Unsubscribed Contacts
Keeping a record of unsubscribed contacts is one of the ways Sendlane works to protect you as a sender. When Contacts are designated as unsubscribed from a List in Sendlane, they cannot be added back to that List.
Email regulations such as the CAN-SPAM act and GDPR require that all digital senders honor the privacy of personal data and opt-out requests.
Sendlane is a fully permission-based platform and complies with all email regulations. We require that every person on your list expressly consents to being contacted by you, from the moment they subscribe, to every email opened, to the moment they choose to unsubscribe.
In This Guide
- Protecting Your Reputation
- Removing Unsubscribed Contacts From Lists
- Troubleshooting
- Additional Sendlane Resources
Protecting Your Reputation
If a Contact who has unsubscribed from a List is accidentally added back to the same List after their record is deleted from Sendlane, receiving content that they explicitly do not want to receive might prompt them to mark your content as spam. Spam complaints can cause deliverability and sender reputation issues.
Customer journey data (including unsubscribed, or "opt-out requests") is essential to keep on file, in case a Contact questions if their privacy data was violated at any point by your account.
We recommend keeping all customer journey data in Sendlane and not removing unsubscribed Contacts. However, if you choose to delete unsubscribed Contacts, it is important to keep copies of all customer journey data.
Protecting Your Data
We do not recommend deleting unsubscribed Contacts for two important reasons:
- Keeping customer journey data outside of your Sendlane account means you are responsible for backing up that data.
- Removing unsubscribed Contacts from your Sendlane account removes all data associated with the Contacts' profiles, including revenue data.
For more information on how to export your unsubscribed contacts, please click here.
Remove Unsubscribed Contacts From Your Account
Contacts who unsubscribe from any List in your account are automatically unsubscribed from your entire account, no matter how many Lists they are on.
To remove unsubscribed Contacts from your account:
- Click the Audience icon
- Click Contacts
- Select List(s)*
- Click Remove unsubscribed
Troubleshooting
My number of unsubscribed Contacts isn't going down!
If you have followed the instructions above for unsubscribing Contacts from Lists and aren't seeing your unsubscribe total go down, you may be encountering a timeout error. Try selecting fewer Lists at a time while removing unsubscribed Contacts.
How do I unsubscribe a Contact only from SMS and keep the Contact's email subscription?
You cannot remove SMS consent from a Contact profile without also removing email consent from within Sendlane. Contacts can reply STOP to any SMS message from you to be unsubscribed from SMS and still receive emails.