Starting up with Email Marketing for the first time, or migrating contacts from an existing email marketing tool? You’ll want to make sure anyone who has previously unsubscribed from your messaging stays that way.
Follow this guide to ensure that contacts don’t receive unwanted messages and protect your email domain’s reputation!
Watch our video to learn about unsubscribing contacts:
Take a guided tour in Nutshell:
What is unsubscribing?
Offering your contacts the ability to unsubscribe from your messages is important to avoid being flagged as a spammer and to protect your email domain-sending reputation. Also, CAN-SPAM laws and regulations require email marketers to include the ability to unsubscribe.
If someone unsubscribes from your outreach, Nutshell will not send them any more marketing emails, and they won’t be counted towards your plan.
Whether you’re sending a broadcast, newsletter, or drip sequence, an unsubscribe link will be required within your outreach emails. Don’t worry, Nutshell will remind you to add one if you forget!
Unsubscribing is a permanent action, intended for use by the outreach recipient. Once a contact has unsubscribed from an audience, or from all audiences, they cannot be re-subscribed.
While you will have the ability to unsubscribe any contact from your audiences, we don’t recommend it unless the contact directly requests to be unsubscribed. You can remove contacts from audiences instead of unsubscribing them.
Migrating unsubscribes from a Nutshell custom field or tag
You can use Nutshell filters and bulk editing to unsubscribe people from Email marketing outreach.
Visit the People list
Apply a filter for the tag or custom field you have been using to track people who are unsubscribed or are labelled “do not contact”
Click the select all checkbox at the top of your list, and then the Edit button at the bottom of the page
Check the box next to “Unsubscribe these people from marketing outreach”, then click Apply changes
Migrating unsubscribed and bounced contacts from Mailchimp or Constant Contact
Migrating unsubscribed contacts from Mailchimp
To start with, you will need to export your contacts from MailChimp following the instructions at their support site here. You will import the two CSV files labelled “unsubscribed” and “cleaned” from your Mailchimp account into Nutshell.
If you would like to download these lists separately from Mailchimp, they provide instructions for how to view and export your unsubscribed contacts here, and your cleaned contacts here. Both your “cleaned” contacts list and your “unsubscribed” contacts list will need to be imported into Nutshell as Unsubscribed contacts.
When you're ready to import your CSV, go to Company Settings > Import in Nutshell and select Spreadsheet. Choose your file and click Next.
You will need to match the following fields:
Email address to Person | Email address
CLEAN_TIME to Person | Unsubscribe date
UNSUB_TIME to Person | Unsubscribe date
Click through to Preview and choose the following options:
Update existing companies/people
Match duplicate people on Email
Click Begin Import. Your import will complete on it's own, so you're all set from here!
Migrating unsubscribed contacts from Constant Contact
You will begin by exporting your contacts from Constant Contact. Click here for instructions on exporting a specific list or contacts in a specific status (you have the option to export only unsubscribed contacts).
Be sure to include the email address and email status fields in your export. When the export is ready, download the CSV.
When you're ready to import your CSV, go to Company Settings > Import in Nutshell and select Spreadsheet. Choose your file and click Next.
Mapping your fields
You will need to match the following fields:
Email address to Person | Email address
Email status to Person | Unsubscribe status
Confirmed Opt-Out Date to Person | Unsubscribe date
Click through to Preview and choose the following options:
Update existing companies/people
Match duplicate people on Email
Click Begin Import. Your import will complete on it's own, so you're all set from here!
FAQ
Can I remove a contact from an audience without unsubscribing them?
Yes! We recommend removing a contact from an audience rather than unsubscribing them, unless they have reached out to you and have requested to be unsubscribed from your outreach. Once a contact has unsubscribed from an audience, or from all audiences, they cannot be re-subscribed.
If you need to remove a contact from an audience, but not unsubscribe them from the audience or outreach altogether, you can do so from the contact’s profile page.
Selecting the x on their listed audience(s) will remove them from that audience.
What if a contact changes their email address? Can they be re-added to my marketing outreach?
Yep! Email addresses are unsubscribed, not people. So if someone changes their email address and wishes to be re-subscribed, simply add their new email address to their profile and make it the primary by clicking the yellow star.
Can a contact be unsubscribed only from one Audience?
Yes! Contacts can decide if they want to unsubscribe from everything, or only one event (for example, a contact can unsubscribe from broadcasts but keep newsletters).