In this article, we will try to get an overall understanding of the Profile Center, Subscription Center and Preference Center in Marketing Cloud. Marketing Cloud provides with out of box functionality in order to Manage its Subscriber(Customer/Prospect/etc) preferences using Profile and Subscription Center.
Profile Center: Marketing Cloud provides the Profile Center Web page where Subscriber can update their basic information and Personal preferences. This applies to Email Marketing only. We can add custom attributes to show available information(First Name/Last Name/Email/etc) or collect additional preference related attributes on the Profile Center.
Navigation: Email Studio –> Email –> Subscribers –> Profile Management
Click on Preview Profile Center
Subscription Center: Subscription Center is a different web page that identifies which messages a Subscriber(Customer/Prospects) can receive from our business. Communications that have been added to a public publication list are displayed in Available publications. Publication lists helping in Opting in/opting out of desired communications instead of opting out from all communications. For example, if a customer wants to opt-out from Weekly deals emails and want to receive Newsletter Emails this could be handled using Publication lists. As a side note you cannot use custom attributes in Subscription Center.
Navigation: Email Studio –> Email –> Subscribers –> Profile Management
Click on Preview Profile Center and select Subscription Center
As part of the CAN-SPAM Act, it is mandatory to have the Unsubscribe option to be part of Email marketing and the out of box profile center and Subscription center provides with such an option with much of hassle.
Note: You can only customize the color scheme and add your logo using Brand Builder but not do much of customization to any of these standard web pages.
