Before examining permission processing as part of the marketing process overview, you first need to understand how permissions and subscriptions are defined in SAP Marketing Cloud.
A permission is consent given for the combination of a communication medium and a marketing area. You can restrict permission for a specific country/region or communication medium combination by defining how permissions are handled. A permission can be classified either as an outbound or inbound marketing permission.
Talking about permissions in general, we mostly mean outbound marketing permissions. They determine whether the system is allowed to contact an interaction contact using a specific communication medium; for example, email or phone. Here, the system allows you to define how outbound permissions are treated.
For some countries, you can set the permission to Implicit so the communication with interaction contacts in that country can happen without their express permission for the defined medium. An explicit permission, on the other hand, always needs to be validated and agreed by the interaction contact before communication can take place.
Finally, you should keep in mind that inbound marketing permissions define how the interaction data will be tracked on social channels like Facebook. You can save such data without any restrictions, record them anonymously, or discard such recordings because of missing permissions.
Subscriptions are a special form of permissions that are only valid for a certain marketing context, for example a newsletter or event. When an Interaction Contact can subscribe for a newsletter X, permission for the communication medium email first needs to be given for that individual to be contacted. Subscriptions are only available for the email communication medium.
Permission Process Overview
