Need some clarification on Marketing Cloud and journey builder subscription status behaviour

Question

I'm struggling to find some clear and concrete info on the following scenarios. If someone can confirm each for me, that would be much appreciated. (*See bottom for some notes). Thanks!

• This is in the context of using Journeys
• Using the Send Email activity in the builder
• Using "All Subscribers" as the "* Publication List" in the activity setup

The questions for each scenario is: 1. Would they receive the email 2. Would they be added to All Subscribers 3. What would their subscription status be in the end?

Scenario 1:

The customer:

• Doesn't exist on All Subscribers list at all (never been sent to)
• We enter them into a journey and send a Transactional email

Scenario 2:

The customer:

• Doesn't exist on All Subscribers list at all (never been sent to)
• We enter them into a journey and send a Commercial email

Scenario 3:

The customer:

• Is on All Subscribers list
• They are Unsubscribed from All
• We enter them into a journey and send a Commercial email

Scenario 4:

The customer:

• Is on All Subscribers list
• They are Unsubscribed from All
• We enter them into a journey and send a Transactional email

Scenario 5:

The customer:

• Is on All Subscribers list
• They are Active
• We enter them into a journey and send a Transactional email

Scenario 6:

The customer:

• Is on All Subscribers list
• They are Active
• We enter them into a journey and send a Transactional email

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*Notes:

• I know about Triggered Send settings, where there are tick boxes for Add Subscribers to this List and Update Subscribers, but these are TRUE and I can't edit them. It says to edit in Journey Builder, but those tick boxes aren't present in journey builder

• The purpose of this is to make sure I understand correctly in what instances an email gets sent/someone gets added to All Subscribers, so that we DON'T send unwarranted emails to customers. In other words, trying be sure that we are compliant.

Answer 1

Below is the quick answers to your questions. Followed by some good reference points.

Scenario 1:

1. Yes they would be sent to. Transactional emails also, by default, ignore opt out status - unless you choose option to honor it.

2. Yes added to All Subscribers.

3. Status would be active

Scenario 2:

1. Yes they would be sent to.

2. Yes added to All Subscribers.

3. Status would be active

Scenario 3:

1. Would not be sent to.

2. Already exist on All Subs

3. Status would remain Unsubscribed

Scenario 4:

1. Yes they would be sent to. Transactional emails, by default, ignore opt out status - unless you choose to honor it.

2. Already exist

3. Status would remain Unsubscribed

Scenario 5:

1. Yes they would be sent to.

2. Already exist on All Sub

3. Status would remain active

Scenario 6:

1. Yes they would be sent to.

2. Already exist on All Sub

3. Status would remain active

Ref.

Subscriber Status meaning - Held and Unsubscribe are considered Undeliverable.

Send Classification -

For transactional messages, we do not check for the presence of an unsubscribe.

Triggered sends with no associated list cannot track unsubscribe requests, regardless of whether there's an associated data extension. Therefore, these sends cannot exclude unsubscribed subscribers from the send.

Triggered Send Creation Walkthrough - Utilizing the Trigger through JourneyBuilder automatically adds the subscriber to All Subs, where you can choose to not allow it when outside the JB environment.

Answer 2

Got this reply back from the Journey Builder product team on why the option to not add subscribers to All Subs isn't available on JB email sends.

"I believe the technical reason is/was that for a contact to enter a Journey, they need to be a registered contact. The easiest path to registering a contact is to add them to All Subs, so that’s what JB does if an unregistered contact enters."