Please note that contacts are available only on Marketing plans!
Each email address in your contact list is treated uniquely, and has its own status. The status of a contact is crucial, as it determines whether and what type of email can be sent to that contact. Elastic Email currently supports the following statuses:
Deliverable Statuses
The active contact statuses that receive emails:
Engaged
A contact with an Engaged status has opened or clicked an email within the last six months. These contacts are highly valuable. Contacts from Engaged status will be reverted back to Active if there are no opens/clicks registered from recipients!Active
This is the "default" status for contacts without any history. Any new contact uploaded or manually added to the account will default to this status. When adding or uploading contacts with an Active status, ensure that they have consented to receive your communications.Transactional
Contacts with a Transactional status have opted in to receive only transactional emails and have opted out of marketing emails. For more details on allowing users to opt into transactional emails only, refer to the Unsubscribe Settings guide.
Suppressed Statuses
Blocked contact statuses that cannot receive emails:
Invalid
A contact is marked as Invalid if an email sent to them results in a hard bounce, indicating that the email address does not exist or is permanently unavailable. For more information on hard bounces, see the Bounce Category guide.Unsubscribed
This status indicates that the contact has unsubscribed from all emails. The only way to revert this status to Active is if the contact resubscribes.Complaint
This status indicates that the recipient has reported the email as unsolicited through the unsubscribe pageInactive
This status can be assigned if you upload contacts with role-based email addresses. It can also be used to temporarily pause email delivery to the contact.Stale
The Stale status works in conjunction with the Contact Pruning settings. When "Contact Pruning" option is enabled, any contact that exceeds the set limits will be changed to a Stale status.Not Confirmed
This status applies to contacts who subscribed using a Double Opt-in Web Form, but have not yet verified their email address via the activation email. The contact must click the link in the activation email to become active.
Changing a Contact's Status
You can change a contact's status by locating it in any of your contact lists. Select the contact and choose More actions > Change status from the drop-down menu.
Contact Statuses That Cannot Be Changed Manually
Three contact statuses cannot be changed manually:
Complaint
Not Confirmed
Unsubscribed
These statuses are automatically updated based on the recipient's actions and remain permanent - until the customer re-subscribes to your contact list again.
Re-uploaded Contact Status
To ensure continuity of delivery and provide recipients with flexibility in content selection, re-uploaded contacts retain their previous status in Elastic Email. For example: If a contact has a "Complaint" status, re-uploading it won't change the status, even if the contact is re-uploaded as "Active". Duplicate contacts will be removed during the upload process.
TIP: For more details on which contacts from your lists can receive emails based on their status and how contacts are counted in Elastic Email accounts, please refer to the dedicated article: How are contacts counted on Marketing Plans.
Still have questions? Please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Support Team. We will be happy to assist you and resolve any concerns!