How consent, unsubscribes, and suppression work
Understand how opt-in status, unsubscribes, and suppression keep you compliant and protect deliverability.
In short
Three related controls decide whether a given subscriber can receive a Broadcast. Consent is the permission a subscriber has given to be contacted. An unsubscribe is a subscriber withdrawing that permission, usually through the link in an Edition. Suppression is an account-wide block that prevents sending to an address regardless of which list it appears on. Together they make sure you only send to people who want to hear from you.
Why it matters
Sending to people who have opted out, or to addresses that repeatedly bounce or complain, damages your sender reputation and your deliverability for everyone. It can also breach anti-spam laws such as CAN-SPAM, CASL, and GDPR. Because suppression works across your whole account, an address that unsubscribes or complains once is protected everywhere — you do not have to remember to remove it from each Folder or audience by hand.
How it works
- Consent status travels with each subscriber. Only subscribers with valid consent are counted as a Broadcast's eligible audience.
- Unsubscribe links are included automatically so subscribers can opt out in one click. When they do, their status flips to unsubscribed and they are added to the suppression list.
- Suppression is the final gate. Before a Broadcast goes out, every address is checked against the account suppression list; suppressed addresses are skipped silently and never contacted.
- Automatic entries are added for hard bounces and spam complaints, not just manual unsubscribes.
Example: a subscriber appears in two audiences and clicks unsubscribe in one Edition. Because the address is suppressed account-wide, both audiences skip it on the next Broadcast — no duplicate mailing, no manual cleanup. (Confirm the exact opt-out and suppression steps in your account.)
Related
Canonical terms: Author, Edition, Folder (Project Folder), Broadcast. See the Glossary.