Someone buys two adult tickets online, types in their email address, and from then on gets your newsletter, member appeals, and event announcements. They never actually said yes to any of that. They gave you an address so their tickets could be delivered. An explicit opt-in checkbox at checkout fixes that gap, and you end up with a cleaner, more engaged list.
The checkbox is the easy part. The real work is deciding what it means and making sure the answer ends up somewhere in Altru your marketing team can use.
Start with what the box actually promises
Before anyone touches a web form, agree on the wording and what it covers. “Send me news and offers from the museum” is a different promise than “Keep me informed about member events.” Some questions to settle:
- One box or several? One general marketing opt-in is simpler and gets more consistent answers. Separate boxes for newsletters, fundraising, and events give people more control, but every extra box is one more preference you have to store and honor.
- Checked or unchecked by default? A box that starts checked isn’t explicit consent. If you have visitors from Canada, the EU, or the UK, an unchecked box is the safer standard, and it’s good practice anywhere.
- What about transactional email? Ticket confirmations, receipts, and tax acknowledgments go out no matter what’s in that box. Say so near the checkbox so buyers don’t uncheck it and then wonder where their tickets went.
- What happens to existing contacts? If someone opted out last year and buys tickets today without checking the box, they should stay opted out. An unchecked box shouldn’t overwrite a preference they already gave you, in either direction.
Can Altru’s own web forms do this?
Honestly, it depends on the form type and your configuration, and it’s worth confirming before you plan around it. Altru’s web forms give you some control over which fields appear, and Altru keeps communication preferences on the constituent record (solicit codes and related settings). What’s less clear is whether a given checkout form can show a custom, unchecked consent box and write that answer to the specific preference you want, with no staff work in between.
The quickest way to find out:
- Open the form in your test or sandbox environment and check which optional fields and questions you can add.
- Place a test order with the box checked and another with it unchecked, using a brand-new email address each time.
- Open the resulting constituent records and see exactly what was saved: a solicit code, an attribute, a note, or nothing.
- Repeat with an email that already belongs to an existing constituent, and confirm the new answer doesn’t wipe out a preference already on that record.
If the answer lands somewhere you can’t easily query, or doesn’t land at all, ask Blackbaud support whether there’s a supported way to map it. Don’t assume it works because the box shows up on the page.
Where the consent should live in Altru
Wherever the checkbox sits, the answer needs a home on the constituent record that your email list is actually built from. In practice that usually means:
- A solicit code or communication preference showing whether the person agreed to marketing email. This is what your email queries should filter on.
- The date and source of consent. “Opted in via online ticket checkout on this date” is what you’ll want if anyone ever asks how they got on your list. An attribute with a date, or a dated note, both work.
- Household behavior. Decide whether one person’s opt-in covers the household or only that individual. Usually it should be the individual, since the person who checked the box owns that email address.
Then update your marketing email queries to require the opt-in, not just “has an email address.” This is the step teams most often skip, which leaves the checkbox collecting answers that never change who gets the newsletter.
If the form can’t do it yet
You still have options while you work out the checkout side:
- Ask in the confirmation email. Add a clear “Want to hear about upcoming events?” link in the ticket confirmation that goes to a short signup form. It’s a step removed from checkout, but it’s explicit.
- Keep a standalone signup form. Link to it from your site footer and post-visit emails, and make sure signups get the same solicit code and consent date.
- Train the front desk. For walk-up sales, a simple “Would you like our emails?” with a matching field for staff to fill in keeps in-person buyers consistent with online buyers.
- Sync carefully. If your list lives in Mailchimp or another email platform, make sure the sync sends only opted-in constituents, and that unsubscribes come back into Altru so the two stay in agreement.
A checkout built around consent
Some organizations replace Altru’s purchase forms entirely. Social Good’s Checkouts is a branded, mobile-friendly checkout for tickets, memberships, and donations that writes its data back to Altru. If you’re evaluating it, bring your opt-in wording and the Altru field you want consent stored in, and confirm on a test order that the answer lands where your email queries expect it.
Quick answers
Does an opt-in box stop ticket confirmations?
It shouldn’t. Confirmations and receipts are transactional and go out whether or not someone opts in to marketing. Keep the two clearly separate in your email setup.
Should I re-ask existing contacts?
If you can’t tell how older contacts got on your list, a one-time “stay subscribed” email is a reasonable way to rebuild consent. People who don’t respond can be moved to a non-marketing status rather than deleted.
