Subscribers (Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement)

In Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement, a subscriber is an individual who has explicitly given your business permission to send them marketing communications. Whether it is an email, an SMS, or a WhatsApp message, you cannot legally send promotional content unless an audience member has registered as a subscriber.

With strict data privacy compliance laws like GDPR and anti-spam regulations, misusing consumer data can result in heavy corporate penalties. To market effectively and legally, you must collect clear consumer consent. Fortunately, this can be achieved through two primary methods: online and offline channels.

1. Online Subscriber Collection

Online collection is ideal for digital brands and e-commerce businesses. For instance, you might run targeted ads on Instagram, Google, or YouTube to drive traffic to your landing page. To capture these visitors, you can introduce a signup popup form requesting details like their name, email, phone number, and location.

The most critical element is including a terms, conditions, and privacy checkbox. By checking this box, the user explicitly consents to receive future promotional offers from your brand. This automated signup data is then seamlessly transferred and stored directly inside Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

2. Offline Subscriber Collection

For offline-centric industries like real estate, hospitality, or brick-and-mortar retail, gathering subscribers happens face-to-face. For example, if a real estate company hosts an open house or a physical site visit, they can ask attendees to fill out an offline registration form.

By explicitly informing them that you will use this information for future property updates and securing their agreement, they officially become your subscribers. From there, you can simply import their contact details straight into your Marketing Cloud database.