Disclaimer
Introduction
Proper management of personal data is a cornerstone of the GDPR. The focus of Supervisory Authorities has significantly expanded to the so‑called tracking pixels in emails. The Decision of 17 April 2026 by the Italian Data Protection Authority, containing the Guidelines on the use of tracking pixels in email communications (“Guidelines”) has set stringent rules: these invisible technologies capable of recording email opens fully fall within the scope of Article 122 of the Italian Privacy Code (which implements in Italy the rules of the so‑called ePrivacy Directive).
In light of this regulatory framework, the availability of tools that allow the data subject to manage their preferences easily and transparently becomes particularly important. In this context, managing a Preference Center is a useful solution to let the data subject view and manage their preferences.
In this scenario, this guide covers the following steps:
- Creating and managing the Preference Center service page starting from the template provided in the platform;
- Analyzing the structure of the page and its components;
- Describing the behavior of the buttons that allow the data subject to enable or disable tracking;
- Possible customizations of the elements that make up the Preference Center;
- Activating the "Preference Center page and configuring the available options;
- Creating a message and inserting the link to the Preference Center;
- Checking how the choice expressed by the data subject is reflected in the Denies consent to tracking field in the contact profile.
Finally, we will also illustrate the scenario where it is necessary to modify an existing Preference Center, showing how to introduce a dedicated option that allows the data subject to granularly manage their preference related to tracking of email communications.
Creating the Preference Center page
To create a new Preference Center, you can start from a service page with a template already provided by the platform. Navigate in the magnews menu to the Profile Studio section and, based on your scenario, decide whether to choose a specific reference database (in our example: Team, Contacts, ...) or, alternatively, to create the new service page directly within Profile Studio, which is the magnews area that aggregates all contacts from each individual database.
To create the new service page, expand the Database management section and click Service pages:
On the next screen, you will find the New service page button which, once clicked, lets you choose the page type to create. In this case, choose Preference center:
Click Create page to continue.
Note that you can also select the Brand Kit as a starting point for the styles (fonts, colors, ...) of the page you are creating. You can find more information on configuring the Brand Kit in the dedicated guide.
On the next screen, several templates are available. In this scenario, choose the one called Email tracking preferences:
Structure of the Preference Center
The selected template generates a service page already equipped with the elements required for it to work.
Specifically, the page includes:
- A title and explanatory text about the preference related to tracking opens and clicks in emails;
- An Email tracking: Enabled section that visitors who arrive at the Preference Center with tracking enabled will see;
- An Email tracking: Disabled section that visitors who arrive at the Preference Center with tracking disabled will see.
Button behavior for managing tracking
The Disable email tracking and Enable email tracking buttons are configured so that, when the contact clicks, their preference is saved in the system yes/no field named Denies consent to tracking.
Specifically, when a contact clicks Disable email tracking:
The action on the Values Denies consent to tracking button:
Is automatically set to Yes:
Conversely, when a contact clicks Enable email tracking:
The action on the Values Denies consent to tracking button:
Is automatically set to No:
Customization of the Preference Center
The Preference Center generated from the magnews template already includes all the configurations required for it to work.
You can still make changes and/or customizations, for example by updating textual, graphic, or styling elements. If, for example, you need to manage the preferences page in another language, you can translate the text of each element.
Also remember that you can change the page name:
Or preview it on desktop and mobile:
Activating the page
Once completed, and optionally customized with your brand elements, go back to the Preference Center page card:
To make the page usable (e.g., link it from a link in the footer of a communication, as shown below) you need to activate it. To do this, click the Activate button and, in the pop-up that appears, confirm your decision:
Also remember that, still from the page card, with the Settings button:
You can configure some usage options, such as Contact language, i.e., which contacts will be shown the service page (e.g., only contacts whose database Language field is set to English or Danish):
Adding the link in communications
At this point, the Preference Center service page is ready and active, and you can reference it with a link inside your communication templates and drafts.
To do this, create or edit a template or a communication draft and, for example, place yourself in the footer. Here, add or edit the service links element, inserting the text "Tracking preferences":
Select the text from the communication designer:
Or from the content edit box:
and use the function to insert a hyperlink:
For the Web address (URL) field, click the chain icon:
and first select the Service links option:
and then Preference center:
Click Save link to apply the change:
At this point, also save the footer text element that contains the link; you will see the change applied in the designer:
Updating the contact profile
When the contact receives the communication and clicks the Tracking preferences link, they are directed to the Preference Center service page, where their current preference is shown in terms of tracking enabled or disabled.
When tracking is enabled, the page will appear as follows:
When tracking is disabled, it will appear as follows:
The choice made by the contact via the button immediately produces two main effects:
- The page reloads showing the contact's updated preference;
- The contact profile in the magnews database is updated and, for the system field Denies consent to tracking, the expressed/saved preference is shown.
For example, when the contact uses the Disable email tracking button, their profile in the magnews database is updated, indicating that:
- Tracking is disabled for the contact;
- The Denies consent to tracking field is set to Yes.
Updating an existing Preference Center
The previous scenario shows how to configure a Preference Center using a new service page with a template already provided by magnews.
However, you may already have a Preference Center configured in the past that needs to be updated.
In this case, access your Preference Center in magnews and add a form element called Checkbox:
Customize the checkbox text, for example: “Consent to the tracking of email opens and interactions with content”:
Then open the checkbox edit dialog and:
- Enable the Connect to contact field function;
- Select the system field Denies consent to tracking;
- Enable the Reverse the checkbox function option, because the Denies consent to tracking system field uses inverse logic compared to the preference expressed by the data subject.
Save your changes and make sure the Pre-fill with contact's value option is also enabled:
By doing so, when each contact opens the Preference Center page, they will see their current preference and can decide whether to change/update it.
Now open the edit dialog of the “Save” button:
and make sure the action Save connected fields on the contact is present (or add it as a new one):
This action updates the contact's preference regarding the tracking of email opens and interactions with content based on the choice expressed by the data subject.
Finally, remember to verify that the Preference Center is working correctly, ensuring that the choice expressed by the data subject is correctly recorded in the contact profile, as described in the Updating the contact profile section.