Time changes and contacts' interests sometimes change with it, which could lead to them sadly wanting to unsubscribe and revoke their consent. This is known as opting out.
When you have multiple contacts who have opted out, you can opt them all out at once by importing them as an opt-out list. Follow the steps below to learn how to do it:
If a single contact wants to opt out, you can manually unsubscribe them by going to Audience → Manage.
How-to video:
Step 1: Choose the type of import
Start by clicking on Imports → Create import, and choose Opt-out list as your option.
Step 2: Select the file
In the next step, you add your list via the drag-and-drop function or click to select file. The import list needs to be in CSV format.
If you have the list in similar structures, like .xlsx or .xls, you can often easily export the file to CSV format with just a few clicks.
Step 3: Set the information required
When the file is chosen, click on next and enter the information needed:
Subscription type:
Select which of your subscription types the contacts will be opted out of. You can opt out of all subscription types or select specific ones.
When the opt-out was registered:
To set a date for when the opt-out was registered, you can select between two options:
Get the date from a column in my file
You can also import information about when the opt-out was registered if the import file contains this information. When choosing this option, you will select which column the data shall be fetched from in a later step.
Choose a date
Or, if the information is missing from the file, you can select a date when the consent will be valid. All contacts in the file will have the same opt-out date.
Step 4: Select the column holding the email addresses
Here, you select which column in the imported file contains the information about the email addresses that should be opted out.
Step 5: Select the column holding the opt-out date
If you choose "Get opt-out date from a column in my file," in step 3, you will here select which of your file's columns holds the opt-out dates.
Step 6: Name your import
The last step before hitting the Import button is to give your import a name.
Note that the name you give the import only appears in the Import overview, which shows what type of import you have made.
Step 7: Import the list
When set, click on Import, and the import will start.
Import statistics
When the import is finished, statistics will display the number of successfully imported rows and whether there were any errors.
Errors could, for example, occur if there's an empty row in the file or if a contact row is missing an email address, making it impossible to import and register the opt-out.
If you open the import from the overview, you'll find more information about the row that caused the error. Always take the displayed row number and add +1 since the first row in the file always contains the column headers.