Opt-outs and consent

Every contact has a consent record: a history of each opt-in and opt-out, in the order they happened. The contact's Consent status is worked out from that record and cannot be set by hand. When a customer opts out, IconEngage stops sending them messages.

Consent statuses

What an opt-out stops

A contact who is Opted out or Blocked us cannot be sent any message: not a campaign, not an automation step, and not a reply from the inbox, even inside the 24-hour window.

• Campaigns leave them out when the audience is turned into a recipient list, check again before each message, and stop if a stop word arrives mid-campaign. They are counted as Opted out in the campaign's exclusions.
• An opt-out takes effect within one message, never instantly. A message already handed to WhatsApp before the opt-out still goes out.

How customers opt out

Stop words

If a customer sends a text message that is only one of these words, they are opted out automatically:

• STOP, STOP ALL or STOPALL
• UNSUBSCRIBE
• OPT OUT, OPTOUT or OPT-OUT
• QUIT

Capitals, extra spaces and full stops or exclamation marks don't matter. The message must be just the word, though, so "please stop sending the wrong size" is not an opt-out. A word followed by a question mark ("stop?") is not an opt-out either. CANCEL and END are deliberately not stop words, because customers often use them about orders.

When an agent records it

If a customer asks to stop in other words, in a conversation or on the phone, record it for them:

1. Open the contact's page, or the contact panel beside their conversation in the inbox.
2. Under Campaign messages, click Stop campaign messages.
3. Optionally, add a Note (up to 500 characters) saying what the customer said. Your team can see it; the customer cannot.
4. Click Stop campaign messages.

You see Opted out, or Already opted out if they had opted out before (in that case the existing record is unchanged and your note is not added). Recording an opt-out twice is safe.

If you see NOT opted out, the opt-out was not recorded and the customer can still be reached. If you see We do not know whether this was recorded, try again or check the Opt-outs list before telling the customer it's done.

The Opt-outs list

Go to Contacts › Opt-outs. The list shows everyone who opted out, with:

• Contact: a link to the contact record.
• Opted out: when.
• How: Stop word (with the word they sent), Recorded by an agent or Blocked in WhatsApp.
• During campaign: the campaign they were replying to, if any.
• Note: the agent's note, if any.

Use the filter to show one way of opting out. The record is permanent: there is no undo on this screen.

Record consent on a contact

Use this to record an opt-in you collected (a web form, a paper form, a WhatsApp message) or any other consent change.

1. Open the contact.
2. In Consent record, click Record consent.
3. Under What happened, choose Opted in, Opted out, Blocked this business or Unblocked this business.
4. Under How you know, choose Recorded by a teammate, The API or An import.
5. Optionally, add a Reason.
6. Under Evidence, add proof: a URL, a Form id, or the Method and when it was Collected. You can also add a Reference and a Note. Evidence is required for an opt-in.
7. Click Record.

The record is only ever added to, never edited. The contact's status is recalculated from the whole record.

Letting someone receive messages again

To let a customer who opted out receive campaigns again, record a new Opted in event with evidence of their fresh consent. You can also record opt-ins in bulk with an import.