Unifying Email Preferences During Platform Transition
Design a scalable preference center that balanced a long-term vision for unified user settings and maximise marketing funnel while remaining compliant.
Marketing was changing how they send email newsletter to audiences. These emails are a key aspect of how we communicate to audiences and a key marketing channel.
Marketing approached the team with the need of a solution for users to opt in and out of emails on the Account Settings page. When defining where the solution lives, I aligned it with the long-term vision for a unified preference management hub — a vision that I helped shaping before this project launched.
I was in charge of designing the new email preferences, as well as managing relations with Content Design, Marketing, Product, Engineering and Legal teams.
- Replace a fragmented setup with a solution that meets compliance and marketing requirements
- Multiple systems are storing and interpreting users’ choices differently. This makes it difficult to provide a coherent experience to users and creates operational and compliance challenges
- Coordinated tight collaboration with content design to ensure the new email preference settings were digestible for users
- Coordinated with product and engineering to ensure the scalability and future-proofing for new settings implementation
- Ensure marketing buy-in to optimise preferences around their main funnel
- I established a scalable foundation for unified preference management ensuring the long-term architectural vision of Settings is supported
- I balanced marketing goals with transparent user consent, ensuring long-term data integrity and regulatory compliance
- I navigated a complex stakeholder environment to deliver a compliant and workable solution that improved usability
After an initial brainstorming and conversation with marketing, I designed high-fidelity proposals of the new flow.
Email preferences effectively operate on three states, while the interface only shows two (toggle on/off):
- Yes — user actively “soft opts in” to newsletter → they always receive it
- No — user actively “soft opts out” from newsletter → they never receive it
- Neutral (not set) — user does nothing → they may still receive emails if our targeting/consumption rules apply
After a few conversations, marketing wasn’t keen on adding a third state as this posed a risk to their strategy. I worked with content design to clearly communicate to the users that some marketing emails could be sent to them if personalisation is on. This solution was compliant and also built trust with the users.
- Established a clear, deliverable plan for a new email preference experience
- Reduced fragmentation by embedding preferences within a more coherent account model
- Met immediate business and compliance needs without compromising long-term strategy
- Created a stronger foundation for future unified preference and personalisation work
This project helped shift preference management from a siloed marketing function toward a more integrated, user-centred account experience.
