Understanding Contact Statuses (Email Icons & Phone Icons)

Last updated
20240926

Article type
Best practice / Theory / Information

Applies to
Starter, Business, Pro-Marketer

Special contents
n/a

Details

Contacts in our platform are assigned a status. The status of a contact can have an effect on whether you're able to email or SMS the contact. Regardless of whether the status of a contact changes, we will never remove a contact from your list. A contact's status can change based on the following;

system events (such as an email bouncing),
automations,
the contact making changes themselves (ie. unsubscribing from a list) or
you manually doing so using options provided in the platform.

Contact Status Icons Explained

Email Statuses

Active (blue icon)

This type of contact can be sent to

Subscribed (purple icon)

This type of contact can be sent to
This type of contact has consented to receiving emails

Confirmed (green icon)

This type of contact can be sent to
This type of contact has confirmed their email address through double opt-in
This type of status only applies to email addresses

Unsubscribed (yellow icon)

This type of contact cannot be sent to
A contact becomes unsubscribed when they are set as such by an automation, or when the contact unsubscribes from a list, or when a user manually unsubscribes the contact using the 'Actions' menu in the main contacts view (among several other options, such as being marked as unsubscribed by a third-party integration)
This type of contact will count towards your plan's contact totals if they still exist on your list(s). If you remove them from your list(s), they will no longer count towards your contact totals. We have 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). Contacts on this special 'master' Unsubscribers list do not count towards your contact numbers. See Managing Unsubscribers.

Deactivated (red icon)

This type of contact cannot be sent to
A contact becomes deactivated when they are set as such by an automation, or when an email to them permanently bounces, or when a user manually deactivates the contact using the 'Actions' menu in the main contacts view (among several other options, such as being marked as deactivated by a third-party integration)
If an email address is deactivated and unsubscribed, it will show as Unsubscribed
This type of contact will count towards your plan's contact totals

Blocked (black icon)

This type of contact cannot be sent to
A contact becomes blocked when it is added to the block list.
This type of contact will count towards your plan's contact totals if they still exist on your list(s). If you remove them from your list(s), they will no longer count towards your contact totals. We have a 'master' Block list which sits behind the scenes (this acts as a suppression list). Contacts on this special 'master' Block list do not count towards your contact numbers. See Block Contacts.

SMS Statuses

Subscribed (blue icon)

This type of contact can be sent to

Consented (purple icon)

This type of contact can be sent to
This type of contact has consented to receiving SMS