In Marketing Cloud Next, consent is linked to a unified individual, based on contact points, like an email address or a phone number. A Marketing Cloud Next subscriber can manage their communication preferences through email preference pages.

If a Marketing Cloud Next subscriber opts out of a specific subscription using a Marketing Cloud Next email preferences page, their contact point record shows as OPT_OUT for that subscription.

If a Marketing Cloud Next subscriber uses the unsubscribe from all emails option on an email preferences page, they are set as OPT_OUT for all subscriptions they’re a member of. If a Marketing Cloud Next subscriber is opted out of all subscriptions, they’re assumed to be unmailable.

A Marketing Cloud Next user can update the consent status from a lead, contact, or person account record using the Privacy Consent Status Lightning Web Component.

Account Engagement Consent: The Prospect Opted Out Field and Public Lists

Marketing Cloud Next only has one level of consent (subscriptions), but Account Engagement has two levels of consent.

• Prospect Opted Out Field: A prospect can opt out of all email marketing either by clicking "Unsubscribe" from an Account Engagement email or via the email preferences page, which also has an “Unsubscribe” option. This is tracked at the email level, so an opted-in or opted-out value will apply to all prospects who share the same email address.

• Public Lists: A prospect opts in to a specific public list (via an email preference center) and receives marketing emails sent to those lists. A prospect can opt out of any specific public list at any time using the email preferences page. Opting out of a specific list doesn’t mark a prospect as having opted out of all email marketing. Opting out of a specific list doesn’t update the prospect's Opted Out field.

Best Practices for Using Consent with Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next

Here are some best practices for navigating consent for both Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next. We recommend reviewing these tips before turning on consent matching in Account Engagement.

Focus on Data Hygiene and Integrity

• Clean Data is Key: Consent management relies on clean and accurate data. To  make sure you’re using consistent consent practices for all of your prospects and contacts, verify that your Account Engagement, Marketing Cloud Next, and Salesforce data are well-maintained. 

• Understand the Differences Between Opted Out and Do Not Email: In Account Engagement, the default prospect fields of Opted Out and Do Not Email aren't the same. The Opted Out field is crucial for managing consent in Account Engagement. Any prospect with a checked Opted Out field is automatically opted out of all marketing emails in that Account Engagement business unit. The Do Not Email field can be used for other purposes, but doesn’t indicate the recipient’s preference or consent. Instead, you can use the Do Not Email field to prevent a customer from being emailed if they haven’t engaged with marketing emails, or to prevent sending emails. By default, the Do Not Email field doesn’t sync with Salesforce, though you can use this field as a criterion when building segments in Marketing Cloud Next.

• Match the Consent Given Date: Account Engagement doesn't capture a precise consent date the same way as Marketing Cloud Next. When exporting/importing consent, select a reasonable "consent started" date (for example "Last Updated"). This requires a policy decision on your end. We recommend using the Publication Opt-In Date/Time as an importable consent started date.

• Opt-outs affect Account Engagement prospects. There are two main ways to opt out: Stop all email marketing (Opted Out) or stop specific public lists through the email preferences page. It’s important to understand how these specific consent types translate to the subscription model in Marketing Cloud Next when importing consent. For example, if an email address is opted out in an Account Engagement business unit, don’t opt them into any subscriptions in Marketing Cloud Next, even if previous subscription preferences existed.

Audit Your Consent Data in Account Engagement

• To properly follow marketing consent, it’s important to understand what consent data you have in Account Engagement. For example, how many prospects have opted in? How many have opted out?

• Some factors to consider when running a consent data audit in Account Engagement:

  • The quality and completeness of your consent data (for example, last activity, source of consent).

  • Any custom fields used for consent preferences.

  • The complexity of your current email preference pages (if any).

• You can export prospect data from Account Engagement through segmentation lists or from the prospect table view. Filter by Mailable Prospects to find prospects who haven’t opted out. 

• For larger data sets, we recommend exporting using the Export API.

Strategize Your Consent Transition to Marketing Cloud Next

• If You Choose Not to Use Consent Matching, Acknowledge the Manual Effort: Without consent matching, aligning overall email consent between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next requires manual exporting and importing, as well as careful planning.

• Start With a Phased Migration: Don't try to migrate all of your consent data at once. We recommend that you start with a pilot group of records, or a specific communication subscription. Select a low-risk segment to test the export/import process and validate the consent in Marketing Cloud Next.

• Define Your Source of Truth for Each Subscription: Once you’ve established your consent practice in Account Engagement, decide whether Account Engagement will remain the primary source of truth for certain email types, like newsletter subscriptions or specific campaigns, or if you plan to fully transition some or all email sending to Marketing Cloud Next. 

• Identify Critical Segments: Determine which segments of your audience are most crucial for ongoing marketing efforts and which have the highest quality consent data.

• Use Only One System for the Same Purpose: You can use Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next at the same time, but don't market to the same group of records in both systems at the same time. It’s best to manage a specific subscription and its email marketing from one system.

Next Steps: User Training and a Gradual Marketing Cloud Next Rollout

• Internal Alignment: Teach your marketing and sales teams how subscription-based consent works in Marketing Cloud Next. Make sure that they understand the effects of integrating with Account Engagement, and how the Opted Out prospect field works.

• Start Small with Marketing Cloud Next: Use Marketing Cloud Next only for net-new consent capture for a specific, isolated campaign or journey. This allows you to gain experience without disrupting your established Account Engagement processes.

By understanding these points early on, you'll set a strong foundation for managing consent effectively as you begin your journey with Account Engagement and explore Marketing Cloud Next.

Bridging the Gap for Overall Email Consent

Because Marketing Cloud Next supports a subscription consent model, there’s no overall email consent value like the default prospect Opted Out field found in Account Engagement. Unlike Account Engagement, consent isn’t tracked on the email level in Marketing Cloud Next. By default, the two systems aren’t aligned. Translation between the models is required to properly convert overall email consent.

To align overall email consent for both systems, turn on Consent Matching in Account Engagement.

Consent matching creates a subscription in Marketing Cloud Next called B2B Email Consent. All prospect records from the Account Engagement business unit, except those in the Recycle Bin, are added to the subscription. Their Opted Out consent status is shown in Marketing Cloud Next and Data Cloud.

Consent matching aligns overall email consent between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next. It doesn’t match subscription-level consent between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next.

Consent Matching Scenarios

When consent matching is active, records in Salesforce, Account Engagement, and Marketing Cloud Next can inherit consent status from different systems. The scenarios assume the Sync Behavior for the prospect Opted Out field in Account Engagement is set to “Use the most recently updated field value”.

See Also: Salesforce Help: Set Up Consent and Subscriptions
See Also: Salesforce Help: Match Email Consent Between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next
See Also: Salesforce Help: Understanding Consent Concepts in Marketing Cloud Next
See Also: Salesforce Help: Considerations for Managing Marketing Consent Data