Handle unsubscribes and keep consent

The short version

This article is part of the Mailprompt help centre. It covers the rules that decide who can receive marketing email and what has to be true before a send. It is not legal advice; it is the product behaviour plus the parts of the law that come up most often.

Three records matter for each contact: consent status, consent source and consent timestamp. Consent status says whether the person may be emailed. The source and timestamp say how and when the permission was given. Without the last two, a subscribed status is hard to defend if a complaint arrives.

One-click unsubscribe

Every marketing email includes a one-click unsubscribe link that works without a login and a preferences link for changing the kind of email received. The one-click link is required by the major mailbox providers for bulk senders, and it is the mechanism a recipient is most likely to use when they are annoyed.

The link must act immediately. Mailprompt records the unsubscribe when the link is opened and shows a confirmation page; it does not ask the recipient to confirm by email or log in. A recipient who unsubscribes from a flow stops receiving that flow and every other marketing send from the account.

Transactional email is separate. A password reset or an order confirmation is not marketing and is not stopped by a marketing unsubscribe. If a recipient asks not to receive even transactional mail, that is a manual suppression.

Suppression

The suppression list is the final gate before a send. It contains hard bounces, spam complaints, invalid addresses, manual blocks and global blocks. It is checked for every recipient, every time, regardless of the list or segment that selected them.

A suppression is permanent by default. An address that hard-bounced stays suppressed even if the same address appears in a later import, because a hard bounce usually means the mailbox does not exist. A spam complaint is treated the same way: the complaint is a clear signal that further mail will be reported, not read.

Removing a suppression is possible for an owner or admin and requires a reason. It should be rare. The usual legitimate case is a mailbox that was temporarily full and produced a transient bounce that was misclassified; that is a correction, not a reason to re-contact someone who complained.

CAN-SPAM in practice

The United States rules are not complicated at the level a sender experiences them. Commercial email needs an accurate From line, a truthful subject line, a working opt-out and a valid physical postal address. The opt-out must be honoured within ten business days. A purchased list is not automatically illegal, but it is almost always a bad idea and it may violate the provider's rules even when it does not violate the statute.

Mailprompt covers the opt-out and the footer address mechanically. The From line and the subject line are your responsibility, and the pre-send checks warn about subject lines that look like deceptive urgency. The physical address comes from the account settings and blocks approval when it is empty.

GDPR and consent

For recipients in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, consent is one lawful basis among several. When consent is the basis, it has to be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous, and withdrawing it must be as easy as giving it. A pre-ticked box is not consent. A box that is required to complete an order is not freely given.

Existing customers can sometimes be emailed about similar products under a soft opt-in, with a clear opt-out in every message. That basis is narrower than a marketing list and does not cover a new product category. If you are unsure which basis applies, record the one you are relying on and keep the evidence.

The consent record in Mailprompt is a practical implementation of these rules, not a substitute for a privacy notice. The notice should say what you collect, why, how long you keep it and how to withdraw. Mailprompt's own privacy notice covers the processor side.

Building a clean list

The cheapest compliance work happens at capture. A signup form that names the list, states the frequency and does not pre-tick anything produces fewer complaints than a vague "subscribe" box. Double opt-in adds a step and produces a smaller, better list.

At import, keep the source and the timestamp. If the source file does not have them, record the import itself as the source and say so honestly. A list with no provenance should be re-permissioned before its first send, not after its first complaint.

Remove role addresses and obvious typos. Suppress hard bounces immediately. Watch complaint rates by campaign; a rise after one send is a signal about that send, not a reason to buy more addresses.

Retention and deletion

Keep consent records for as long as the contact is on the list, and keep the suppression record after an unsubscribe. That record exists to honour the request and to prevent accidental re-contact, so it has a legitimate purpose even after the profile is otherwise deleted.

For an erasure request, delete the profile data but retain the minimum suppression record. Document the request and the action. If the account is closed, the data is removed after the retention window described in the privacy notice.

Where this connects

The importing contacts guide explains how consent fields survive an import, and the approval guide explains why a human reviews the audience before a send. The CAN-SPAM glossary entry has a short definition and sources if you need one for a colleague.