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Consents vs User Custom fields

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Nuno Aguiar Dynamicweb Employee
Nuno Aguiar
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Posted on 19/01/2023 15:19:03

Hi,

 

I wanted to pick some brains regarding Consents vs User custom fields.

 

In the US market the Consents tracebility is not as detailed as is Europe, however we want to make sure we pick the best tool. The goal is to have a list of Email Marketing "categories" the user can choose their preferences for. Here's what I see in terms of pros and cons

  PROS CONS
User Custom field
  • Simpler to create new ones
  • Easier for integrations (no related/additional tables - as all the data lives in AccessUser
  • ​Requires customization on Edit profile to pick the spefic custom fields
  • Not as robust data structure as consents
Consents
  • Better data structure (Data Processing > Activities) - clearer definition of consent related data
  • Harder for Integration (additional tables and mappings)
  • Inability to use Smart Searches
  • Unavailable in the webapi

Equal complexity

  • Unsubscribe settings in Email Marketing

 

The scale seems to tip towards User Custom fields, but I wonder if anybody has any thoughts about it too.

 

Best Regards,

Nuno Aguiar


Replies

 
Nicolai Pedersen Dynamicweb Employee
Nicolai Pedersen
Posted on 01/03/2023 08:54:40
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Hi Nuno

You should use user groups for different marketing categories. Consent is explicit for one kind of operation - i.e. "Sending newsletters" or "Other activity that requires your data".

 
Nicolai Pedersen Dynamicweb Employee
Nicolai Pedersen
Posted on 01/03/2023 08:55:01
Reply

The edit profile supports adding and removing a user from a selected list of groups

 
Nuno Aguiar Dynamicweb Employee
Nuno Aguiar
Posted on 01/03/2023 11:04:39
Reply

Hi Nicolai,

 

Thanks. You are accurate, Groups is better. I will see with the Integration team as it's always easier for them to integrate custom fields and then we use smart searches to populate groups, but hopefully we the categories does have to live in the ERP (US customers have been creative with their ERP customizations over the years).

 

In either case, it's a valid point that using Consent Activities as Marketing Categories is not the ideal way to do it (not to mention it would increase integration complexity 10x).

 

I will relay this to the team and following that suggestion, what we may end up doing it pointing (in our SwiftRizzo database) to a parent group where all newsletter categories should live and then have a dedicated Edit Profile template to do that.

 

Thanks,

Nuno Aguiar

 

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