Blocklists

When a recipient is placed on a blocklist, the recipient will receive no more email from you via Optimizely Campaign, even if the recipient registers to receive mailings again. This ensures that your recipient lists have no dissatisfied recipients. And, a clean recipient list with just a few complaints has a positive impact on the deliverability of your mailings.

To display the blocklist, open the Optimizely Campaign menu and select Blocklist > Overview. You can perform the following actions for the blocklist.

Adding recipients to a blocklist

You cannot add print recipients.

  1. Click Add…. A blank line is added to the list.
  2. In the Pattern field, for example, enter the email address or phone number of the recipient you want to block.
  3. In the Reason field, optionally enter a reason for blocklisting (for example, complaint).
  4. Click Submit.

Adding recipients to a blocklist automatically

If a recipient marks an unwanted email as spam, Optimizely Campaign is notified by the email service provider, and the recipient is added to the blocklist.

Typical reason of a automatic blocklist entry:

type=automatic;rule=FBL: AOL;mailing=12345678;m2u=987654321

The m2u parameter refers to the mailing-to-user ID, also known as mail ID. The mail ID associates a recipient with a mailing.

Editing a blocklist entries

You cannot edit automatic blocklist entries.

  1. To change the reason for blocking, click the entry you want to edit.
  2. Click Edit….
  3. Edit the content of the Reason box.
  4. Click Submit.

Deleting blocklist entries

You cannot delete automatic blocklist entries.

  1. Click the entry you want to remove from the blocklist.
  2. Click Delete.
  3. Confirm the deletion. The recipient is deleted from the blocklist and can receive your mailings again.

Using wildcards

Instead of entering a complete email address, you can use wildcards in the blocklist entries.

  • Use the asterisk (*) as placeholder for one or more characters. For example, to block email addresses from a specific domain such as example.com, specify *@example.com.

    Searching the blocklist may result in multiple entries. For example, [email protected] and *@example.com may both be on the blocklist. If [email protected] is removed from the blocklist, Axel would still not receive mails because the example.com domain is blocked.

  • Use the question mark (?) as placeholder for a single character. For example, you are not sure about how a name is spelled correctly, such as Mar? for Mark, Marc, or Mary.
  • You can use placeholders in the domain part of an email address. For example, abuse@* blocks email addresses starting with abuse. This account name is usually configured by companies and providers as a default email account for customer complaints. If somebody registers for your newsletter with such an email address, it can be both annoying and cause serial problems and damage your internet reputation.