A contact can have an email address, mobile number, or both. These methods of communication are called channels.

When a contact is suppressed, they can no longer be contacted through the suppressed channel until the suppression is removed. Depending on the suppression type, a suppression can apply to a single channel, all channels stored for a contact, a specific list, or an entire email domain.

This article explains how suppressions work and how they affect contacts, lists, segments, and marketing sends.

Contacts who are only suppressed on one channel, while remaining subscribed on the other, are not removed from your lists, and can appear in segments. This allows you to still communicate with them on their subscribed channel. The contact is also added to the suppressed contacts list.

Let’s look at some example contact statuses:

You can upload contacts for suppression from a specific list only. This allows you to exclude contacts from that list without suppressing them across your entire account.

Contacts suppressed at a list level are excluded only from sends to that list and can still receive campaigns sent to other lists.

Contacts suppressed at a list level are not added to the Suppressed contacts list.

The Suppressed contacts list stores contacts who are suppressed on at least one channel.

Contacts who are suppressed on all available channels are removed from lists and segments. Contacts who are suppressed on only one channel remain available for marketing on any subscribed channels.

You can manually add contacts to the suppression list if required.

Learn more in Suppress a contact and Understand email contact suppression reasons.

This tab displays any email domains that you have suppressed at an account level. For example, if you have suppressed example-mail.com, then no @example-mail.com email addresses can be added to your account.

This tab displays manually imported file suppressions created in the last 30 days. Select Date range in the top right to alter the date range displayed.

You can delete a suppression import file from the Suppression history tab within 24 hours of the original suppression import. This removes the contacts included in the file from the suppression list, and they can be reimported back into your account.

This tab displays contacts who have been sent a verified double opt-in email but are yet to complete the double opt-in process. After contacts confirm their opt in, their email address is added to your lists and they are removed from Pending contacts.