Message Channels and Types Best Practices

Message channels and message types categorize messages so that users can subscribe and unsubscribe to content as necessary:

• Message channels combine a message medium (email, push notification, SMS, web push, or in-app message) with a marketing or transactional designation.
• Message types specialize message channels, providing users with fine-grained control over which specific messages in a category they want to receive: weekly newsletter, daily deals, etc.

For example, the below screenshot shows a Marketing Channel with three message types: Newsletters, Product Suggestions, and Promotional (as viewed on the Settings > Message Channels and Types screen):

• Unsubscribing users from the Marketing Channel prevents them from receiving emails from Newsletters, Product Suggestions, or Promotional emails.
• Alternatively, subscribing users to the Marketing Channel but unsubscribing them Newsletters and Product Suggestions means they will only receive Promotional emails.

# Tips

Follow these best practices and tips to make sure you properly handle channel and message type unsubscribes:

1. In most cases, you should only have two message channels per message medium: transactional and marketing.

   The transactional channel is designed for messages like purchase confirmations, registrations, and password resets. Subscribers cannot typically unsubscribe from these messages.

   The marketing channel is designed for all marketing sends, including newsletters, promotions, and cart abandonment campaigns.

2. Consider creating additional message types, especially in marketing channels.

   This gives subscribers the option to opt in or out of different types of marketing messages, rather than all marketing messages (the difference between "Click here to unsubscribe from all future marketing emails" and "Click here to unsubscribe from all future newsletter emails").

   

3. In the template editor, select the message type you'd like to associate with the message.

   The message type determines who receives the message, since users only receive messages associated with opt-in message types to which they have subscribed or opt-out message types to which they have not unsubscribed.

   

4. Emails sent from the marketing channel require an unsubscribe method.

   The following merge parameters provide users with various ways to unsubscribe:

   • {{unsubscribeUrl}}
     • Unsubscribes users from the entire channel carrying the message.
   • {{hostedUnsubscribeUrl}}
     • Directs people to your hosted unsubscribe/email preferences center. Set this in in Settings > Project Settings.
   • {{unsubscribeMessageTypeUrl}}
     • Unsubscribes the user from just from the message type. In general, rather than using this option, it is best to link people to your email preferences center using {{hostedUnsubscribeUrl}} (to prevent them from thinking they are unsubscribing from an entire channel when they are actually unsubscribing from a specific type).

5. Update a user's channel subscriptions using Iterable's web interface.

   • Navigate to Audience > Contact Lookup.
   • Enter a user's email address or user ID (the search box will reflect the necessary field) and click Search Users.
   • Navigate to the Subscriptions menu to view the user's channel subscriptions:

   

6. View and a user's message type subscriptions using Iterable's web interface.

   • Navigate to Audience > Contact Lookup.
   • Enter a user's email address or their user ID (the search box will reflect the necessary field) and click Search Users.
   • Navigate to the Available User Fields tab and look at the subscribedMessageTypeIds and unsubscribedMessageTypeIds arrays to learn which message types the user has subscribed to and unsubscribed from.
   • Use the toggle controls to modify the user's channel subscriptions.

   NOTE

   subscribedMessageTypeIds is only available if your account or project has enabled the opt-in message type feature. To do this, contact your Iterable customer success manager.

7. Channel unsubscribe or subscribe a list or users with Iterable's web interface.

   • Navigate to Audience > Lists.
   • Click Channel Unsubscribe Users or Channel Subscribe Users.

   

8. Understand other ways a user's message channel or type subscription can be modified.

   • Modifying message channel subscriptions

     Various actions can unsubscribe a user from a message channel:

     • A user from your organization unsubscribes the user by uploading a CSV.
     • A user from your organization clicks the channel toggle in the user profile.
     • An end user clicks the {{unsubscribeUrl}} in the actual email.
     • An API call (such as POST /users/updateSubscriptions) is made.
     • A subscriber hard bounces or submits a complaint upon receiving an email.

     When a person unsubscribes from a channel, they will no longer receive any message from any message type in that channel, regardless of their specific message type subscriptions.

   • Modifying message type subscriptions

     Various actions can unsubscribe a user from a message type:

     • An end user clicks the {{unsubscribeMessageTypeUrl}} in the actual email
     • An API call (such as POST /users/updateSubscriptions) is made.

     When a person unsubscribes from a message type, they will no longer receive messages from that message type. However, they will still receive emails from the other message types to which they have subscribed (for opt-in message types) or not unsubscribed (for opt-out message types).

   8. To learn how a user was unsubscribed, read Unsubscribe Sources.