Why are my surveys opting people out instead of in to receive emails?

Stephanie Breiby

We have a series of surveys to enable consituents to opt in to receiving our e-newsletters. We have the surveys set up to enroll them automatically. I've just discovered these surveys are opting people OUT of receiving the e-newsletter instead of opting people IN to receive them. What's odd is that I have about 10 different surveys corresponding to different e-newsletters and about half work properly and half don't. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why some are working and the rest are opting people out - everything looks similar between the two. Any suggestions?

Kent Gilliam

Stephanie,

 

I'm not sure how your survey flow is setup but I can tell you that there is a little-known function of surveys that impacts organizations. I'm not 100% sure this is what is happening to you but it sounds like it. This affects clients this way:

 

1. Constituent completes survey with Enews A as an interest and checks the box to opt into it.
2. Constituent later goes to another survey with Enews A as an interest but it is unchecked
3. Because they already know they are receiving Enews A they don't check the box on this second survey
4. When survey is submitted the system sees that they did not select Enews A as an interest opt-in so it removes them from this interest group

So basically if a constituent opts into something on one form but doesn't opt-in again on another form it will remove them from the opt-in. This has been a long-discussed impact to clients and I don't think it has ever been changed. I would recommend testing it yourself. Go to a form and opt-in to interests. Check and make sure you have that interest in your profile. Then logout and go back in to another form and complete it but don't check any interests. If the issue above is what is happening to you then those interest should be removed from your profile. 

 

If this is the issue all I can do is recommend opening a Support ticket and ask this to be fixed. 

 

If this is the issue, in the meantime what I recommend is making sure every interest is checked by default on every survey. 

 

Let me know if this is what was wrong. I'm assembling posts about this for our product team. 

Bo Bell

Kent Gilliam:

Stephanie,

 

I'm not sure how your survey flow is setup but I can tell you that there is a little-known function of surveys that impacts organizations. I'm not 100% sure this is what is happening to you but it sounds like it. This affects clients this way:

 

1. Constituent completes survey with Enews A as an interest and checks the box to opt into it.
2. Constituent later goes to another survey with Enews A as an interest but it is unchecked
3. Because they already know they are receiving Enews A they don't check the box on this second survey
4. When survey is submitted the system sees that they did not select Enews A as an interest opt-in so it removes them from this interest group

So basically if a constituent opts into something on one form but doesn't opt-in again on another form it will remove them from the opt-in. This has been a long-discussed impact to clients and I don't think it has ever been changed. I would recommend testing it yourself. Go to a form and opt-in to interests. Check and make sure you have that interest in your profile. Then logout and go back in to another form and complete it but don't check any interests. If the issue above is what is happening to you then those interest should be removed from your profile. 

 

If this is the issue all I can do is recommend opening a Support ticket and ask this to be fixed. 

 

If this is the issue, in the meantime what I recommend is making sure every interest is checked by default on every survey. 

 

Let me know if this is what was wrong. I'm assembling posts about this for our product team. 

For this very reason, we make sure not to include interests on any forms except our initial registration form and one particular "I am interested in" survey. I think it's a mistake to include interests on every survey - give people a way to update them, but don't push them every time you ask them to interact.

Jan Fischer Bachman

Kent Gilliam:

Stephanie,

 

I'm not sure how your survey flow is setup but I can tell you that there is a little-known function of surveys that impacts organizations. I'm not 100% sure this is what is happening to you but it sounds like it. This affects clients this way:

 

1. Constituent completes survey with Enews A as an interest and checks the box to opt into it.
2. Constituent later goes to another survey with Enews A as an interest but it is unchecked
3. Because they already know they are receiving Enews A they don't check the box on this second survey
4. When survey is submitted the system sees that they did not select Enews A as an interest opt-in so it removes them from this interest group

So basically if a constituent opts into something on one form but doesn't opt-in again on another form it will remove them from the opt-in. This has been a long-discussed impact to clients and I don't think it has ever been changed. I would recommend testing it yourself. Go to a form and opt-in to interests. Check and make sure you have that interest in your profile. Then logout and go back in to another form and complete it but don't check any interests. If the issue above is what is happening to you then those interest should be removed from your profile. 

 

If this is the issue all I can do is recommend opening a Support ticket and ask this to be fixed. 

 

If this is the issue, in the meantime what I recommend is making sure every interest is checked by default on every survey. 

 

Let me know if this is what was wrong. I'm assembling posts about this for our product team. 

I just wanted to say that for a while, this (hard opt out of interest upon not checking a box) stopped happening. We verify this on a frequent basis because we have a lot of e-publications and have tried to make signing up really easy. There was a time this fall that Luminate stopped hard opting out people of interests. Meaning, people had to check a box in order to opt out of the interest. The product manager (Casey Flynn) confirmed this at the time.

 

Sadly this has changed by what we are seeing in survey results today. I will have to track down when it changed and see if it is a permanent step back.

 

There is one other possible scenario you have to be careful about with surveys. When you create a Constituent 360 question, there is an item at the end of creating the question that says:

 

Specify how email opt-in displays and whether opt-in is automatic or optional.

[] No, do not display the email opt-in checkbox. Opt-out constituents automatically.

[] No, do not display the email opt-in checkbox. Opt-in constituents automatically.

[] Yes, display the email opt-in checkbox.

 

The language on this used to be less clear. When I started working here, we had a number of surveys that opted people out because the wrong box was checked. (It would be a survey asking for travel plans for a meeting and all the participants would end up opted out of e-mail) You may want to go back and check this on your surveys. This new language makes the right box very clear!

 

Best wishes,

Jan

Kent Gilliam

Jan Fischer Bachman:

I just wanted to say that for a while, this (hard opt out of interest upon not checking a box) stopped happening. We verify this on a frequent basis because we have a lot of e-publications and have tried to make signing up really easy. There was a time this fall that Luminate stopped hard opting out people of interests. Meaning, people had to check a box in order to opt out of the interest. The product manager (Casey Flynn) confirmed this at the time.

 

Sadly this has changed by what we are seeing in survey results today. I will have to track down when it changed and see if it is a permanent step back.

 

There is one other possible scenario you have to be careful about with surveys. When you create a Constituent 360 question, there is an item at the end of creating the question that says:

 

Specify how email opt-in displays and whether opt-in is automatic or optional.

[] No, do not display the email opt-in checkbox. Opt-out constituents automatically.

[] No, do not display the email opt-in checkbox. Opt-in constituents automatically.

[] Yes, display the email opt-in checkbox.

 

The language on this used to be less clear. When I started working here, we had a number of surveys that opted people out because the wrong box was checked. (It would be a survey asking for travel plans for a meeting and all the participants would end up opted out of e-mail) You may want to go back and check this on your surveys. This new language makes the right box very clear!

 

Best wishes,

Jan

Thanks for sharing this Jan!

Amy McIntyre

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