Contact statuses
Contacts can either be in the Active, Error, or Opt-out status. When you choose recipients for a mailing, our system will only send it to the contacts who are in the Active status. Contacts in the Error status and Opt-out status are automatically suppressed.
Active
Active contacts are essentially contacts in “good standing”. If you include them in the audience of a campaign, our system will not suppress them. Additionally, they are the only contacts who count towards your monthly contact limit.
Error
Error contacts are, for all intents and purposes, invalid contacts. Contacts are moved to the Error status for the following reasons:
- Their email address is incorrectly formatted
- They hard bounced a mailing
- They soft bounced three consecutive mailings
- Their status was changed from within the application by a user who has access to the Audience tab
If you include Error contacts in the audience of a campaign, our system will automatically suppress them to help prevent further bounces. This is because repeated bounces can damage your sending reputation and deliverability.
Formatting
When a formatting error is detected in a file import, our system automatically moves those contacts to the Error status. If you navigate to your Audience tab and click on Error at the top, you’ll be able to see a list of all of your Error contacts. You’ll also see a column that’s labeled Reason. If a contact has the word Format in their Reason column, then they were moved to the Error status due to a formatting issue, such as:
- Missing an @ symbol
- Missing the .com or .org from the end
- Have spaces between characters, or before or after the email address
The Import Summary for a file import does not include notification of format errors. Before you do a file import, you should make note of the current Error total, then if it increases after the import, you’ll know that there are some invalid addresses to fix.
From the Error tab, you can click on an email address to fix the formatting issue. However, this will not automatically change the contact’s status to Active. You will have to fix the issue and then save the corrected email address in order to be able to change the status.
Delivery
If you navigate to your Audience tab and click on Error at the top, you’ll be able to see a list of all of your Error contacts. You’ll also see a column that’s labeled Reason. if a contact has the word Delivery in their Reason column, then they were moved to the Error status due to bounces. Contacts are moved to the Error status when they hard bounce a mailing or when they soft bounce three consecutive mailings.
While it is possible to move a contact from Error to Active, we do not recommend doing so unless you know 100% for certain that an email address is good AND you have resolved the issue that caused them to move to Error in the first place. Moving contacts from Error to Active on a regular basis can cause serious deliverability trouble and damage your sending reputation.
Opt-out
Opt-out contacts have either unsubscribed from your mailings by clicking on the Opt out link in a mailing, or their status was changed from within the application by a user who has access to the Audience tab. If you include them in the audience of a campaign, our system will automatically suppress them, as contacts who have unsubscribed cannot be sent to.
How to view a contact record
To look up the subscription and status details for an individual contact, follow these steps:
- Navigate to your Audience tab.
- Use the search field to find the contact’s email address.
- Click on the contact’s email address to open their contact record.
The contact’s current status is shown near the top of the contact record page, to the right of their subscription date.
How to change a contact’s status
To change a contact’s status, follow these steps:
- Follow the steps above to open their contact record.
- Click on the dropdown arrow next to Email status.
- Select the desired status from the dropdown menu.
- If you’re moving the contact to the Opt-out status, a pop-up window will appear. To confirm your changes, click on the Yes, opt out button.
You can change a contact’s status in the following ways:
- From Active to Error
- From Active to Opt-out
- From Error to Active*
- From Error to Opt-out
Once a contact’s status has been changed to Opt-out, they cannot be moved back to Active or Error through the user interface. If the contact wishes to resubscribe, they must do so themself.
*While it is possible to move a contact from Error to Active, we do not recommend doing so unless you know 100% for certain that an email address is good AND you have resolved the issue that caused them to move to Error in the first place. Moving contacts from Error to Active on a regular basis can cause serious deliverability trouble and damage your sending reputation.
Important notes about contact status
Once a contact has been changed to Opt-out status, it cannot be undone from within your account or through the API. However, the contact can resubscribe themself.
We do not recommend archiving contacts in the Error or Opt-out status. Contacts who spend the entire month in the Error or Opt-out status do not count toward your audience total for billing purposes, so it’s best to just leave them alone.