Unsubscribe & Compliance

Bulk email that people can’t easily leave isn’t just rude — it violates anti-spam laws (CAN-SPAM, GDPR/ePrivacy) and the bulk-sender rules Gmail and Yahoo now enforce. Send Emails builds the machinery in so every campaign is compliant by default, with nothing to remember.

What every campaign email includes

1. A personal unsubscribe link. Each recipient gets their own tokenized link, generated from the contact’s unique ID. Place it yourself with the {{unsubscribe_url}} merge tag — and if you forget, a standard unsubscribe footer is appended automatically. There is no way to send a campaign without one.
2. One-click unsubscribe headers. Every campaign email carries List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers implementing RFC 8058 — the standard behind the “Unsubscribe” button Gmail, Yahoo, and Apple Mail show next to the sender. Mailbox providers require these headers from bulk senders; you get them for free.

What happens when someone unsubscribes

• Clicking the link opens a public confirmation page on your site; confirming (or using the mail client’s one-click button, which needs no page visit) flips the contact’s status to unsubscribed.
• Unsubscribed contacts are permanently excluded from campaigns and automation sends. Nothing re-subscribes them behind their back — not a CSV import, not a form submission, not a store purchase. Only the contact opting in again (or you, manually and deliberately) changes it.
• The status change is immediate and works even mid-campaign: remaining queued sends skip the contact.

Consent on the way in

Compliance starts at signup, not at unsubscribe:

• Form opt-in fields — each form integration can require a ticked consent checkbox before subscribing anyone.
• Double opt-in (Pro) — new subscribers receive a confirmation email and stay pending (unmailed) until they click it. The strongest consent standard, and increasingly expected under GDPR.
• Statuses do the enforcement — only subscribed contacts are ever mailed by campaigns; pending, unsubscribed, and bounced contacts are excluded automatically. See Contacts.

Your compliance checklist

The plugin handles the mechanics; a few things remain yours:

• Send from an address on your own domain, and set up SPF/DKIM (your host or SMTP service provides these).
• Include your physical mailing address in your email footer where your law requires it (CAN-SPAM does).
• Mention email marketing — and tracking, if enabled — in your privacy policy.
• Only import lists that actually opted in. Purchased lists tank your deliverability long before a regulator finds you.

Data removal

If you uninstall the plugin, subscriber data is kept by default. Enable delete data on uninstall in Settings to have all tables and options removed when the plugin is deleted.