Managing Email Subscriptions

How our system works

In order to send emails to your members, supporters and the general public, you will need to ensure that they have the right opt-ins in My Campaign. Targeted Email draws its data from My Campaign.

There are a few routes to getting email addresses listed as subscribed in My Campaign. 

There are three subscription types in My Campaign:

Not subscribed - Neutral - They haven’t signed up for emails from us before, or when we brought their email address into Connect, there were discrepancies in their subscription status in the different legacy systems.

Unsubscribed - User has unsubscribed and cannot be emailed. This can't be changed without written permission from the user, forwarded to HQ

Subscribed - User has subscribed and can be emailed

These rules are applied by party organisation. People might have a different status in a different committee (ex. subscribed to emails in Cheltenham, unsubscribed in Gloucester)

What determines whether a person is ‘emailable’? 

Emailability in Connect is controlled by 2 things:

• Is the 'do not email' suppression set?
• Do they have a subscribed email address in the party organisation?

If there is no ‘do not email’ suppression set, and they have a subscribed email address in the party organisation, they are emailable!

Sign ups via your Fleet site:

Sign ups on your Fleet website will automatically be subscribed for email for your local party, and given the relevant content preferences from the form they've completed. When you set up your Connect forms take the time to make sure you are choosing the right settings, e.g. choosing Campaigning News as the opt in category for updates from your Parliamentary candidate.

If they don't tick the opt-in box then this does not remove any previous consent. 

If they don’t tick the opt-in box then the email address will not be stored in Connect. Requiring it makes it easier for us to verify that petition signers are real people, but we don’t want to store unsubscribed email addresses in Connect. We want emailable people. For compliance reasons, we also don’t want to force all petition signers to provide consent each time they sign a petition. Aside from the compliance implications, we know that forcing people to provide consent will deter them from signing.

Sign ups on the doorstep:

When you are out and about on the campaign trail one of the easiest ways to take someone from a casual supporter to a loyal Lib Dem voter is to get them signed up for email updates from you and your campaign. 

Asking for email sign ups can feel a bit daunting, but most people respond positively when we ask them questions like “Would you like to sign up for email updates about what’s happening here in [Ward] from me and your local councillors?” or they are very polite when they say no!

If you're collecting doorstep signups, they will be stored in My Voters alongside other My Voters data like voting intention. 

When you are filling in the MiniVan script make sure you answer the appropriate email signup question and record the FPN that was given to them. You can find the section for adding a new email under the Person view on MiniVan.

That data will then get moved across to MyCampaign for your local party and made emailable. Answering no to the email opt-in question on the doorstep will similarly not remove any previous consent that your local party had for emailing that voter.  

The FPN questions are recorded whenever we gather consent - and are just markers of which statement was shown to the voter at signup time. This is a record for compliance to be able to answer any ICO queries.

The automatic process which brings new email addresses across from MV to MC will take place within 24 hours. 

However, it will only do this if the correct consent questions are answered (opt-in to email AND an FPN statement). If one or other has been missed off, then they won't come across.

If you accidentally forget to choose both of these, or if you think you are missing opted in emails, send a support request to support@libdems.org.uk

Sign ups via Phone Banks:

To add and update email addresses as you dial your way through your phone bank list you will need to make sure you include the correct steps when setting it up. If you don’t you won't see the options you need!

First, make sure that you have email as an 'editable contact detail' - this will allow you to see what email addresses we have on record and add new email addresses. You can find this underneath Basic Demographics and Display Settings in the sidebar when setting up your phone bank.

Then in the script that you are using on the phonebank you will need to include the FPN and you need to have the activist codes ‘local news and campaign news’ available so that you can tick these when entering data as applicable. 

Most importantly, all callers for this phone bank need to make sure they are in the right party organisation (yours!) when they do it otherwise the subscription will go to the wrong one. 

Managing email addresses in Connect

Manual Data Entry: Adding email addresses, and switching email addresses from ‘Not Subscribed’ to ‘Subscribed’ in My Campaign

IMPORTANT - if you’re canvassing or gathering email addresses as part of your normal campaigning then you should follow the previous guidance for doorstep or phone canvassing. Building email collection into your day to day campaigning is an important habit to develop, and managing data as you go is much easier than trying to do it later!

You can enter email addresses for people you’ve spoken to or have a relationship with directly in MyCampaign. 

You can also update their subscriptions status from the neutral ‘not subscribed’ state to ‘subscribed’. If they have unsubscribed and want to be resubscribed, then they need to complete one of the options listed under ‘Opting back in’ later in this FAQ section

To update the email, you need to make sure you're in the right party organisation (e.g. Cheltenham), find the MyCampaign record for the person you wish to update, and do these three things:

1. Ensure the record is an activist for your committee
2. Ensure the email address is present, and mark it as subscribed
3. Add the relevant email interest tags for the local and campaigning news
4. Answer the appropriate FPN question for the type of contact you had with the person 

Example for 3: When uploading new email/phone opt-in data from a petition,  you should ensure that you're marking the 'FPN Given' response to a question called 'FPN Petition'.

This will update their record.

The automatic process which brings new email addresses across from MV to MC will take place within 24 hours. It will also add in Email Interest tags overnight based on the response given to the Local email opt-in question. Yes - News responses will receive the Local News Email Interest tag, while Yes - Campaign responses will receive both the Local News and Campaign News Email Interest tags

Opting back in: Turning Unsubscribed and Not Subscribed to Subscribed 

If someone has unsubscribed, and wants to resubscribe, they need to do the following:

• Email support@libdems.org.uk from the email address they would like to resubscribe and confirm the local party they would like to resubscribe to

If someone is “not subscribed” but thinks they should be getting our emails, you can change their status to subscribed in MyCampaign.  Only do this if you have had a conversation with the person and had this confirmed, and ensure you answer the email opt in question to provide an audit trail.  (you will also need to manually apply the correct tags in My Campaign