Automatically Match Email Consent Between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next

To align email consent automatically between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next, turn on consent matching in your Account Engagement business unit. You can match consent for specific lists, or for all emails based on each prospect’s Opted Out field.

Required Editions

Available in: Salesforce Enterprise and Unlimited Editions with Account Engagement Growth, Plus, Advanced, and Premium Editions, along with Data 360 or Marketing Cloud Next editions.

User Permissions Needed
To turn on consent matching:	Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Administrator role or a custom Account Engagement role with these user permissions: Manage Email Consent Matching > View and Edit Modify All Data permission set or Marketing Cloud Admin permission set

Before you start, set up Marketing Cloud Next and Data 360.

Manually Match Consent and Subscriptions Between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next
Marketing Cloud Next consent management is powered by Data 360 so that you can manage multiple marketing channels with subscriptions. By default, consent isn’t shared between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next. To use your prospect consent preferences in Marketing Cloud Next, export them from Account Engagement or API, and then import them into Marketing Cloud Next, one subscription at a time. The resulting output file includes prospects that need a corresponding subscription in Marketing Cloud Next. We recommend using a small, simple subscription to start.

How Consent Matching Works

Consent matching keeps email consent aligned between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next for records that share an email address. Each time a prospect is created, updated with a new email address, added to a list, or restored from the Recycle Bin, Account Engagement resyncs consent status with Marketing Cloud Next. Matching is available from one business unit to another. Multiple business units aren’t supported.

You can match consent based on one of two match types: Public List and Opted Out Field.

A public list is a static list with the Public List option turned on, which means that it’s available in the Email Preference Center. For consent matching, the public list option matches a static public list to a new communication subscription in Marketing Cloud Next, but still takes the Opted Out field into consideration.

If you don’t have any public lists, you can use the Opted Out field option, which controls overall global email consent only.

For both match types, consent updates flow in both directions. However, this works a bit differently for each. Here’s an overview of the match types and how they handle consent updates

Match Type	Description	How It Works
Public List	Matches a static public list that you select in Account Engagement to a new, unique communication subscription in Marketing Cloud Next. This match type is ideal if you use public lists in Account Engagement.	Updates can happen at the list or subscription level.If a prospect opts in or out of a specific list or email subscription in one platform, their status in the corresponding list or email subscription is also updated. Global email consent in Account Engagement still matters. If a prospect opts out of all emails in Account Engagement, Marketing Cloud Next treats this as an “Unsubscribe All” action and opts them out of all email subscriptions. Subscription in Marketing Cloud Next affects both list and global consent in . If a prospect previously opted out of all emails in Account Engagement, but then opts in to an email subscription in Marketing Cloud Next, they’re opted back into both the corresponding public list and global emails in Account Engagement.
Opted Out Field	Creates a single, global email subscription in Marketing Cloud Next called B2B Email Consent. Use this option only if you don’t have public lists in Account Engagement.	Use one subscription to track consent. Instead of matching individual lists to unique subscriptions, this option creates a single email subscription that tracks whether a prospect is opted in or out of all emails. Updates to the B2B Email Consent subscription in Marketing Cloud Next affect the Opted Out field in Account Engagement, and vice versa. Opted Out doesn’t mean Unsubscribe All. Because consent is tracked by a single subscription, if a prospect opts out of all emails in Account Engagement, it isn’t applied as an Unsubscribe All action in Marketing Cloud Next. Instead, the email is opted out of the B2B Email Consent subscription. New prospects are handled differently. If a prospect is created with the Salesforce Connector, their status is calculated using your account’s standard Sync Behavior rules combined with the most recent consent timestamp between the two systems. If the prospect is created in Account Engagement (for example via a form, and import, the API, or manually), the Account Engagement status overrides any existing consent history for the email address in either system.

Match Type

Description

How It Works

Public List

Matches a static public list that you select in Account Engagement to a new, unique communication subscription in Marketing Cloud Next.

This match type is ideal if you use public lists in Account Engagement.

Updates can happen at the list or subscription level.If a prospect opts in or out of a specific list or email subscription in one platform, their status in the corresponding list or email subscription is also updated.
Global email consent in Account Engagement still matters. If a prospect opts out of all emails in Account Engagement, Marketing Cloud Next treats this as an “Unsubscribe All” action and opts them out of all email subscriptions.
Subscription in Marketing Cloud Next affects both list and global consent in . If a prospect previously opted out of all emails in Account Engagement, but then opts in to an email subscription in Marketing Cloud Next, they’re opted back into both the corresponding public list and global emails in Account Engagement.

Opted Out Field

Creates a single, global email subscription in Marketing Cloud Next called B2B Email Consent.

Use this option only if you don’t have public lists in Account Engagement.

Use one subscription to track consent. Instead of matching individual lists to unique subscriptions, this option creates a single email subscription that tracks whether a prospect is opted in or out of all emails. Updates to the B2B Email Consent subscription in Marketing Cloud Next affect the Opted Out field in Account Engagement, and vice versa.
Opted Out doesn’t mean Unsubscribe All. Because consent is tracked by a single subscription, if a prospect opts out of all emails in Account Engagement, it isn’t applied as an Unsubscribe All action in Marketing Cloud Next. Instead, the email is opted out of the B2B Email Consent subscription.
New prospects are handled differently. If a prospect is created with the Salesforce Connector, their status is calculated using your account’s standard Sync Behavior rules combined with the most recent consent timestamp between the two systems. If the prospect is created in Account Engagement (for example via a form, and import, the API, or manually), the Account Engagement status overrides any existing consent history for the email address in either system.

Other Considerations for Consent Matching

When preparing to turn on consent matching between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next, keep these considerations in mind.

The default Do Not Email field in Account Engagement doesn't track consent. Use this field to prevent sending emails to unengaged prospects.
Moving prospects to the Recycle Bin in Account Engagement, or permanently deleting prospects from the Recycle Bin, doesn’t delete or update their email consent status in Marketing Cloud Next.
To match consent based on public lists, your Account Engagement business unit must have fewer than 250,000 active, opted-out prospects. If you exceed the limit, you can use the Recycle Bin to reduce the number of prospects, or use the Opted Out match type instead.
If a public list is moved to the Recycle Bin, consent matching continues and a configuration issue appears in Optimizer.
When using the Opted Out match type, the sync behavior for the default prospect Opted Out field in Account Engagement must be set to "Use the most recently updated field value," "Use Account Engagement's value," or be unmapped to Salesforce.

Start Consent Matching

When you’re ready to start matching consent data across the two apps, turn on the feature in Account Engagement Settings.

In the Lightning app, select Account Engagement Settings, and then select Email Consent Matching.
On the Set Up Email Consent Matching page, click Get Started to open the Edit page.
Under Match Type, select Opted Out Field or Public List.
If you selected Public List, configure your communication subscriptions.
1. Select up to 100 public lists to match.
2. For each list, enter a unique name for the communication subscription to create in Marketing Cloud Next. You can't map a public list to an existing subscription.
Review your selections, confirm that you understand how consent matching works, and click Match Consent.

It can take up to 48 hours for updates to process, but your initial copy progress appears in the status field. Don’t import new consent records to Marketing Cloud Next until the process is complete. When matching is done, the status shows Active and the user who started the process receives an email.

Manage Consent Matching

Review the consent matching status for each of your public lists on the Email Consent Matching page. You can also add or remove lists from active consent matching at any time. If you stop consent matching for all lists, consent data is no longer aligned between Account Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next though it's still available. Marketing Cloud Next supports only one unique name for each subscription. To restart consent matching, first delete or change the name of the affected subscription in Marketing Cloud Next.

Task	Steps
Start matching a new list	On the Email Consent Matching page, select New. Select a list and click Next, enter a subscription name, and then click Match Consent.
Stop matching a single list	On the Email Consent Matching page, next to the list you want to work with, click the Settings drop-down, and select Stop Matching. If only one list is actively matching consent, use the Stop Matching button instead.
Stop matching for all lists	On the Email Consent Matching page, in the page header, click Stop Matching. Review the confirmation window and click Stop.