There are different ways to remove subscribers, depending on your needs. You can remove subscribers individually, or perform a bulk removal. You can also choose to remove just their email addresses from your lists, keeping their subscriber profiles and reporting data intact, or alternatively erase all data associated with them from your account. Below, we'll explain each of these options in detail.
Remove individual subscribers
You can remove an individual subscriber's email address from a subscriber list by changing their status to either "Deleted" or "Unsubscribed". Their reporting data and subscriber profile will be preserved.
Changing a subscriber's status to:
- Deleted — Removes them from the current list, but will not add them to the suppression list. If the subscriber resubscribes, they will automatically be returned to "Active" status.
- Unsubscribed — Removes them from either the current list, or all lists, depending on the list's unsubscribe settings. If it's set to "all lists", the subscriber will also be added to the suppression list.
A common approach is to use "unsubscribe" if someone has asked to be removed, and "delete" if you choose to remove them. That way you can easily tell the difference later on.
To delete or unsubscribe a single subscriber:
- Click Lists & subscribers.
- Select the subscriber list you want to work with.
- Use the search field to find the subscriber's email address, then select the overflow menu (3 dots) to the right of the address.
- Select Move to deleted or Move to unsubscribed.
Remove subscribers in bulk
When removing subscribers in bulk, you have five options:
- Delete from this list only — Removes the included addresses from the current list only, and sets their status to "Deleted".
- Delete from all lists — Removes the included addresses from all lists, and sets their status to "Deleted".
- Unsubscribe from this list only — Removes the included addresses from the current list only, sets them to a status of "Unsubscribed", but does not add them to the suppression list.
- Unsubscribe from all lists — Removes the included addresses from all lists, sets them to a status of "Unsubscribed", and adds them to the suppression list based on your unsubscribe settings.
- Erase permanently from this account — Removes all traces of the subscriber from your account, including reporting data. The subscribers are not added to the suppression list. This option is ideal for privacy, or removing private data in accordance with relevant laws and regulations.
Erasure requests are acted on promptly, however, it may take up to 30 days to erase all traces of personal data.
To delete or unsubscribe multiple subscribers:
- Click Lists & subscribers.
- Click the subscriber list you want to work with.
- Select the overflow menu (3 dots) at the top left of the page and click Bulk remove subscribers.
- On the Remove subscribers page, select the removal type from the drop down menu.
- Enter the subscriber email addresses into the text box, one address per line.
- Click Remove subscribers.