How is it that in 2016 the un-subscribe experience can be so poorly implemented across so many sites – big and small. Here are a few examples of how to do it wrong.
WellsFargo unsubscribe page:
And the instructions from their messages:
To unsubscribe from marketing e-mails from:
An individual Wells Fargo Advisors financial advisor: Reply to one of his/her e-mails and type “Unsubscribe” in the subject line.
Wells Fargo and its affiliates: Unsubscribe at wellsfargoadvisors.com/unsubscribe.
Yes, you’ve read that correctly – send a direct message to someone at WellsFargo who you may (or may not) have ever had contact with. And following that link returns the page above. Additionally the poor construction of the message makes that nice feature of Gmail for un-subscribe hints not work either.
- Don’t force me to email a contact I don’t have.
- Pre-fill my email in the unsubscribe.
- Implement email headers so Gmail magic works.
CoFounders Lab
This is a pretty popular company, loads of tech-startup folks I know are aware of and have had some interaction with CoFounders lab. Despite being well connected to the tech space we are left with this:
At least they remembered to include my email, a nice touch. The rest of this page however does not leave a good impression of CoFoudersLab or the 1000Angels group. My email is orphaned on it’s own line w/o context, all the messaging is small and this “minimalist” page approach also doesn’t display well on mobile. Perhaps some footer links to my preferences, both operator sites
- Provide a bit more detail on what happened
- Put a small amount of effort on CSS for this page
- Even on a End page, there can still be some CTA
MailChimp
Literally thousands of companies use MailChimp – their service is actually quite good – but I’ve always hated their un-subscribe page. Observe this flow: Click unsubscribe from the message, leave feedback – and prompt for feedback again?
What really uncomfortable about the situation is it’s hard to tell if the original submission worked. Yes, we saw that pleasant green message but why is the form re-presented? Did that not work? Do they just ignore feedback?
Also notice that this page displays nicely on both desktop and mobile.
- Fix that feedback form!
Unsubscribe Pages
Customers only see these pages when they are breaking up with you. It could be they are already annoyed by you. This experience may be their last impression of you. Here are some ideas:
- Invest in a little design and make sure it’s mobile ready
- Pre-Populate the email address on the forms
- Don’t require email reply to unsubscribe, one-click to unsubscribe
- Include proper bulk email headers so mail-client magic works
- Clearly communicate success
- Clearly indicate the end of the workflow
- Page footer CTA and links to main site(s)