How does Ometria subscribe and unsubscribe contacts?

You can subscribe and unsubscribe contacts by sending a customer listing via any of our sources:

• Ometria's preference centre
• via API
• via CSV upload
• via an ecommerce importer (e.g. Magento, Shopify or BigCommerce)
• via a third party integration.

The listing needs to contain these fields:

marketing_optin: true, false

timestamp_subscribed or timestamp_unsubscribed: timestamp of the event.

Ometria triggers a subscription or unsubscription event (and can trigger a campaign) the first time a contact is subscribed/unsubscribed.

This is to prevent sending a welcome campaign a second time, when the contact might already be a customer.

In order to trigger a subscription event (and a welcome campaign), make sure to send both marketing_optin and timestamp_subscribed on the same listing.

For each contact, Ometria keeps the dates of the most recent opt-in (subscribed) and opt-out (unsubscribed).

These dates can be used to segment contacts in the customer filter.

Ometria uses hierarchies when determining whether a contact’s subscription status should be changed or not, depending on where the subscription event came from.

Ometria is dedicated to protecting the validity of subscription events, and ensuring that they cannot be overridden by mistake.

See also:

• Campaign performance: Subscribers report
• Retrieve contacts that unsubscribed using their email client (via API)

Hierarchy

@FORCE_OPTIN=TRUE

This is an Ometria field that is passed from forms that include Ometria code, such as:

• an Ometria preference centre 
• via API
• via CSV upload. 

@FORCE_OPTIN=TRUE is used to force the marketing_optin value passed (whether the event is a subscribe or an unsubscribe) in the same contact record.

When @force_optin is set to 'TRUE', this event takes precedence as the default marketing opt-in priority.

In this example, the contact is being force subscribed to receive marketing communications:

“@force_optin"= true,
"marketing_optin"= "EXPLICITLY_OPTEDIN"

And in this example, the contact is being force unsubscribed from marketing communications:

"@force_optin": true,
"marketing_optin": "EXPLICITLY_OPTEDOUT"

This action is added as a top-level parameter on the contact record and only needs to be sent once to perform the action.

@FORCE_OPTIN cannot be overridden by a ‘non-forced’ update (e.g. from third party platforms), meaning in some cases a subscribe event from an ecommerce platform - e.g. the contact leaves a ‘subscribe me’ checkbox selected on check out - might not be applied to the customer due to an existing @FORCE_OPTIN=true unsubscribe event. 

The only way this type of subscription event can be overridden is via another Ometria @FORCE_OPTIN=true event - for example by updating the preference centre.

Other methods

If there is no @FORCE_OPTIN=true field passed, then the following order of precedence is used:

1. Preferences centre.
2. Ometria API, in-app change, CSV upload - these methods all have equal weight, and can override each other.
3. Form
4. Importer (e.g. Magento, Shopify)
5. Third party

Subscription timestamps

If you send a contact listing with just a timestamp_subscribed or timestamp_unsubscribed and no marketing_optin, the subscription timestamp is updated.

If this was the last subscription change, then the contact's saved last opt-in/opt-out date updates as well.

The contact's email subscription status will not change; no event or campaign will trigger.

If you send a contact listing with just the marketing_optin field, the contact's email subscription status will change (if it fulfils the hierarchy rules).

If the listing is new, or if the opt-in status recorded on the listing is changed by this new marketing_optin, then it can also update the contact's last subscribed or unsubscribed date (if this is the latest time the opt-in status changed).

Sometimes anomalies can occur; for example, a contact can be marked as unsubscribed, with a date of unsubscribing six months ago, but still have a more recent subscribed date.

If someone re-subscribes (e.g. at checkout) or by updating their preferences, although Ometria doesn’t trigger another event, the contact’s timestamp record is updated, whether the subscribe action was successful or not (depending on the hierarchy above). 

This means it is possible for timestamps and subscription status’ to appear out of sync when checking a contact profile on Ometria.