Consent and preferences in Marketing Cloud Next
A consent and preference design for Marketing Cloud Next that records what each person agreed to, honours it on every channel and stays in step with your CRM.
Consent is the part of a marketing implementation that has to be right before anything else matters. In Marketing Cloud Next, consent and subscriptions are held in the Salesforce consent data model on the core platform, with Data Cloud (now branded Data 360) using that data when building and activating audiences. That is a real improvement over keeping opt-ins in scattered fields, but only if the design reflects how your organisation actually captures and uses permission.
GeekMidst designs and implements consent and preference management for Marketing Cloud Next, working alongside your privacy and legal advisers. We do not give legal advice; we turn your agreed requirements into a working design.
Problems this solves
- Opt-ins are captured on web forms, in stores, by service agents and in apps, and each writes to a different place.
- An unsubscribe in one system does not reach the others, or reaches them too late.
- Preferences are all-or-nothing, so people unsubscribe from everything when they only wanted fewer emails.
- Nobody can show when, where and how a person gave permission.
- Requirements differ by country or channel, for example under GDPR in Europe or India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and the design does not reflect that.
Key design decisions
| Decision | Questions we help you answer |
|---|---|
| Purposes | Which purposes of processing do you need to distinguish, such as marketing, service or research? |
| Subscriptions | Which topics or programmes can people choose between, and on which channels? |
| Capture points | Where is consent collected, what wording is shown and what evidence is stored? |
| Defaults and regions | How do rules differ by country, age or channel, and what happens when the region is unknown? |
| Synchronisation | Which system is the source of truth, and how do changes flow to CRM, Engagement and other tools? |
| Retention and audit | How long is consent history kept, and how is it reported when someone asks? |
How we deliver it
- 01
Requirements workshop
With your privacy, marketing and CRM owners we capture purposes, channels, regions and existing capture points, using a consent requirements worksheet.
- 02
Model design
We map requirements to consent objects such as contact point consent and communication subscriptions, and define how identity links them to people.
- 03
Capture and preference centre
Forms, preference pages and agent processes are designed to write consent consistently, with wording supplied by your legal team.
- 04
Sync and migration
Existing opt-ins and unsubscribes are migrated with their history where available, and integrations to other systems are designed and tested.
- 05
Audience enforcement
Segments and journeys are configured so consent is checked at send time, not only at segment build.
- 06
Test and evidence
Test cases cover opt-in, opt-out, partial preferences and regional rules, with results recorded for your privacy team.
Related reading and blueprints
Consent design guide
How consent and subscription management works in Marketing Cloud Next.
→Consent requirements worksheet
A structured way to capture purposes, channels and capture points.
→Consent synchronisation blueprint
A reference design for keeping CRM and marketing consent aligned.
→Self-service preference centre
A reference design for letting people choose what they receive.
→What you receive and what we need
You receive a consent design document, a mapping of every capture point to the consent model, configured objects and preference experiences, migration and sync specifications, and a test pack. We need a privacy or legal contact who can confirm requirements and wording, owners for each system that captures consent, sample consent data handled under an agreed process, and a decision-maker for trade-offs between marketing reach and strictness.
The main risks are migrating historical opt-ins without their evidence, and coexistence periods where two platforms disagree. We address both explicitly in the design. This work usually runs as part of a wider Marketing Cloud Next implementation, but it can also be scoped on its own.
Questions we hear
Can you tell us what the law requires?
Can we migrate consent from Marketing Cloud Engagement?
Do we need a custom preference centre?
How are unsubscribes from other systems handled?
Design consent you can stand behind
Share how you capture permission today, and we will outline a consent design for Marketing Cloud Next.
