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When organizations move to Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys, one question often comes up immediately: what happens to the consent preferences we already have?<\/strong><\/p>\n Your contacts and leads may already contain years of email preferences through fields such as Email<\/strong> and Bulk Email<\/strong>. Asking every existing customer to provide consent again is not only unnecessary, but it can also create friction and potentially leave you with incomplete consent data.<\/p>\n The challenge is that real-time journeys use a different consent model. They rely on contact point consent records<\/strong> linked to compliance profiles and purposes, rather than treating the legacy consent fields on contact or lead records as the source of truth.<\/p>\n This is where the Load Consent<\/strong> feature in Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys becomes useful.<\/p>\n Load Consent helps organizations migrate existing consent preferences from contacts, leads, or legacy subscription lists into the new consent framework in bulk. Instead of manually recreating consent records or launching another opt-in campaign, you can use the consent data you already have to establish a compliant foundation for your real-time journeys.<\/p>\n In this blog, we’ll look at how Load Consent works, what it reads from your existing records, and how you can use it to migrate consent data into Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys.<\/p>\n Real-time journeys do not use the legacy Email and Bulk Email preference fields as their primary consent source by default. They rely on contact point consent records tied to compliance profiles and purposes. For more details on compliance and the consent center, refer to our previous Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n That is a fundamentally different model from the legacy Bulk Email flag, which used to act as a single source of truth on the contact record itself. If you skip the consent migration step, you risk creating a gap between your historical consent data and your new real-time journey configuration. Contacts may be unable to receive communications because no contact point consent records exist, while historical opt-outs may not be reflected correctly in the new consent model.<\/p>\n Suppose your organization is setting up real-time journeys for the first time and wants marketing emails to respect the Bulk Email preferences already recorded on your contacts, rather than starting consent collection from zero.<\/p>\n At a high level, Load Consent reads existing consent signals from contacts or leads<\/strong> and converts them into contact point consent records against a compliance profile and purpose you choose. It’s a one-time (or repeatable) bulk operation, not a live sync, so it’s a migration tool, not an ongoing integration.<\/p>\n A few mechanics worth understanding before you run it:<\/p>\n Prerequisites<\/strong><\/p>\n Before running Load Consent, make sure the following are in place:<\/p>\n Access & permissions<\/strong><\/p>\n Setup<\/strong><\/p>\n A quick note on the “Do Not Allow” dropdown fields: both contacts and leads carry two separate two-value fields that Load Consent reads directly, Do Not Allow Emails (schema name: donotemail) and Do Not Allow Bulk Emails (schema name: donotbulkemail). Each one is a simple option set of Allow or Do Not Allow, with no in-between “not set” state, which is exactly why a single field flipped to Do Not Allow is enough to opt a contact point out when the load runs.<\/p>\n How to Load Consent: \u00a0<\/strong>Navigate to the Consent Center. Go to Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys > Audience > Consent Center.<\/p>\n Click the Load consent button from the ribbon bar as below:<\/p>\n Choose your source:<\/strong> Decide whether you’re loading from contacts, leads, or a legacy subscription list. In this blog, let us use contacts as the consent source.<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> You’ll also see Subscription list as a selectable source alongside contacts and leads. That’s because subscription lists were how the legacy Outbound Marketing app tracked consent. Since Outbound Marketing is being retired, Load Consent lets you pull that legacy list data directly into Customer Insights – Journeys.<\/p>\n Select the destination compliance profile and purpose.<\/strong> Pick the compliance profile you want the consent records created under (usually a profile that already has a preference center attached) and the specific purpose. Here we will be using the preexisting Default Compliance profile<\/p>\n Map the fields:<\/strong> Confirm which purpose reflects Bulk Email (commercial communications) and which reflects Email (transactional).<\/p>\n A quick note on the “Do Not Allow” dropdown fields: both contacts and leads carry two separate two-value fields that Load Consent reads directly, Do Not Allow Emails (schema name donotemail) and Do Not Allow Bulk Emails (schema name donotbulkemail). Each one is a simple option set of Allow or Do Not Allow, with no in-between “not set” state, which is exactly why a single field flipped to Do Not Allow is enough to opt a contact point out when the load runs.<\/p>\n Run the load:<\/strong> The system evaluates each record against the rules above and creates or updates the corresponding contact point consent records.<\/p>\n Verify the results:<\/strong> Spot-check a sample of contacts, particularly ones with duplicate records sharing an email address, to confirm the resulting consent status matches what you expect. The bulk contact point consent records were loaded as shown below:<\/p>\n Before using this feature directly on production, consider the Do and Don\u2019t mentioned below:<\/p>\n Do:<\/strong><\/p>\n Don’t:<\/strong><\/p>\n Migrating to Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys does not mean you have to rebuild your consent data from scratch.<\/p>\n The Load Consent<\/strong> feature helps organizations bring existing consent preferences from contacts, leads, and legacy subscription lists into the contact point consent model used by real-time journeys. This allows you to preserve historical opt-ins and opt-outs while establishing the compliance structure required for future communications.<\/p>\n However, Load Consent should be treated as a data migration process<\/strong>, not an ongoing synchronization mechanism. Before running it in production, make sure your compliance profiles, purposes, audience configuration, and consent preferences are correctly configured. Testing with a smaller data set can also help identify issues involving shared email addresses or incorrect consent mappings.<\/p>\n Once the consent data has been successfully loaded and verified, your organization can begin using Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys with a stronger and more reliable compliance foundation.<\/p>\n The key takeaway is simple: your existing consent history still has value. Load Consent helps you carry that history forward instead of asking your customers to start over.<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. What is the Load Consent feature in Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys?<\/strong><\/p>\n Load Consent is a built-in feature in Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys that helps migrate existing consent preferences from contacts, leads, or legacy subscription lists into contact point consent records. These records can then be used with compliance profiles and purposes in real-time journeys.<\/p>\n 2. Does Load Consent automatically synchronize future consent changes?<\/strong><\/p>\n No. Load Consent is a bulk migration process and not a live synchronization feature. If consent preferences change on a contact or lead record after the load has been completed, those changes are not automatically reflected in the contact point consent records.<\/p>\n 3. Which consent fields does Load Consent use?<\/strong><\/p>\n For contacts and leads, Load Consent evaluates the legacy Do Not Allow Email<\/strong> and Do Not Allow Bulk Email<\/strong> preferences. The configured audience email field determines which email address is used when creating the contact point consent records.<\/p>\n 4. Can Load Consent migrate consent stored in custom fields?<\/strong><\/p>\n No. Load Consent does not read consent values from custom consent fields. If your organization stores consent information in custom fields or another external data source, you may need to use an alternative approach, such as importing consent data from Excel.<\/p>\n 5. What happens when multiple contacts have the same email address?<\/strong><\/p>\n When multiple records share the same email address, Load Consent evaluates the consent status associated with that shared contact point. If one of the linked records indicates that email communication is not allowed, the resulting consent outcome can affect the shared email address.<\/p>\n 6. Can Load Consent be used for leads as well as contacts?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes. Load Consent supports contacts and leads as consent sources. It can also be used to migrate consent information from legacy subscription lists created for Outbound Marketing.<\/p>\n 7. Do I need a compliance profile before running Load Consent?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes. You should have the required compliance profile and purposes configured before running Load Consent because the feature needs a destination for the contact point consent records it creates or updates.<\/p>\n 8. Should I test Load Consent before running it in production?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes. It is recommended to test the process with a smaller data set first, especially if your environment contains duplicate records or multiple contacts sharing the same email address. This helps verify that the resulting consent records match your expected outcomes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When organizations move to Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys, one question often comes up immediately: what happens to the consent preferences we already have? Your contacts and leads may already contain years of email preferences through fields such as Email and Bulk Email. Asking every existing customer to provide consent again is not only unnecessary, but\u2026 Read More: Your Existing Consent Data Shouldn’t Have to Start From Zero »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3396,2361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-customer-insights","category-technical"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tWhy Existing Consent Data Must Be Migrated to Customer Insights \u2013 Journeys<\/strong><\/h3>\n
What Load Consent Actually Does<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Conclusion<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n