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allGood keeps its own list of people who have opted out of your email, and checks it before every send. This article explains how an address gets on that list, what the list blocks, and where it stops.

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What happens when someone clicks unsubscribe

  1. The recipient clicks the unsubscribe link in your email. Because the link is {{ send.unsubscribeUrl }}, it opens your Subscription Center, hosted on your own domain.
  2. They tick “Unsubscribe from all marketing emails” and select Save. Opening the page changes nothing. This matters because link scanners open links on their own, and they can’t unsubscribe anyone by doing so.
  3. allGood records the choice. The address goes on your suppression list, and an unsubscribe (email.unsubscribed) appears on the person’s timeline. The record notes which email the click came from, the page’s language, and the country they chose, if you ask for one.
  4. Sends stop. The person is skipped on every later send, and their sequences in any motion end.
The one-click unsubscribe that Gmail and Yahoo show in the inbox goes to the same place. If a recipient unticks the box and saves, allGood adds a resubscribe record (email.resubscribed) and sends can resume.

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The suppression list

The suppression list is kept for your account. It works like this:
  • It’s keyed by email address, not by person. If you delete a person, their opt-outs stay on the list, so an address that opted out isn’t mailed again.
  • Nothing is deleted. When someone resubscribes, allGood adds a new entry on top of the old one. The full history stays.
  • It holds more than unsubscribes. An address can be on the list because the person unsubscribed from everything, opted out of one category, or because of a problem with the address: a bounce, a block by the receiving mail server, or a spam complaint. allGood adds these automatically.
  • Only the person’s own choices can be undone from the page. A bounced address is shown as undeliverable with no switch, because turning it back on would mean mailing a dead address.
Bounces and spam complaints are permanent today. A mailbox that bounced because it was full counts the same as one that no longer exists.

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What blocks a send

Two checks run before every send, and either one stops it:
  • The person’s consent. A person marked unsubscribed doesn’t receive the email. See Merge field reference.
  • The suppression list. If the address is suppressed, the send is skipped.
A skipped send is recorded with the reason, in plain language, for example “Skipped: recipient unsubscribed from all email on 2026-11-06 via the unsubscribe page.” If an address has more than one reason, the most serious one is shown. A separate check makes sure each email contains an unsubscribe link and a postal address. See Before an email can send.

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What the list isn’t used for

An address on the suppression list goes to your email delivery provider and nowhere else, because the provider’s job includes honoring the opt-out. It isn’t passed to your CRM, an export, or a partner. Under CAN-SPAM, passing an opted-out address on is a deliberate decision, and allGood doesn’t make it for you.
An opt-out recorded in allGood isn’t pushed to your CRM or other systems automatically yet. If you also send from another system, make sure it hears about the opt-out some other way.

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Categories

Recipients can also turn off individual categories on the Subscription Center. Those choices are saved, but the check before each send looks only at Unsubscribe from all marketing emails and address problems. To respect topic choices, filter your audience on them. See Set up your Subscription Center.

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If you’re coming from Marketo

Marketo calls this durable unsubscribe. Marketo remembers the addresses of people who unsubscribed, separate from their person records. If you delete a record, or the same address comes back later through a form, an import, or a CRM sync, the new record is still unsubscribed, so you can’t mail it by accident. allGood does the same thing. The suppression list is keyed by email address, not by person, so it doesn’t depend on a person record existing. If you delete a person and the same address returns, the address is still blocked on every send. Adding someone back doesn’t clear an opt-out. Only the recipient can do that, by resubscribing on the Subscription Center. Three details to know:
  • Addresses match exactly. allGood trims spaces and ignores capital letters, but it keeps a + alias as part of the address. An opt-out for jane@example.com doesn’t cover jane+news@example.com, because that’s a different address to mail.
  • History is kept. A resubscribe is added as a new entry on top of the opt-out, so you can always see when someone left and when they came back.
  • There are no operational emails. Marketo lets you mark an email as operational so it still reaches people who unsubscribed. allGood has no such concept. Every email goes through the same opt-out checks. If you need to message people who have opted out, such as account notices or receipts, send those from another platform built for that.