In order to comply with CAN-SPAM laws, any contact who has opted out must resubscribe themselves. This means that you cannot change a contact’s status from Opt-Out back to Active from within your account. Even if the contact has been opted out accidentally, they still have to resubscribe themselves.
Two options for contacts to resubscribe
When a new contact subscribes to your newsletter or email list, it’s not necessary for them to confirm opt-in, but it is required for resubscription.
There are two ways a contact can change their Opt-Out status back to Active, as explained below. However, in both cases, the most important step is that the contact opens the confirmation email — which is sent after they’ve resubscribed — and clicks the “confirm your subscription” link.
1. Resubscribe through a signup form
If you have a signup form available on your website, simply direct your contact to the relevant page so they can resubscribe. Otherwise, you can create a regular signup form in your account and be sure to name it something obvious like Opt-in Form, then after you publish it, you will have the option to share the link to your signup form with the contact.
Or, if you already have a signup form that you would like to direct the contact to, then you should make sure the send confirmation box for the signup form has been checked. To do so, follow these instructions:
- Open the Audience section in your account, then click Forms on the left.
- Check that the Classic Forms option is selected, then locate the form you would like to check from the list, and click on it to bring up the form builder.
- In the “Signup stages” section, select the Manage preferences email tab.
- If it’s not already checked, then select the Send manage preferences confirmation box, and click Save.
The confirmation email they’ll receive contains the subscription confirmation link that the contact must click to resubscribe.
Please note: Lightbox forms and custom signup forms created using our open API will NOT trigger the opt-in confirmation email if an opted-out contact tries to resubscribe.
2. Resubscribe via manage preferences
If the opted-out contact can find a previously sent email from you in their inbox, you can instruct them to click on Manage in the email footer:
This opens the manage preferences form which they can submit with or without any changes to the form fields. Doing so will display a web page titled Re-join this list, as shown here:
When the contact clicks Yes, they’ll be sent a confirmation email (if it’s been checked) containing the subscription confirmation link that they must click to resubscribe.
What to do about accidental opt-outs
Links in emails sent through our application are appended with tracking IDs that make them unique to each recipient. This is how you’re able to see which contacts clicked which links when viewing mailing response numbers.
When an email is forwarded using an email client, such as Gmail or Outlook, it retains those unique links and continues to track opens and clicks as if they were the original recipient’s actions. The same thing happens with the “Opt out” link in emails. If the original recipient forwards the email to someone else and that person clicks “Opt out”, the original recipient will be unsubscribed.
You can avoid accidental opt-outs by referring your contacts to the “Send to friend” option at the bottom of the email, which generates unique links for each new recipient.