How to give your email subscribers a soft way to opt out

Whenever we get close to a sales promo season, I get an uptick in queries around soft opt-outs. This is where you give your email subscribers a chance to opt out of a specific campaign, without fully unsubscribing. Like when you check that your BFF is ready for the long tea before you start the story. 

This strategy is quite handy just before a particularly "passionate" sales campaign. Or emails around topics/seasons that can be emotionally triggering. You may have noticed more brands sending opt outs for Mother's Day.

How to add an unsubscribe option to a specific email campaign 

The finer details will depend on your email marketing tool but the process is the same. 

1. Click-to-tag Method 

This method does exactly what it says. You add a link to the email, subscribers click on it and get tagged.

Now you know who has clicked the opt-out link (because of the tag), you can exclude them from the series. 

A sample step by step

1. Create your opt-out tag
2. Create a landing page to get a link for the email
3. Add the link to the email along with some blurb about opting out
4. Either add an action to the link click to tag them (like in ActiveCampaign) or create a separate automation that is triggered by the click and tags them (like in Mailchimp and Mailerlite) 

2. Preferences Center Method 

It can make a huge difference to your subscriber experience as it shows you're thinking of them beyond their sales value!