Sarbacane Contacts: What is an unsubscribe list? How to manage it?

An unsubscription list is an essential feature in Sarbacane Contacts. It allows you to effectively manage your contacts by excluding recipients you do not wish to contact or those who do not wish to be contacted. It plays a key role in the deliverability of your messages and the management of your communication campaigns. Discover what an unsubscription list is and how to use it to optimize your mailings.

Definition of an unsubscription list

An unsubscription list is a specific list of contacts that you exclude from your mailings. These contacts can be excluded from your mailings via their email address, or their phone number. Adding a contact to a blacklist means you will no longer send them any messages.

There are two types of unsubscription lists:

• Unsubscription lists with contacts who have unsubscribed from your communications.
• Blocking lists that allow you to voluntarily exclude certain contacts from one or more of your communications. For example, you can choose to exclude your competitors from your email campaigns by blacklisting their domain name or exclude respondents when sending a reminder asking your contacts to register for an event.
• The Bounce  list, which groups all invalid or unavailable addresses, is managed separately.

Why use an unsubscription list?

• Improving deliverability: By excluding undesirable or irrelevant contacts, you increase the chances that your messages will reach the inbox of legitimate recipients.
• Managing unsubscribes: If a contact wishes to unsubscribe from your communications, you must ensure they are added to the correct unsubscription list to ensure you no longer send them messages.

Managing your unsubscription lists in Sarbacane

Note: The unsubscription lists created in Sarbacane Contacts allow you to manage contacts only for email, SMS, and automatic campaigns of Sarbacane Campaigns. The Sarbacane Sendkit and Sarbacane Engage applications have their own blacklist management that does not go through the Sarbacane Contacts application.

You are free to use your unsubscription lists as such or as blocking lists.

Creating an unsubscription list in Sarbacane Contacts

To create an unsubscription list in Sarbacane,

• Go to the Sarbacane Contacts application.
• Click on the “Create a list” panel, then select “Unsubscription list.”
• Add your unsubscribes:
  • By importing a file
  • By manually entering the concerned contacts
  • By copying and pasting the concerned contacts
  • By associating this unsubscription list with one of your email or SMS campaigns. As soon as a contact clicks on your unsubscription link, they will automatically be added to this blacklist. Note that you can associate multiple unsubscription lists with your email or SMS campaigns.

Updating an unsubscription list in Sarbacane Contacts

To update an existing unsubscription list:

• Go to the Sarbacane Contacts application.
• Go to the “Contact Lists” section from the left side menu.
• Then click on the “Unsubscription list” tab.
• Click on the list you want to modify then add or delete the desired contact(s).
• You can also blacklist a domain name via a dedicated tab, thus excluding all email addresses with a common domain name.

Updating the Bounce list in Sarbacane Contacts

The Bounce list is managed separately and allows excluding email addresses that have returned a temporary or permanent error during previous mailings.

Note that there can only be one Bounce list per Sarbacane account.

This list updates automatically with each of your mailings. However, for your very first campaign mailing with Sarbacane, we recommend uploading the list of Bounce contacts (or bounces) from your previous email/SMS marketing solution to exclude invalid addresses from the start and thus not tarnish the sender reputation attached to your sending sub-domain. Indeed, a high number of invalid addresses is a sign of a poorly maintained list and is often associated with techniques used by spammers.

In summary, unsubscription lists are a valuable tool for improving the deliverability of your messages and effectively managing your contacts in Sarbacane. By using this feature appropriately, you can optimize your communication campaigns and maintain a trustworthy relationship with your audience.