Suppression Lists

Suppression is Score CRM's mechanism for ensuring emails are not sent to contacts who should not receive them. The system automatically handles bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes while also supporting manual suppression management.

How Suppression Works

Every customer has a suppression status that is either active or suppressed. Suppressed customers are automatically excluded from all campaign sends and journey emails — no manual intervention needed.

Suppression Reasons

When a customer is suppressed, a reason is recorded:

Reason	Trigger	Description
hard_bounce	Automatic (webhook)	Email address doesn't exist or is permanently undeliverable
soft_bounce	Automatic (after 5 consecutive)	Temporary delivery failures that persist
complaint	Automatic (webhook)	Recipient reported the email as spam
unsubscribed	Automatic (tracking link)	Recipient clicked the unsubscribe link
manual	Manual (admin action)	Suppressed by a team member
list_import	CSV import	Suppressed via bulk CSV upload

Suppression Sources

Each suppression also tracks how it was triggered:

• webhook: Automated via ESP webhook (SendGrid, SparkPost, SMTP.com, OCI Mail)
• tracking_link: Customer clicked the unsubscribe link in the email
• manual: Admin action via the Score CRM UI
• csv_import: Bulk import of suppressed emails
• api: Suppressed via API call

Managing Suppressions

Viewing Suppressed Contacts

1. Navigate to Suppression in the sidebar
2. Browse the suppression list with filters:
   • Reason: Filter by hard bounce, soft bounce, complaint, unsubscribed, manual
   • Source: Filter by webhook, tracking link, manual, CSV import
   • Date range: Filter by when suppression occurred

Manually Suppressing a Contact

1. Go to Suppression
2. Click Add Suppression
3. Enter the email address
4. Select a reason (defaults to "manual")
5. Click Suppress

Unsuppressing a Contact

caution

Unsuppressing a contact means they will start receiving emails again. Only unsuppress contacts when you're confident the issue is resolved (e.g., the customer confirmed they want to receive emails).

1. Find the suppressed contact in the list
2. Click Unsuppress
3. Confirm the action

Bulk Import

To suppress many contacts at once:

1. Go to Suppression
2. Click Import CSV
3. Upload a CSV with an email column
4. Select the suppression reason
5. Submit

Limits: Maximum 100,000 rows and 10MB file size per import.

Automatic Suppression Behavior

Hard Bounces

When an ESP reports a hard bounce via webhook, the customer is immediately:

• Marked as is_bounced = true
• Set to suppression_status = 'suppressed'
• Set to suppression_reason = 'hard_bounce'

Soft Bounces

Soft bounces are tracked with a counter. After 5 consecutive soft bounces, the customer is auto-suppressed with reason soft_bounce. The counter resets if a successful delivery occurs.

Spam Complaints

A single spam complaint triggers immediate suppression with reason complaint. This is critical for maintaining sender reputation.

Unsubscribes

When a recipient clicks the unsubscribe link (generated via the {{unsubscribe_url}} merge tag), they are immediately suppressed with reason unsubscribed.

Audit Trail

All suppression actions are logged in an immutable audit trail for compliance purposes. Each entry records:

• The customer email
• The suppression action (suppressed or unsuppressed)
• The reason and source
• Timestamp
• The user who performed the action (for manual operations)

This audit trail cannot be edited or deleted, ensuring full compliance with email marketing regulations.

Best Practices

• Never unsuppress spam complaints: This damages your sender reputation
• Review bounce patterns: A spike in bounces may indicate a list quality issue
• Monitor complaint rates: Keep complaint rates below 0.1% to maintain deliverability
• Use suppression imports for known-bad lists: If you acquire a list of invalid emails, suppress them before they enter your send pipeline
• Audit regularly: Review suppression trends to catch issues early