Opt-in is generally defined as a situation where customers provide their personal information (e.g., email address or phone number) to an organization, with the expectation that they'll receive marketing communications as a result. The consent given can be implicit or explicit. It's important to understand the differences between these two types of consent, as laws such as CAN-SPAM, CCPA, and GDPR have changed the way customer data and communication is handled.

Note: What consent looks like varies worldwide, so be sure to check the regulations for the regions you're contacting. That said, these definitions of implicit and explicit consent should help you navigate those regulations, help you comply, and help you create successful campaigns.

Implicit consent

Implicit consent is given when an individual provides their information for a business purpose but has not explicitly stated that they want to receive marketing communications. For example, a customer may fill out a "Contact Us" form or complete a purchase through your store.

Explicit consent

Explicit consent is given when you ask an individual for permission to send them marketing materials, and they agree. The future recipient must manually opt-in by taking action. The submission of a form that includes an email address or phone number field is not sufficient for explicit consent. However, the inclusion of an unchecked checkbox that the individual must click is acceptable. 

Collecting explicit consent for email

Privy supports an additional email opt-in checkbox that, when paired with the email field, allows a customer to provide explicit consent for email communications. For compliance reasons, the checkbox should be optional, and unchecked by default.

Collecting explicit consent for text

Privy supports an additional text opt-in checkbox that, when paired with the phone field, allows a customer to provide explicit consent for text communications. For compliance reasons, the checkbox should be optional, and unchecked by default. Unlike email, Privy requires explicit consent for text. Simply collecting a customer's phone number does not make them eligible. 

Note: It's recommended that you continue to collect email addresses as part of text sign-up forms as this information allows the phone numbers to apprehend to existing contact profiles. 

Consent and imports

A contact's consent is implied when importing contacts as subscribed via a spreadsheet.

Consent's impact on reachability

Privy recommends obtaining explicit consent regardless of your local regulations as it provides you (the sender) more protection concerning privacy and compliance regulations. Additionally, it provides transparency for your customers (the recipient) concerning their future relationship with your marketing communications. That said, it is not required for all channels so it is important to understand how Privy approaches each sign-up scenario: 

Ultimately, a sign-up event will make a contact mailable unless the contact is suppressed or explicit consent was asked for and not provided. Those contacts with the unset state have neither opted in nor opted out of receiving emails and will not be mailable until they opt in. Learn more about Privy's reachability statues here. 

Note: A lack of consent in a sign-up event is not treated the same as revoking consent. A contact who is already mailable won't become unmailable if they fail to check future opt-in checkboxes.