Article Summary

There are two ways in which a recipient can request to no longer receive emails:

1. They can unsubscribe which is typically an option when mass emails are sent, and the recipient can always re-subscribe on their own. 
Or
2. They can report the email as spam or abuse. (Putting them on the 'Spam' list if they report spam and putting them on the 'Suppression or Abuse list' if they report abuse)

In case #2, the recipient can do this for any kind of email (whether the email was sent from a platform such as Launchmetrics or even a one-to-one email), and it is taken much more seriously.

When a recipient reports an email as spam or abuse, the sender is flagged as a potential spammer and the recipient gets placed on what is called a "suppression list".  Once they're on the "suppression list", they can not receive any further emails from that email sender. It's a very technical and strict protocol that has been created as spamming continues to be an increased challenge and concern. Launchmetrics and all other email senders are required to have a "suppression list"  in order to comply with global email marketing and privacy laws.

That said, in order to be removed from the Suppression list, the email sender (in this case you must go through Launchmetrics) must request from the recipient their direct confirmation that they would like to receive emails. If the recipient confirms, they are essentially confirming that the abuse was a false report or a mistake and they consent to receive emails again. This section is managed with our mailing provider SocketLabs. Please note that in order to be removed from the Spam list any admin (CS/support) can manage right within our product directly.

• Unsubscribe: Unsubscription list (Recipient can opt back in to receiving emails themselves)
• Reporting as Abuse: Suppression list (Recipient needs to confirm they want to receive the emails again to Launchmetrics directly)

Suppression List 

Who is in charge of the Suppression list?

It is being handled by our SMTP (aka: email delivery) provider: socketlabs.com

What is happens when an email address REPORTED ABUSE ?

Right now all of our tenants will encounter the same error message when trying to deliver any additional emails to an email address that has ever REPORTED ABUSE for any of the emails outgoing from our platform. All attempts to send any type of email, including non-bulk like a samples report would be blocked by this.

How can someone see if an email address is on the ABUSE LIST  (aka: suppression list)?

Regular users or even admins - do not currently have this ability built within our platform. They only get to see an error after they attempt to deliver a new email. The failure is produced in this case by SOCKETLABS and in most cases says something in the lines of "This recipient is part of a suppression list".

The only way to see and manage the ABUSE LIST right now is to go to the back office of socketlabs.com (so not our clients; nor most of CS members can do this).

How can someone be removed from the ABUSE LIST (aka: suppression list) ?

For the moment, only from the back office of socketlabs.com, and its not just a remove button - its a form that has to be filled in which sends an email to that address asking them to click on a link if they wish to be removed from the suppression list.

Unsubscribe list

Unsubscribe list is already tenant-specific, and managed within our platform.

How does one email address get into the unsubscribe list ?

Someone received an email from any of our tenants, sent through our Contacts or Events platform - and they clicked on the link provided in the footer of the email: unsubscribe.

What is affected when an email address UNSUBSCRIBES ?

Just one tenant, the one that sent the email - and it only impacts bulk emailing (contacts and/or events - depending on the choice of the user when submitting their unsubscription request). The data privacy emails, as well as ANYTHING not related to bulk emailing from our platforms, are not going to be blocked by the unsubscription list. 

Note: The link to unsubscribe, can be used to either unsubscribe or resubscribe.

How can someone see if an email address is unsubscribed ?

We have various indicators:

• while editing contact next to email address fields;
• in view the contact details page

In contacts manager, we even provide the ability to find all contacts that have at least one email address marked as unsubscribed.

When setting up a new bulk emailing and going through the process of adding recipients, all unsubscribed email addresses will instantly be indicated. Such emails will not even go through the attempt to deliver the message - they will just be marked as failed.

Contacts manager offers extra search feature Misc Search Options > Unsubscribed to Mailings

How can someone be removed from the unsubscription list ?

For the moment only Admins have the power to do this.

If the contact can be reached by alternate means and they still have a copy of the email that they clicked on the unsubscribe link from; they could be persuaded to re-click it and resubscribe using the same link.

Permanent failures

Permanent failures are also already tenant-specific.

How does one email address get into the permanent failing list ?

There are a lot of reasons why this would happen but here are the top examples:

• Socketlabs failed to contact the server that is supposed to host a recipient email address (it appeared as if the domain itself - does not exist)
• The server that was supposed to host a certain email address responded with: This user does not exist, or is suspended
• The server that was supposed to host a certain email address responded with: Email quota exceeded (aka: this account has so many emails that make it impossible to receive a new one)
• The server that was supposed to host a certain email address has some conflicts in DNS configuration and responds abnormally.

... and many other scenarios that basically tell Socketlabs: "It appears that no matter how many more times you would retry to send this email - it will continue to fail for the same reason".

What is affected when an email address is marked as Permanently Failing ?

Just one tenant, the one that sends the email leads to a permanent failure response.

The reason we keep track of Permanent Failures is to keep our overall Server Reputation Score high enough so that we are not classified as a known spam source. If we would not keep this list of supposedly permanent failing email addresses, each consecutive attempt to send an email to these addresses would negatively influence our scores - And Socketlabs would decrease our score. So as soon as Socketlabs tells us: Hey, stop trying to reach xxx@yyy.com we start keeping track of this information and mark all future attempts to send an email to xxx@yyy.com from this tenant as FAILED without even attempting to deliver the message through socketlabs.

A big problem here is that a lot of false/positives have been reported in Fireline ever since we implemented this. And a lot of situations that tell Socketlabs about a possible permanent failing scenario - can actually be recovered from.

How can someone see if an email address is on the permanent failure list?

We have various indicators:

• while editing contact next to email address fields; 
• in view the contact details page

In contacts manager, we provide the ability to find all contacts that have at least one email address marked as permanently failing.

When setting up a new bulk emailing and going through the process of adding recipients, all known permanently failing email addresses will instantly be indicated. Such emails will not even go through the attempt to deliver the message - they will just be marked as failed.

Contacts manager offers extra search feature Misc Search Options > Permanent Invalid Emails

How can someone be removed from the permanent failure list ?

Our platform does not currently offer any controls to remove a recipient from the permanent failure list.