How to create a segment which contacts can't unsubscribe from
When a contact unsubscribes from your emails by clicking the unsubscribe link, they will no longer receive your emails. However, there may still be a need to send transactional emails to these contacts.
To achieve this, you need to create a subscription preferences page where contacts can select which email lists they want to subscribe to/unsubcribe from and set up a "transactional" segment from which contacts won't be able to unsubscribe. This can be done by creating a Preference center page.
Step #1: Create a Preference center page
Go to the Landing pages section and create a new landing page
On the right-hand column, select Set as preference center page = YES
Choose a theme and go to the Page Builder. We have added a pre-existing theme to your instance as a base to help you set up your preference centre.
In the Page Builder, keep the following sections only and remove all the others:
Header
Text
Success message
My Segments
Save Preference button
You can edit the content of the header, text, success message and save button.
You can also customize the style of each element (such as font, color, etc) and add your logo to match your brand identity.
Important! Make sure to remove the “Unsubscribe from all marketing messages" link to prevent contact from being able to unsubscribe from all emails.
Once you're happy, exit Page Builder and Save the landing page.
Step #2: Configure the Unsubscribe Settings
Go to Settings by clicking the cog wheel on the top right corner.
Click Configurations
Click Email Settings
Scroll down to Unsubscribe Settings and configure the below settings:
Unsubscribe mode = Preference centre
Show contact segment preferences = Yes
Set the rest of the settings to No
Default custom preference landing page = [Select the preference center page you created]
Click Save & Close
Step #3: Configure the Segment Settings
Segment Settings
For all the segments that contacts can unsubscribed from, set the Available in Preference Center = YES. If this is not enabled, the segment won’t appear in the preference center .
Create a segment of all contacts that will receive transactional emails. Set the Available in Preference Center = NO.
Important! Make sure that all contacts who need to receive transactional emails are added to the transactional segment.
Step #4: Select Preference center page before sending emails
Email Settings
When sending emails, select the preference center you created under the Preference Center page.
Send the email as per usual.
What happens if contacts unsubscribed from the email?
If contacts unsubscribed from this email, they will be redirected to the Preference center page where they can select to unsubscribe from segments available in the Preference center.
If they unsubscribed from a segment, they will no longer receive emails sent to that segment.
Since the transaction email segment is not available in the Preference center, they can never unsubscribe from it. They will still receive transaction emails sent to the designated "transactional" segment.