Deliverability
Part of Checking sales-sequence delivery before and after launch
Protecting suppression lists during sales tool changes
Move opt-outs between sales tools by reconciling records, pausing sends and checking that each relevant sending route respects suppression.
When sales tools change, carry existing opt-outs into every relevant sending route before restarting outreach. A successful contact import does not prove queued messages will respect those stop decisions. Verify the imported exclusions and the path a new request will take.
Gather the stop records
Identify where people may have declined marketing: the CRM, sequence platform, email service, shared inbox and any agency-managed system. Include manual requests where they were recorded. Choose an authoritative record during migration and assign someone to resolve conflicting entries. Preserve the request date, channel and wording where available so its scope is not lost.
Keep delivery failures separate from opt-outs. A bounced address may be invalid; an opt-out is a contact preference. A person who unsubscribed must not become eligible because the new tool imports the old record as a bounce, archive or unmapped field.
Opt-Out vs. Bounced Address: Key Differences
- Opt-OutContact explicitly declined marketing communications. Requires respect across all sending tools and channels. May include unsubscribe requests, manual stop notes, or consent revocation.
- Bounced AddressInvalid or undeliverable email address. Often due to typos, closed accounts, or server issues. Not a preference; does not indicate consent withdrawal.
Map exclusions before importing contacts
Check what each old suppression field means and which control in the new tool can enforce it. A control might affect one sequence, all marketing email, a contact record or an account. Similar field names do not establish identical behaviour. For duplicate records or multiple known addresses, have a named owner decide how the person's request applies; neither narrow nor broaden it silently.
Pause scheduled sends during the transfer. Reconcile imported records and inspect exceptions, including blank identifiers, conflicting statuses and failed imports. Retain the prior system's evidence until the new exclusions have been verified. If the new tool cannot represent a stop decision, maintain an external exclusion and prevent that tool from sending to the affected records.
Check the sending path
Use controlled records to verify that an already suppressed contact cannot enter a sequence, a new opt-out stops pending sends, and a later CRM import does not restore eligibility. Repeat the check for separate teams or agencies that can send on the business's behalf. These are acceptance checks to perform during a real migration; no product behaviour is assumed here.
For Australian commercial electronic messages, the ACMA publishes guidance on avoiding spam; check its current requirements and how they apply to each sending route before resuming outreach. Resume outreach only after the team can trace a stop request to every relevant sending route and record the migration decision.
