A Preference Site is much more than a way for your subscribers to opt out of receiving your email campaigns. It allows them to manage subscription preferences – in other words, to opt in or out of certain email campaigns you send. It’s also an opportunity for you to seek demographic details about your subscribers, such as age, gender and where they live.
If you don’t already have a Preference Site set up as a Professional Edition user, you can easily create one.
Creating a Preference Site first requires that you define the site type and then build one or more site pages. To define the site type, go to the Subscribers dropdown menu on the main page of the Professional Edition platform and choose Preference Sites. Click the Add new site link in the top right hand corner.
Next, choose Manage Preferences as the type, and create a unique name and description for your Preference Site. The next available option is to redirect subscribers to another landing page once they have updated their preferences. At WhatCounts, much of the time we like to redirect users to our thank-you page after they’ve filled out a form. Click Create Page 1, and you’ll have a blank Preference Site ready to be filled.
Now that you’ve defined the site type, you can set up the content inside your Preference Site. As soon as you create your first page, you’ll be prompted to enter a page title. Use a title that is meaningful to your company or product such as: Welcome to our Preference Site. You’ll also be prompted to enter a URL to your preferred stylesheet. This may be the same stylesheet you use for your company website or it may be a stylesheet specific to your Preference Site. You don’t have to include a title and stylesheet in order to create a Preference Site, but it’s a good idea to do so.
The Professional Edition platform will generate a default page code that will appear within the edit pane. To customize the page, place your cursor between the area marked Begin Editing Here and End Editing Here. Enter all page elements in between these markers.
Up next is customizing your form. You can do this by using the buttons at the top right of the Preference Site: fields, lists and format.
Fields: Fields are Subscriber Data or Custom Subscriber Data demographic values. Basically, it inserts a tag to call in the data stored for the subscriber in the defined field. For example, you’ll want subscribers to be able to update their names in your Preference Site. The first_name tag will display “Enter First Name” in your Preference Site.
Lists: An important part of a Preference Site is giving subscribers the option to opt in or out of one or more of your email campaigns. Clicking the Lists button will allow you to select and include multiple lists and your global opt out link. Each list will appear with Yes or No radio buttons followed by the List name (Yes indicates ‘subscribe’ and No indicates ‘unsubscribe’).
Format: Click the FMT button to insert a set of three radio buttons which allows subscribers to choose a preferred email format: Multipart MIME, HTML or plain text. This subscriber-selected format will be applied to all lists selected. If this option is not provided, the default format will be set to plain text.
When you are done editing the page, click Save. You will be asked if you wish to add another page to the series; click Yes to create another page in the Preference Site and you will be taken to the Preference Site Page Editor for the next page. Click No to complete your Preference Site and go to the Edit Preference Site page. This page allows you to manage your site features and access all pages.
Want a live example of a Preference Site that has been set up and connects to Professional Edition? We set up our current Preference Site in Professional Edition. The first part is where you can update your personal information:
The next part asks subscribers to update their preferences to all of our newsletters:
Want more help setting up or editing your Preference Center in Professional Edition? Follow more step-by-step directions in the Learning Center or email your account manager.
Joy Ugi
Digital Marketing Coordinator, WhatCounts
Twitter: @ugigirl
