This article explains the different contact statuses and how to change them.

	In This Article
	Contact Statuses Active Error Opt-Out Viewing a Contact Record Changing a Contact's Status Important Notes About Contact Status Additional Resources

Contact Statuses

Contacts can either be in the Active, Error, or Opt-out status. When you choose recipients for a mailing, Emma will only send it to the contacts who are in the Active status. Contacts in the Error status and Opt-out status are automatically suppressed.

Active

Active contacts are essentially contacts in "good standing". If you include them in the audience of a campaign, Emma will not suppress them. Additionally, they are the only contacts who count towards your monthly contact limit.

Error

Error contacts are, for all intents and purposes, invalid contacts. Contacts are moved to the Error status for the following reasons:

• Their email address is incorrectly formatted
• They hard bounced a mailing
• They soft bounced three consecutive mailings
• Their status was changed from within the application by a user who has access to the Audience tab

✎	Note
	If you include Error contacts in the audience of a campaign, Emma automatically suppresses them to prevent further bounces. This is because repeated bounces can damage your sending reputation and deliverability.

Formatting

When a formatting error is detected in a file import or an API call, Emma automatically moves those contacts to the Error status. If you navigate to your Audience tab and click on Error at the top, you'll be able to see a list of all of your Error contacts. You'll also see a column that's labeled "Reason". If a contact has the word "Format" in their Reason column, then they were moved to the Error status due to a formatting issue, such as:

• Missing an @ symbol
• Missing the .com or .org from the end
• Having spaces between characters, or before or after the email address

☑	Tip
	The import summary for a file import does not include notification of format errors. Before you import a file, you should make note of the current Error total, then if it increases after the import, you'll know that there are some invalid addresses to fix.

 

From the Error tab, you can click on an email address to fix the formatting issue. However, this will not automatically change the contact's status to Active. You must fix the issue and then save the corrected email address in order to change the status.

Delivery

If you navigate to your Audience tab and click on Error at the top, you'll be able to see a list of all of your Error contacts. You'll also see a column that's labeled "Reason". If a contact has the word "Delivery" in their Reason column, then they were moved to the Error status due to bounces. Contacts are moved to the Error status when they hard bounce a mailing or when they soft bounce three consecutive mailings.

⚠	Warning
	While it is possible to move a contact from Error to Active, we do not recommend it, unless you know 100% for certain that the email address is good AND you have resolved the issue that caused them to move to Error in the first place. Moving contacts from Error to Active on a regular basis can cause serious deliverability trouble and damage your sending reputation.

Opt-Out

Opt-out contacts have either unsubscribed from your mailings by clicking on the opt out link in a mailing, or their status was changed from within the application by a user who has access to the Audience tab. If you include them in the audience of a campaign, Emma will automatically suppress them, as contacts who have unsubscribed cannot be sent to.

Viewing a Contact Record

To look up the subscription and status details for an individual contact, follow these steps:

1. Head to your Audience tab.
2. Use the search field to find the contact's email address.
3. Click on the contact's email address to open their contact record.
   1. Clicking on the email address once will expand the Quick View Contact Profile Drawer. Click the email address in the drawer or the expansion icon to open the full record. 

The contact's current status is shown near the top right of the contact record page.

Changing a Contact's Status

To change a contact's status, follow these steps:

1. Follow the steps above to open their contact record.
2. Click on the dropdown arrow next to "Email status".
3. Select the desired status from the dropdown menu.
4. If you're moving the contact to the Opt-out status, a pop-up window will appear. To confirm your changes, click on the Yes, opt out button.

You can change a contact's status in the following ways:

• From Active to Error
• From Active to Opt-out
• From Error to Active
• From Error to Opt-out

Once a contact's status has been changed to Opt-out, they cannot be moved back to Active or Error through the Emma user interface. If the contact wishes to resubscribe, they must do so themself.

⚠	Warning
	While it is possible to move a contact from Error to Active, we do not recommend it, unless you know 100% for certain that the email address is good AND you have resolved the issue that caused them to move to Error in the first place. Moving contacts from Error to Active on a regular basis can cause serious deliverability trouble and damage your sending reputation.

Important Notes About Contact Status

Once a contact has been changed to Opt-out status, it cannot be undone from within your Emma account or through the API. However, the contact can resubscribe themself.

We do not recommend archiving contacts in the Error or Opt-out status. Contacts who spend the entire month in the Error or Opt-out status do not count toward your audience total for billing purposes, so it's best to just leave them alone.

Additional Resources

• Audience Tab: Managing Contacts
• Audience Tab: Overview
• Audience Tab: Segments
• Imports: Adding Contacts From a File
• Making the Most of Your Audience Groups