A blocklisted contact is a contact who is excluded from receiving your communications from a specific channel, such as email campaigns or transactional SMS.
Good to know
- To learn how to blocklist one or multiple contacts, check our dedicated articles Blocklist, unblock, or re-subscribe contacts and Import a list of blocklisted contacts.
- To learn how to view your blocklisted contacts, check our dedicated article View your blocklisted contacts (unsubscriptions, complaints, hard bounces).
Contacts blocklisted from your campaigns
Contacts can be blocklisted from different marketing channels and for different reasons:
- They have unsubscribed from your email campaigns by using your unsubscription form.
- They have marked your email campaigns as spam.
- An email campaign sent to the contact resulted in a hard bounce.
- You have blocklisted them manually (individually or through an import).
When a contact is blocklisted from your email campaigns, they won't receive any of your email campaigns anymore. That means that if you send an email campaign to a list that contains a blocklisted contact, they will not be included as a recipient and you won't use any of your email credits for them.
- They have unsubscribed from your SMS campaigns by using your unsubscription form.
- They have unsubscribed from your SMS campaigns by replying the STOP opt-out keyword to an SMS.
- An SMS campaign sent to the contact resulted in a hard bounce.
- You have blocklisted them manually (individually or through an import).
When a contact is blocklisted from your SMS campaigns, they won't receive any of your SMS campaigns anymore. That means that if you send an SMS campaign to a list that contains a blocklisted contact, they will not be included as a recipient and you won't use any of your SMS credits for them.
- They have unsubscribed from your WhatsApp campaigns by replying the STOP opt-out keyword to a WhatsApp campaign.
- You have blocklisted them manually (individually or through an import).
When a contact is blocklisted from your WhatsApp campaigns, they won't receive any of your WhatsApp campaigns anymore. That means that if you send a WhatsApp campaign to a list that contains a blocklisted contact, they will not be included as a recipient and you won't use any of your WhatsApp credits for them.
Contacts blocklisted from your transactional sendings
Contacts can be blocklisted from different types of transactional channels and for different reasons:
- They have unsubscribed from your transactional emails by using your unsubscription form (if you included one).
- They have marked your transactional emails as spam.
- A transactional email sent to the contact resulted in a hard bounce.
- You have blocked them manually.
Transactional emails have a different blocklisting behavior than other channels. By default, when a contact unsubscribes from your transactional emails, they are only blocked from the sender of this specific email. This means that they won't receive any transactional emails from them anymore but can still receive transactional emails sent from another sender. This way, if a contact unsubscribes from a transactional email, they may still receive important notifications such as order confirmations or password reset.
- They have unsubscribed from your SMS by using your unsubscription form (if you included one).
- They have unsubscribed from your SMS by replying to your transactional SMS.
- An SMS sent to the contact resulted in a hard bounce.
- You have blocklisted them manually.
When a contact is blocklisted from your transactional SMS, they won't receive any of your transactional SMS anymore. That means that if they trigger the sending of a transactional SMS (e.g., by making a purchase on your website), the SMS will not be sent and you won't use any of your SMS credits for them.
What should I do with my blocklisted contacts?
If you have blocklisted contacts in your account, you may be wondering what you should do with them. Should you delete them? Are they impacting your entire database? Could they affect your future sendings? The short answer is that you don't need to do anything!
When contacts are blocklisted from a specific channel, Brevo prevents you from contacting them through that channel. That means you won't be charged for these contacts and that you will stay compliant with their wishes not to be contacted anymore, even if you keep them in your account.
- You don't lose important data, including their contact history.
- You don't accidentally re-import them as subscribed contacts and contact them by mistake, which would negatively impact your deliverability.
To learn more, check our dedicated article FAQs - Why not delete contacts who are blocklisted?.
Are blocklisted contacts added to my total number of contacts?
Yes, contacts who have been blocklisted are still added to your total number of contacts. You can still see these contacts in your lists and even view their information, but they will be excluded from receiving your communications.
Are blocklisted contacts still able to contact me?
Yes. Blocklisting a contact does not prevent them from contacting you through their preferred channel. A blocklisted contact is simply excluded from receiving your communications from a specific channel, such as email campaigns or transactional SMS.
⏭️ What's next?
- Import a list of blocklisted contacts
- View your blocklisted contacts (unsubscriptions, complaints, hard bounces)
- Blocklist, unblock, or re-subscribe contacts
🤔 Have a question?
If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.
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