Understanding unsubscribes and resubscribes

You will learn

Learn about unsubscribes in Klaviyo, and how to manually unsubscribe contacts yourself.

Add an unsubscribe link to an email

To add a basic unsubscribe link, use the following Klaviyo tag: {% unsubscribe %}

You can place this unsubscribe tag directly in your template. By default, the {% unsubscribe %} tag populates as an unsubscribe link in your email with the text "Unsubscribe." If you want to customize the text in the link, this tag takes an optional parameter that allows you to customize the text.

If you need even more control, there is also a tag that provides only the URL for the unsubscribe link. All three options are shown here:

When someone clicks an unsubscribe link that follows any of these formats, that click does not count toward your email's click rate unless you use a custom-coded (i.e., hosted) unsubscribe page.

Add one-click unsubscribe to meet Yahoo and Google sender requirements

There is no action you need to take to meet Google and Yahoo’s one-click unsubscribe requirement for bulk senders. Klaviyo automatically adds code to the header of every email you send to enable one-click unsubscribes for supported inboxes. Learn more about Yahoo and Google’s email sender requirements.

List-specific vs. global unsubscribes

By default, when an email recipient unsubscribes from an email you send, they will be suppressed for all future marketing emails, regardless of which list(s) the message is sent to.

If you have a paid email plan, you can turn off global unsubscribes at the account level. To allow list-specific unsubscribes, you must also turn off global unsubscribes for the lists used in the send. Recipients who unsubscribe are then removed from those lists and may still receive emails sent to other lists they have subscribed to.

To allow list-specific unsubscribes, first turn off the account-wide setting using the steps below (paid email plans only). Then update each relevant list:

1. Select your list from Lists & segments.
2. Open Settings > Consent.
3. Under Opt-out process, uncheck Unsubscribe from all email marketing.
4. Click Save.

To turn off the account-wide global unsubscribe setting (paid email plans only), follow these steps. Existing lists can still have global unsubscribes enabled, so check each list using the steps above:

1. Navigate to Settings > Other > Consent pages.
2. Find Unsubscribe Behavior in the Global unsubscribe page section.
3. Uncheck When a profile unsubscribes from a list, unsubscribe them from all future email marketing for your account.
4. Click Update Email Consent Settings.

Manually unsubscribe or suppress an email in Klaviyo

Suppress one or more emails globally

To stop sending marketing emails to someone without changing their consent status, manually suppress their email:

1. Navigate to the Profiles tab.
2. Select View suppressed profiles in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
   

3. Choose whether you want to suppress a single profile or bulk suppress many profiles.

• To suppress a single profile, click Add email address (or Add email), enter the email address, and click Add.
• To bulk suppress contacts, click Import, or choose More actions > Import suppressions. Add a CSV with a single column of email addresses or a text file with 1 email per line, then click Upload.

Unsubscribe an email from its profile

To unsubscribe someone and update their email consent status from their profile:

1. Open their profile and select the Details tab.
2. Open the menu next to the email consent indicator. If the profile shows a menu for each email address, use the menu for the address you want to unsubscribe.
3. Select Unsubscribe, then confirm with Unsubscribe profile (or Unsubscribe in the dialog for an individual email address).

To suppress the profile instead, choose Suppress from the consent menu and confirm with Suppress.

Note that manually suppressing a profile will stop marketing emails, but will not change their consent status and they can be unsuppressed later. Unsubscribing a profile will set their email consent status to Unsubscribed and they will have to resubscribe to receive marketing emails again.

Suppress an email for a specific list

1. Navigate to the list you want to suppress the email address from.
2. Click the Manage list dropdown.
3. Select View list suppressions.

4. Click Add email address (or Add email).
5. Add the email address of the person you wish to suppress.
6. Click Add to finish suppressing the profile for this list.

Share a global unsubscribe link with someone

1. Navigate to Settings > Other > Consent pages.
2. Find the Global unsubscribe page section.
3. Copy the global unsubscribe link, which can be used to globally suppress contacts.
4. Share this link with someone or include it in an email.

When someone opens the link, they can enter their email address and submit the form to unsubscribe from all of your future marketing emails.

View how a profile was suppressed

On the suppression list, you can filter profiles based on whether they unsubscribed (Unsubscribed) or were added manually (User suppressed).

Reasons why you'll see contacts on your suppression list include the following:

• The person unsubscribed
• The person marked an email of yours as spam
• Emails to this person hard bounced or repeatedly soft bounced
• You or someone else on your account manually added them to the suppression list

You can also see the reason for a suppression on the Details tab of a profile. By expanding the channel you are interested in, you can see information about when and how someone became subscribed and the reason the profile is suppressed.

Unsubscribed and spam complaints are not displayed as a suppression reason in this section. If these suppressions exist, the profile will always have an unsubscribed consent status.

Unsubscribe vs. update email preferences

In all of your emails, we recommend also including a direct link to update email preferences in addition to an unsubscribe link. This is a separate link — generated by the manage preferences tag, {% manage_preferences %} — that will take the recipient to a page where preferences can be updated.

When someone attempts to unsubscribe, it's possible that they may actually just want to receive fewer emails from you. By allowing your subscribers to choose how often they'd like to hear from you, you can lower unsubscribe rates.

While it isn't possible to turn an unsubscribe page into a preferences form, you can add an update preferences link to your unsubscribe page — we support the same manage preferences tag syntax in the text box on this page. This way, you may stop some would-be-unsubscribers from unsubscribing completely.

When someone unsubscribes and re-subscribes

When global unsubscribes are enabled, someone who unsubscribes from your emails becomes globally suppressed and unable to receive marketing emails in Klaviyo. Global unsubscribes are the default because contacts who unsubscribe from one email typically expect to unsubscribe from all of them. A profile suppressed for deliverability reasons, such as a hard bounce or invalid email, is also unable to receive marketing emails.

A contact can resubscribe by:

• Filling out a Klaviyo signup form or subscribe page
• Filling out a form built using Klaviyo’s subscribe endpoint (either a third-party form, or a form built by your developers)
• Having you upload a CSV file with their renewed email consent

If the form or API signup uses double opt-in, the contact must confirm their subscription before they are resubscribed.

If a contact who was suppressed for deliverability reasons (i.e., hard bounces or invalid emails) resubscribes, the deliverability suppressions will remain. However, if they just unsubscribed, resubscribing will update their subscription status and allow them to receive emails again.

Note the following:

• If someone is globally suppressed and then resubscribes to the same list they previously unsubscribed from, they will be re-added to that list.
• If someone is globally suppressed after unsubscribing from List A and then subscribes to List B, they will not be re-added to List A.
• If someone unsubscribes from an event-based flow, then subscribes to List A, they will be added to List A and begin receiving future emails.

When Klaviyo syncs an unsubscribed contact from Mailchimp, it does not preserve the original unsubscribe date from Mailchimp. Klaviyo also records unsubscribes made directly in Klaviyo or through its API, not only clicks on email unsubscribe links.

Manually resubscribe a profile

If a former subscriber contacts you directly and asks to be resubscribed to your mailing list, you can manually resubscribe them.

Note that if you resubscribe a profile, you are indicating that you have explicit consent to send email marketing to that recipient.

1. Navigate to their profile in Klaviyo.
2. On the Details tab, open the menu next to the email consent indicator and select Resubscribe. If each email address has its own menu, use the menu for the address you want to resubscribe.

3. Choose the list in Subscribe list, then click Resubscribe Profile. In the dialog for an individual email address, select the list or lists and click Resubscribe.

Manual resubscription does not send a confirmation email, even if the selected list uses double opt-in.

SMS unsubscribes

Manually unsubscribe an SMS number

1. Navigate to the profile you would like to unsubscribe.
2. On the Details tab, locate the SMS channel.
3. Click the menu next to the consent indicator for SMS.
4. Click Unsubscribe, then confirm with Unsubscribe profile.

Unsubscribe SMS numbers in bulk

1. Create a new CSV file for the SMS contacts you want to unsubscribe. The maximum file size is 50 MB.
2. Make the CSV’s first column Phone Numbers, and fill in the phone numbers you’d like to unsubscribe using one of Klaviyo’s accepted phone number formats.
3. Include the country for each phone number using one of the following options:

• Include a second column labeled Country and add in the country name/abbreviation.
• Include a country code (e.g., +1 for the U.S.) at the beginning of every phone number.

1. In Klaviyo, open the dropdown under your account name.
2. Click Settings > Other > Profile maintenance.
3. Scroll to Import text message unsubscribes.
4. Upload your CSV in the Text message unsubscribes field.

5. Click Save.
6. Click Unsubscribe Phone Numbers in the confirmation dialog.
7. Check the import status in the history below. If records were skipped, select Download Skipped Records, correct the issues, and import the corrected file.

Manually resubscribing SMS numbers

SMS profiles that have unsubscribed can resubscribe through a signup form, by texting an opt-in keyword (e.g., UNSTOP), or through a Klaviyo user uploading a list of phone numbers and applying SMS consent.

Additional resources