As an association, your audience isn’t one-size-fits-all, so why should your email preference center be? Whether you’re communicating with members, non-members, industry partners, or volunteers, relevance matters. That’s why we think HubSpot’s Subscription Rules (also known as Visibility Rules) are a game changer for associations looking to streamline communication and improve engagement.
If you’re using HubSpot Marketing Hub Enterprise, here’s what you need to know about how this feature can transform your email communication strategy.
Subscription Rules allow you to control which email subscription options your contacts see when they visit your email subscription page. Instead of displaying every possible communication option to every user, you can tailor visibility based on key contact properties like membership type, region, committee involvement, or any custom field synced from your AMS through Spark.
This isn’t just about selecting preferences. It’s about precision, compliance, and delivering better user experience.
Respect Contact Preferences and Remain Compliant
Subscription Rules support compliance with regulations like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CASL by making it easier to manage consent at scale.
Increase Engagement with More Relevant Content
When your members and stakeholders see only the options that apply to them, they’re more likely to opt in and remain in that state.
Reduce List Fatigue and Unsubscribes
By eliminating irrelevant subscription choices, you reduce the risk of confusion and bulk unsubscribes.
Empower Smarter Segmentation
This feature works hand-in-hand with dynamic lists, letting you group contacts based on real-time data and showing them only what’s relevant.
Subscription Rules are especially useful for:
Membership Tiers - offer exclusive newsletters or benefits to paying members only.
Vendors & Sponsors - Limit vendor-facing communications to vendor contacts only.
Chapter or Region-Based Orgs - Show regional content subscriptions based on a contact’s location or chapter.
Committees & Task Forces - Deliver targeted updates to governance or working group members.
Donor Segments - Communicate with high-value donors or prospective contributors without overwhelming your entire list.
You can implement Subscription Rules in four steps:
Define your audience segments based on HubSpot or AMS-synced properties.
Create dynamic lists for each segment (e.g., members, non-members, exhibitors, etc.). [INSERT VIDEO CLIP 1]
Set visibility rules for each subscription type based on those lists. [INSERT VIDEO CLIP 2]
Test and preview how your preference page looks to different segments right from within HubSpot’s email editor. [INSERT VIDEO CLIP 3]
Once live, the rules dynamically control what each contact sees, keeping your communications both compliant and streamlined.
While HubSpot’s native preference center offers flexibility in visibility, visual customization (like multi-column layouts or nested preferences) is limited. For most associations, however, the ability to deliver the right options to the right people far outweighs design limitations.
For associations, Subscription Rules offer a smarter, easier way to respect contact preferences, reduce noise, and boost engagement, all without the need for custom-built email preference centers. And when paired with your Spark integration, you can use live AMS data to drive even more relevant communication experiences.
Whether you're focused on improving member retention, growing sponsor relationships, or boosting newsletter performance, Subscription Rules put you in control of the email subscription experience.