Unsubscribe users from emails in backend

Candidly, this has been a concerning pain point for some time and I’m surprised it hasn’t been addressed due to the compliance implications with various regulations. 

Here’s a work around to help you in the mean time. 

1. Custom Role for Unsubscribes
2. Automate assigning this role (via the API) when someone unsubscribes via your other email marketing tool(s)
3. Set strict rules to always ensure your distribution list for an email does not include users with that role
   • This will be a challenge when building your audience lists and prevents you from using Automated Email Campaigns (Segments are not yet supported)

It’s a bit more complex, but I’d actually advise this approach: 

1. Custom Role for Opt-In to Email Campaigns
   • Bulk add to all existing users
   • Automate adding it to all net-new users
   • You don’t need to worry about when they unsubscribe from Email Campaigns via the CC unsubscribe option in the email or via their profile settings, CC will respect that preference even if they have the Opt-IN role on their profile. It just may be a bit confusing. 
     • Caveat: unless you’re looking to do the same thing, where an unsubscribe to community email campaigns needs to push to your other systems…  
2. Automate Removing this role when someone unsubscribes via your other marketing tool(s)
3. Set strict rules to always INCLUDE that opt-in role in your audience definition 
   • Building lists that are a mix of Role includes and role does not include isn’t supported, this solves that. If you need to email to a role-based list, your list criteria is that they have  {role} and {opt-in role}
   • Automated Email Campaigns would support this approach