Consent and opt-out in email and Viber campaigns

Short answer: NG CRM decides whether a marketing message may go to a contact on the server, on every send, using four rules: the contact's per-channel consent, company policy, the suppression list and link-based opt-out. For email the company chooses between explicit consent, which is the default, and legitimate interest. Viber always requires explicit consent. A recipient who may not be contacted stays in the campaign as a row with a reason, but receives nothing.

Consent is kept per channel

Each contact has two separate consents: one for email and one for phone (Viber). Each has three states — not asked, opted in, opted out. Agreeing to email therefore does not mean agreeing to messages on a phone.

Changes that arrive outside the contact card — an unsubscribe link, a provider report, an import, an administrator entry — go into the consent log: channel, given or withdrawn, source, time, who recorded it and from which campaign. The log is append-only; rows are never edited or deleted. Edits made directly on the contact card are not logged yet, but the consent date stays recorded on the contact.

Company policy: explicit consent or legitimate interest

The setting applies to the whole company and can also be set for a single legal entity. In both cases a contact who opted out and an address on the suppression list receive nothing. For Viber there is no choice.

Which policy fits your business is a decision for you and your legal adviser. NG CRM enforces the chosen rule consistently, on every send.

An unsubscribe link that scanners cannot trigger

• Every marketing email carries a personal unsubscribe link in the footer. Where the transport allows headers, a one-click unsubscribe header is added too, which many mail apps show as a button.
• Opening the link changes nothing. Mail scanners open links by themselves, so the opt-out happens only when the recipient confirms.
• The recipient chooses whether to opt out of that channel or of all marketing messages from the company.
• The link identifies a single message, without an address or a name, so it cannot unsubscribe someone else. It is valid for one year from sending; the period is configurable but cannot be shorter than 30 days.

The suppression list

The suppression list is a register of addresses a legal entity does not market to, regardless of which contact the address belongs to. It is filled by:

• addresses that unsubscribed through the link;
• addresses the provider reports as unsubscribed, as spam complaints or as hard bounces;
• addresses an administrator enters by hand — for example when a customer asks by phone not to be contacted.

Removing an entry requires a reason and the approval privilege for campaigns, and it is logged. Removal does not restore consent: the contact stays opted out until someone records new consent.

On Viber, a customer who opts out through Mailbook loses phone consent and is added to the list of numbers the company does not send Viber messages to. Campaigns skip them, but you can still reply within a conversation the customer started.

What is measured and what is not

The final recipient list is built when sending starts, not when the campaign is scheduled. Delivery, opens and clicks are visible only when the campaign goes through Mailbook; an email campaign sent through the company's own mail server only knows that a message was sent. A Viber campaign cannot run without the company's Mailbook account. Even then opens are approximate, so plan follow-ups by clicks.

How segments and campaigns are built is covered on the Marketing page. How customer replies by email and Viber arrive in one stream is on the Inbox page.