Contact Blacklist

What is the blacklist?

The blacklist is a separate category of contacts in the system who are excluded from campaigns because they are unavailable for message delivery. Most often, it includes non-existent email addresses. The system blacklists such addresses, and they are not included in further campaigns.

How do blacklisted contacts look like?

Blacklisted contacts are displayed as strikethrough email addresses or phone numbers.

How do contacts get blacklisted?

If you or other accounts registered in the platform have previously sent emails to addresses that were reported to us by email clients as inactive, contacts with such addresses are marked in the system.

Contacts can get blacklisted at any stage:

• when imported;
• when sent via API;
• during campaign send;
• when blacklisted manually.

The blacklist covers all contacts ever added to the system which means a new contact you are adding could have already been blacklisted in the system.

Can I manually blacklist contacts?

No, but you can send a request to support team. Our staff can blacklist or unsubscribe emails and phone numbers of single contacts or all contacts in a segment. After moderation, such contacts will be added to the blacklist of your account.

How do I understand why a contact is blacklisted?

To find out why a contact is blacklisted, go to the contact’s card by clicking the line with the contact in the list.

In the card, you can see why and when the contact has been blacklisted. For example, the contact from the below example is blacklisted because the email client reports it as the account that does not exist.

What happens to contacts after they are blacklisted?

These contacts are not included in further campaigns that’s why they don’t affect your sender reputation in any way. They are simply stored in our service and can be deleted or restored at the request of the account holder in their contact base.

Where to find the blacklist?

You can find the blacklist in the following Contacts tabs.

1. All contacts.

Go to Contacts > All contacts and click Blacklisted on the left.

The blacklist is displayed for email addresses and phone numbers. Click the necessary channel to see the corresponding contacts.

To see the number of blacklisted contacts for each channel, click Recalculate contacts.

In this tab, you can also perform the different actions on single contacts, for example, view activity, edit or delete.

2. Analytics.

Go to Contacts > Analytics. Here you can see the contact base by activity:

• active subscribers;
• inactive subscribers;
• lost subscribers;
• never sent to.

Blacklisted contacts can be found in the last two categories. Lost subscribers includes the contacts that previously received messages from you but were later blacklisted. Never sent to includes the contacts that never received messages from you and were blacklisted from the start.

By clicking the diagram elements, you can also see the structure of each group. Moreover, you can export contacts from each list. More details are below.

3. Contact segments.

Go to Contacts > Contact Segments. This tab displays all segments exported from the All Contacts and Analytics.

Click the segment to see all the contacts included in it. You can delete the segment if needed.

What Is the Difference between Blacklisted and Soft-Bounced?

Soft-bounced is a send status that occurs when an email address exists but is not available for delivery, for example, because of the temporarily blocked inbox, failures of the email client, etc.

What can I do with blacklisted contacts?

You can:

• view them;
• recalculate for channels (email, phone number);
• analyze their number in your database (Lost, Never sent to) and export them to list segments;
• analyze the causes of being blacklisted;
• edit and view activity;
• delete.

How do I delete contacts from Blacklisted?

You can delete single contacts or all contacts.

To delete single contacts, go to Contacts > All contacts, choose Email or Phone and click Blacklisted. Click the delete icon in the line of the chosen contact. You can also specify a deletion reason if you want to restore the contact in the future. Click Delete.

To delete all blacklisted contacts, choose one of the channels (email/phone number) and click Delete contacts > OK.

How do I export blacklisted contacts?

• Export from All contacts to a pre-created segment.

Create a list segment you want to export to: go to Contacts > Contact segments > Add segment > List.

Fill in General properties, where Name is required (e.g. Blacklist). Click Next.

Specify the source by choosing Create without contacts. Click Done.

Go to Contacts > All contacts and choose Blacklisted in the necessary channel. Click Export > To the existing lists.

Select a pre-created list segment and click Done.

The exported contacts will appear in Contact segments. To delete this segment, click the settings icon on the right and select Delete segment.

Confirm the deletion by ticking the box, and click Yes.

• Export from All contacts to a file.

Go to Contacts > All contacts and choose Blacklisted in the necessary channel. Click Export > To CSV.

Export email only is enabled by default meaning the exported file will contain only email addresses. Disable this option to get all the contact data stored in the system. Click Export.

• Export from Analytics to a segment.

Go to Analytics. Click Blacklisted in Lost subscribers or Never sent to. Edit the name, if needed, and click Create a segment.

The created segment will appear in Contact segments. You can delete it in the same way as the list created after export from All contacts.

What happens if I delete the blacklist?

If you delete a contact or segment with contacts, such contacts move to Deleted. Contact status continues to be stored in our platform, but they are no longer displayed in the general list of All contacts.

In case of re-import, the system will recognize the blacklisted contacts and will not send a campaign to them.

How do I restore contacts that have been deleted from the blacklist?

You can restore deleted email addresses and phone numbers in the following ways:

• Enable Restore previously deleted contacts at the next import;

• Click the icon Restore contact on the right in the contact line in All contacts > Deleted.

After that, they will be again displayed in Blacklisted.

How do I make a blacklisted contact active?

You cannot make blacklisted contacts active on your own. Our support can do it upon request. Submit an application confirming that the current email address/phone number exists and specifying channels (email, phone), contacts or segments you want to make active.

What happens when I restore blacklisted contacts as active?

If you request our support to remove email addresses from the blacklist, they become active. You can use them for your future campaigns.