Managing Unsubscribers 🎬

Details

⚠️ Upcoming Changes to the Unsubscribe Process

 

Opt-Out Link

When you send email to your subscribers, you're required to include an opt-out link - also known as an unsubscribe link. When a subscriber clicks the opt-out link, our system marks them as an unsubscriber in your account.

Including this link in all of your emails is required so that your organisation remains spam compliant. In most scenarios the link is automatically included for you.

Understanding Spam Compliance

 

Unsubscriber List

Our platform has a 'master' Unsubscribers list which sits behind the scenes to help you remain spam compliant and ensure you don't re-upload them again at a later date.

The 'master' Unsubscriber list is separate to your marketing lists and can be found in the Contacts section (on the Unsubscribers tab). Contacts on this special 'master' Unsubscribers list do not count towards your contact numbers.

Because we will never remove a contact from your list(s) (you are the only person who can do so), contacts who have unsubscribed will also remain on your normal list(s) and these contacts are included in your monthly charges.

Understanding Contact Statuses

If you're not using these contacts for any other purposes such as re-marketing or storing notes as part of a CRM function, reporting history or other contact information, you can search for and remove unsubscribers from your lists and they'll still remain in the 'master' Unsubscribers list. The guide below has a section on how to find & remove these contacts, if desired.

 

What Happens When a Contact Unsubscribes?

When a contact unsubscribes from an email sent to them, that contact will only be unsubscribed from that particular list. At this time, they will also automatically get added to the 'master' Unsubscribes list (mentioned above) and won't be included in any future contact imports on any other list, unless you override the setting at the time of import.

If you need to ensure contacts are unsubscribed across all lists, you can manually unsubscribe contacts across all lists (see how-to guide below), add them to your block list, or move to a single list for your marketing communications to streamline your account and reduce contact duplication.

List Management: Single Master List vs. Many Lists

 

Have You Thought About Using List Preferences?

List preferences (also called email preferences) are a great way to allow your contacts to choose the types of emails they want to receive from you (eg. Newsletters, Events, Promotions). The contact can update these at any time, you can add them to your Subscription forms & you can set them across your contacts in bulk any time ...including at the time of import!

It's also a great way to potentially retain a contact who is about to unsubscribe - by allowing them to alter their preferences instead of unsubscribing completely.

Collecting & Sending to Contacts With Email Preferences

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What happens when a contact unsubscribes?
A: As mentioned above, when a contact unsubscribes from an email sent to them, the contact will only be unsubscribed from that particular list - they will not be unsubscribed from any other lists that they may exist in. At this time, they will also automatically get added to the 'master' unsubscribers list and won't be included in any future contact imports on any list, unless you override the setting at the time of import.

 

Q: What if a contact has unsubscribed, but they're contained within a spreadsheet of contacts I'm about to re-import?
A: As mentioned above, a contact is added to a 'master' unsubscribers list whenever they unsubscribe. So even if you delete them, they'll still be on this 'master' unsubscribers list.

Whenever you import contacts, we check them against this 'master' unsubscribers list. If they exist on this list, then we will not import them (i.e. they'll be ignored from your spreadsheet). However, you can adjust a setting during the import process to import them anyway (that is, so long as the list you're importing into is not the same one that they originally unsubscribed from).

 

Q: Can I manually unsubscribe a contact?
A: Yes, you'll find instructions on this within our How-to Guide below.

 

Q: Can I manually resubscribe an unsubscribed contact?
A: Yes, you'll find instructions on this within our How-to Guide below.

 

Q: Can I receive a notification when someone subscribes or unsubscribes?
A: Yes, please see our related how-to guide.

 

Q: Gmail, Yahoo and similar email clients have an unsubscribe link that sometimes appears at the top of an email in the header section. How does this work?
A: When this unsubscribe link is clicked by the recipient, the usual unsubscribe process applies - in that the contact is unsubscribed ONLY from the list where that email was sent to at the time. If you need to unsubscribe the contact from all lists, you can follow our how-to guide below. Note that the appearance of this automated header unsubscribe link is at the discretion of Google & Yahoo, based on factors such as the sender reputation and email content. In other words, the automated unsubscribe link it will not always appear.

 

Q: What happens when an unsubscribed contact subscribes to the list again?
A: Let's say john@xyz.donuts unsubscribed from your 'eNews' list by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of your eNews email, but you haven't removed them from the list (i.e. they're still sitting there on your list as a unsubscribed contact).

Then, a few months later, they decided to resubscribe to your 'eNews' list by filling in that list's subscription form. When this happens, they will be added to the list as a new contact (ie. a duplicate contact). Note that because they're added as a new contact, they will not have any of the information or history that was assigned to the older (unsubscribed) version of their contact.

In these instances, you may elect to simply re-subscribe the old contact manually - and then delete the newly created duplicate.

 

Q: Does the system delete unsubscribed contacts?
A: No, we do not delete contacts from the system as they are your contacts. However, you may wish to search for and manually delete unsubscribed contacts if you wish. You'll find instructions on this within our How-to Guide below.

Some of our users elect to retain unsubscribed contacts in order to keep accurate reporting data & contact history, or because they use our platform as a mini-CRM and don't wish to delete internal information stored on the contact record.

 

Q: OK, so if I can delete an unsubscribed contact. How do I ensure I don't send to them again?
A: When a contact unsubscribes, we also add them to a master 'unsubscribers' list automatically. So even if you delete the contact from your list(s), they will always remain on the master 'unsubscribers' list. This special list is a bit like a safety net!

 

Q: I am moving to your platform from another system. Can I upload a list of previously-unsubscribed contacts so that I don't annoy them or break any antispam laws?
A: Yes, you can upload a list (eg. suppression list) of previously-unsubscribed contacts into our platform. You'll find instructions on this within our How-to Guides below.

 

Q: I am using the Transactional API to send important emails to contacts that, by law, must be sent (eg. financial statements, insurance or health documentation, etc). Are these types of transactional sends still able to be sent to unsubscribed contacts?
A: Yes, you can still send to unsubscribed contacts by using the Transactional API via the include_unsubscribed parameter.

 

How-to Guide

This article contains a number of guides for various related topics. Click below to jump ahead to a particular guide.

• Add an Unsubscribe Link to an Email
• Collect Unsubscribe Reason / Unsubscribe Feedback (or watch the video)
• One-Click Unsubscribe
• Manually Unsubscribe a Contact (From a Specific List)
• Manually Unsubscribe Contacts (From All Lists)
• Resubscribing an Unsubscribed Contact
• Search for & Remove Unsubscribers From a List
• Upload a Suppression List of Previous Unsubscribers

 

Add an Unsubscribe Link to an Email

To help keep you spam complaint, the system automatically adds in an unsubscribe link to the footer of all emails sent from the system. However, you can also add your own link elsewhere within your email.

1. Select Messages from the sidebar.
2. Locate the email in question and open it for editing.
3. Add the text, image or button that you want the recipient to click on, in order to unsubscribe from your list.
4. Highlight the element and insert a link.
5. When configuring the link, select the Web Form link type, then set the Link To: field as Unsubscribe Form (as shown below).
   
6. Click Insert Link. When clicked by the recipient, the item you linked will now take them to your unsubscribe form (relating to whichever list your email was sent to).

Looking to change the unsubscribe wording mentioned within the email footer instead? Please view Modify the Email Footer in Your Account.

 

Collect Unsubscribe Reason / Unsubscribe Feedback

Our platform allows you to collect feedback from users as they unsubscribe. We have also included a how-to video below these steps.

1. Select Lists and Forms from the sidebar.
2. Double-click on the list in question to open the forms attached to that list.
3. Select your Unsubscribe form.
4. Click on your form's Submit button to select it.
5. In the Design panel to the right, set the Submit Action to Feedback Form (as shown).
   
6. A new Feedback Form sub-tab will appear. Click on this (as shown) to select it.
   
7. You can now customise the design of your unsubscribe feedback form. If you need to modify the Unsubscribe Reason field values, you can do so by double-clicking on the field and editing as required.
8. When done, click Save. Any unsubscribing contacts will now see this new process.

As part of this process, two new fields will automatically get added to your list in order to collect the data captured here. These fields are named 'Unsubscribe Reason' and 'Unsubscribe Feedback'.

If you have enabled the Unsubscribe Feedback Form and you are using One-Click Unsubscribe, contacts will be taken directly to the Unsubscribe Feedback Form.

 

Video (Collect Unsubscribe Reason / Unsubscribe Feedback)

 

One-Click Unsubscribe

This feature offers a more seamless unsubscribe option for your contacts, as they don't need to confirm their email address during the unsubscribe process.

1. Select Lists and Forms from the sidebar.
2. Double-click on the list in question to open the forms attached to that list.
3. Select your Unsubscribe form.
4. In the Advanced Settings panel to the right, enable the Skip login on unsubcribe option.
5. When done, click Save. Any unsubscribing contacts will now see this new process. If you have additional lists you wish to adjust this form, please repeat this process for each list.

This feature can sometimes lead to increased false unsubscribes, especially if your recipients' email server clicks on links in order to scan them to ensure they are safe links. In doing so, this will cause contacts to automatically unsubscribe without their knowledge. In most instances, we do not recommend using one-click unsubscribe for this reason - so you may wish to disable this on your list(s).

If you have enabled the Unsubscribe Feedback Form and you are using One-Click Unsubscribe, contacts will be taken directly to the Unsubscribe Feedback Form.

 

Manually Unsubscribe a Contact (From a Specific List)

If your contact gets in touch with you and requests to be unsubscribed, you can manually unsubscribe them.

1. Select Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Search for the contact in your list.
3. Select the contact by using the checkbox to the left.
4. From the Actions dropdown, select Unsubscribe.

 

Manually Unsubscribe Contacts (From All Lists)

1. Select Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Click the Unsubscribers tab. This will display all contacts in your account that have ever unsubscribed.
3. Click Add.
4. Select the list that you would like to add the contact(s) to, and enter or paste their email address(es). To unsubscribe the contact(s) from all lists, select Add to all lists.
5. When done, click Add.

 

Resubscribing an Unsubscribed Contact

From time to time a contact who has previously unsubscribed might like to be added back into your contact list.

1. Select Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Click the Unsubscribers tab. This will display all contacts in your account that have ever unsubscribed.
3. Using the search bar at the top of the unsubscribers list, search for the contact by email address or phone number.
4. Once located, select the contact record by clicking the check-box to the left.
5. From the Actions dropdown, select Restore Contacts.
6. Enable both checkbox options in the confirmation dialog.
7. Click Restore to finish the process.

 

Search for & Remove Unsubscribers From a List

When contacts unsubscribe from your list(s), it's a good idea to remove them to keep the number of contacts in your database down.

1. Select Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Click the Advanced Search (magnifying glass) icon.
3. In the advanced search criteria, configure the search as follows...
   Subscribed is No (as shown below).
   
4. Click Search. Unsubscribed contacts in the current list will be shown.
5. Select all of these contacts.
6. From the Actions dropdown, select Delete.

We recommend downloading the list of contacts prior to deleting, so that you have a record of the list.

Download or Export Contacts

 

Upload a Suppression List of Previous Unsubscribers

When moving to our platform from another system, it's always a good idea to upload your list of previous unsubscribers (often called a Suppression List) - so that you don't email them again after moving platforms.

1. Select Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Click the Unsubscribers tab.
3. Click Add.
4. Paste all of the email addresses from your suppression list into the field provided.
5. Be sure to check Add to all lists.
6. When done, click Add.