Understanding unsubscribes and resubscribes
You will learn
Learn about unsubscribes in Klaviyo, and how to manually unsubscribe contacts yourself.
When a contact is unsubscribed, their consent status is set to Unsubscribed and they become unreachable in Klaviyo. An unsubscribe is different from suppressing profiles.
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:
How the tag looks within Klaviyo | How the tag appears to recipients |
{% unsubscribe %} | Unsubscribe |
If you'd no longer like to receive emails, {% unsubscribe 'click here' %} | If you'd no longer like to receive emails, click here. |
This is a fancy <a href="{% unsubscribe_link %}">unsubscribe</a> link. NOTE: You will need to paste this into the source within the text block, rather than just pasting it into a text block. | This is a fancy unsubscribe link. |
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
When an email recipient unsubscribes from an email you send, they will be suppressed for all future emails, regardless of which list(s) the message is sent to.
This setting only impacts email subscription status, not SMS or push notification consent.
If you have a paid Klaviyo plan, you can adjust this behavior on the account level or for specific lists. When the global unsubscribe setting is disabled, those who unsubscribe from a list-based email send will only be removed from the list (or lists) that email was sent to, and may still receive emails sent to other lists they have subscribed to.
If a campaign is sent to multiple lists, unsubscribes will always be treated as a global unsubscribe.
To maintain strong deliverability and avoid recipients marking your emails as spam, Klaviyo highly recommends that you leave global unsubscribes enabled.
To disable global unsubscribes for a single list (paid plans only):
- Select your list from the Lists & Segments tab.
- Open that list’s settings.
- Uncheck the option When someone unsubscribes from [LIST NAME], unsubscribe that person from all future emails.
- Click Update List Settings.
To disable this setting for all lists:
- Navigate to Settings > Other.
- Scroll down to the Consent section.
- Uncheck the option When someone unsubscribes from a list, unsubscribe that person from all lists.
- Click Update Email Consent Settings.
Manually unsubscribe an email from Klaviyo
Unsubscribe one or more emails globally
To manually unsubscribe someone from all emails sent by Klaviyo:
- Navigate to the Profiles tab.
- Select View suppressed profiles in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
- Choose whether you want to suppress a single profile or bulk suppress many profiles.
- To suppress a single profile, click the Add Email Address button.
- To bulk suppress contacts, use the Upload File button.
You can also suppress and unsubscribe a profile on the Details tab of a profile. To do this, click on menu next to the consent indicator on their profile:
Note that manually suppressing a profile will make them unreachable, but will not change their consent status and they can be unsuppressed later. Unsubscribing a user will set their consent status to Unsubscribed and they will have to resubscribe to receive emails again.
Unsubscribe an email for a specific list
- Navigate to the list you want to unsubscribe profiles from.
- Click the Manage List dropdown.
- Select List Suppressions.
- Click Add Email Address in the upper right.
- Add the email address of the person you wish to suppress.
- Select Add Email Address again in order to finish manually suppressing the profile.
Share a global unsubscribe link with someone
- Navigate to Settings > Other.
- Scroll down to the section labeled Consent.
- Copy the global unsubscribe link, which can be used to globally suppress contacts.
- Share this link with someone or include it in an email.
When someone then clicks the link, they can globally unsubscribe themselves from all of your future emails.
View how a profile was suppressed
From the List Suppressions page you can filter profiles based on whether they unsubscribed on their own (Unsubscribed) or were added manually (Manually Added).
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 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
Whenever someone unsubscribes from your emails or is suppressed for deliverability reasons (i.e., an email hard bounced or is invalid), they become globally suppressed and unable to receive marketing emails in Klaviyo. This is because when contacts choose to unsubscribe from one of your emails, they typically expect to unsubscribe from all of them.
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)
- Uploading a CSV file with email consent
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.
Note that Klaviyo does not store information from a previous email service provider (such as Mailchimp) around when a profile unsubscribed from emails sent via the previous platform. We will only track when someone unsubscribes from a Klaviyo email.
Manually resubscribe a profile
If a former subscriber contacts you directly and asks to be resubscribed to your mailing list, you can manually unsuppress them. To do so:
- Navigate to their profile in Klaviyo.
- On the Details tab, click on the menu next to their consent indicator to see the Resubscribe option.
Note that if you resubscribe a profile, you are indicating that you have explicit consent to send email marketing to that recipient.
After manually resubscribing a profile, wait about 10 minutes before sending an email to them.
SMS unsubscribes
Manually unsubscribe an SMS number
- Navigate to the profile you would like to unsubscribe.
- On the Details tab locate the SMS channel
IMAGE - Click the menu next to the consent indicator for SMS.
- Click Unsubscribe.
Unsubscribe SMS numbers in bulk
- Create a new CSV file for the SMS contacts you want to unsubscribe.
- 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.
- 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 U.S.) at the beginning of every phone number.
- In Klaviyo, open the dropdown under your account name.
- Click Settings > Other > Profile maintenance.
- Scroll to the Import SMS Unsubscribes section.
- Click Browse Files and upload your CSV file of SMS contacts to unsubscribe.
- Click Unsubscribe Phone Numbers.
- Confirm your selection in the modal that appears.
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.
In most cases, when someone opts out, they can resubscribe via a form, texting an opt-in keyword, etc. However, if someone used STOP to opt out, they must text UNSTOP in order to receive messages again. If you attempt to resubscribe one of these profiles through another method, consent will appear in Klaviyo, but mobile carriers will continue to block messages until the recipient texts in a resubscribe keyword.
Additional resources
- Understanding consent in profiles
Learn how to understand consent in profiles and best practices for email and SMS compliance.
- Understanding the subscribed to list metric
Learn about the Subscribed to List metric, which appears on a customer’s profile whenever they subscribe to a list in Klaviyo. This includes:
- Understanding suppressed email profiles
Learn about suppressed email profiles, including how they differ from active profiles and how you can use these profiles to better understand your audience.