Consent, preferences and how often people hear from you
Who may receive marketing on email, text and WhatsApp, how a person changes what they receive, and why a send leaves some people out or makes them wait.
Steps
- Each channel is its own permission. Marketing email goes to contacts who are subscribed and not on the suppression list. A marketing text needs a phone number and recorded consent to texts. WhatsApp marketing needs recorded consent to WhatsApp. Consent to one channel never counts for another.
- Every campaign email carries two links in its footer: unsubscribe, and change what you receive. Automation emails do not carry the preferences link yet. The second opens a page, signed for that one recipient, where they can switch email, texts or WhatsApp off one at a time. The page can only switch a channel off. Turning one on again is a new consent, collected by a form that records its wording.
- Switching every channel off is the same as unsubscribing: the person leaves every channel, their address goes on the suppression list, and coming back is a request somebody at the business approves.
- Before you send, the confirmation shows who the campaign leaves out and why, one count per reason: not confirmed on the list, left the list, bounced, on the suppression list, switched email off in their preferences, no phone number, no consent to texts. A rule-based segment does not count the people it did not match.
- The frequency limit (Customer journey on a contact, workspace setting) is one budget shared by marketing email, texts and WhatsApp, in campaigns and automations alike. When it applies, a message waits until the window opens instead of being dropped, and the confirmation says how many would wait right now.
- Service messages, such as an appointment reminder or a reply to something the person asked for, are kept apart from marketing: they do not count against the limit and an unsubscribe does not stop them. Bounces and spam complaints still do.
- Nobody who cannot be reached on one channel is moved to another. There is no automatic fallback from email to text or WhatsApp.
Questions
- Is the preferences page indexed by search engines?
- No. It opens only from the signed link in that person's own message, it is marked noindex and is never cached.
- Can an assistant change someone's consent?
- No. Through MCP an assistant can read why a person is or is not reachable on each channel, and who a campaign leaves out. Consent changes only by the person, or by a form they fill in.
Updated 2026-10-25 · llms-full.txt