Unsubscribe links

SendMero gives your email a working unsubscribe button and link, and records every unsubscribe on your suppression list.

What recipients see

• The Unsubscribe button in Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. SendMero adds two hidden email headers (List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post) that make mail apps show an Unsubscribe button next to the sender's name. One click unsubscribes the recipient, with no page to fill in.
• A link at the bottom of the message. It opens a page with one Unsubscribe button. A click on the link alone never unsubscribes anyone (security scanners open every link), only the button does.

What SendMero adds, by sending domain type

Each sending domain is marketing or transactional (see Manage domains). The type decides the default.

	Marketing domain	Transactional domain
Unsubscribe headers	Always. If your message already has a complete one-click pair of your own, we keep yours.	None by default. Add "unsubscribe_header": "on" to a message to get ours.
Link at the bottom	Always, when the message does not contain the {{sendmero_unsubscribe_url}} placeholder.	None by default. Add "unsubscribe_link": "on" to a message to get it.

Transactional mail, such as receipts and password resets, is left alone on purpose: an unsubscribe stops mail from that sender, so a button on a receipt would let someone cut themselves off from their own account emails.

Put the link where you want it

Put {{sendmero_unsubscribe_url}} in your template, in a link or as plain text. SendMero replaces it with the recipient's own link and adds nothing else to the body.

<a href="{{sendmero_unsubscribe_url}}">Unsubscribe</a>

If the message does not contain the placeholder, a marketing domain gets a small "Unsubscribe" line at the bottom. SendMero does not look for unsubscribe links of your own, so if you use your own link and do not want the extra line, replace it with the placeholder.

Only the SendMero placeholders are replaced. Placeholders of other providers are left as they are.

Let recipients choose what they receive

Two more placeholders give each recipient their own links. Use them in any message, on marketing and transactional domains, in the html or the text:

Placeholder	What the recipient gets
{{sendmero_preferences_url}}	A preference page that lists the unsubscribe groups you chose to show, each with a box to switch it on or off, a Save preferences button, and an Unsubscribe from everything button.
{{sendmero_unsubscribe_all_url}}	A page that asks "Unsubscribe from everything?" with one button.

<a href="{{sendmero_preferences_url}}">Manage your preferences</a>

• Only groups with Let recipients switch this group on or off on the preference page ticked are listed. A recipient who switches a group off stops getting mail of that group only.
• Unsubscribe from everything stops all mail from your workspace to that address. Afterwards the page shows one Subscribe again button.
• A recipient can never turn back on an address that is also blocked because of a hard bounce, a spam complaint or an entry you added yourself. The page tells them so.
• Opening a link never changes anything (security scanners open every link); only the buttons do.
• These placeholders do not add the bottom "Unsubscribe" line. A marketing message that has only these placeholders still gets that line unless it contains {{sendmero_unsubscribe_url}}.
• When a recipient switches a group back on, or subscribes again, SendMero creates a resubscribed webhook event.

Change the footer and the page texts

In Workspace settings, the card Unsubscribe footer and pages lets you change what recipients read. Leave a box empty to use the SendMero wording.

• Footer wording: plain text that must contain {{sendmero_unsubscribe_url}}. In HTML that placeholder becomes a link worded "Unsubscribe"; in plain text it becomes Unsubscribe: <link>. The style (small, centred, grey) cannot be changed. A change applies to mail sent within about a minute.
• Title and message of the confirmation page, the unsubscribed page and the preference page. The title replaces the page heading. The message is added under the usual text, which always names your workspace and the recipient's masked address.
• Continue link: an optional https:// link shown as "Continue" on the unsubscribed page. Recipients are never sent there automatically.

These texts apply to the whole workspace, not to single domains. Everything you type is shown as plain text (no HTML).

If you use your own unsubscribe system

• Your own complete header is kept. A complete one-click pair is an https address in List-Unsubscribe plus List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click. SendMero then adds no header of its own.
• An incomplete header is replaced on marketing domains (for example mailto: only, or an https address without the List-Unsubscribe-Post header), because Gmail and Yahoo need the one-click pair. On transactional domains we leave it as you sent it.
• Tell SendMero about your unsubscribes. When a recipient unsubscribes through your own endpoint, SendMero does not know. Report it with the Suppressions API (POST /v1/suppressions with the reason unsubscribe), so SendMero also stops sending to that address.

Unsubscribe groups

By default each sending domain is its own group: someone who unsubscribes from news.example.com still gets mail from your other domains. Unsubscribe groups let you decide which domains share unsubscribes, for example one group per brand, or one group for marketing and a separate one for account mail.

1. Open Suppressions, then the Unsubscribe groups tab, and choose New group. Give it a name and a short description. You can create up to 25 groups.
2. Open a sending domain, go to its Configuration tab, and choose the Unsubscribe group. Default keeps the behaviour described below. One group can be used by several domains.
3. From then on, an unsubscribe link in mail from that domain unsubscribes the recipient from the group, and mail from every domain of the group stops. The Suppressions page shows the group name in the Applies to column, and you can filter by group.

Things to know:

• The group comes from the sending domain only. It is not set in the API or in a message.
• Moving a domain to another group affects new mail only. People who unsubscribed from the domain before stay blocked.
• A group that has sending domains or unsubscribes cannot be deleted.
• Hard bounces and spam complaints are never limited to a group.

What happens when someone unsubscribes

1. The address goes on your suppression list with the reason Unsubscribed and the source Unsubscribe link.
2. SendMero stops sending to it. Which mail it stops depends on your workspace setting Unsubscribes apply to (Workspace settings):
   • Each sending domain (the default): only mail from the sending domain the unsubscribe came from. Mail from your other domains still goes out. The Applies to column on the Suppressions page shows the domain. A domain that uses one of your own unsubscribe groups always unsubscribes from that group, whatever this setting says.
   • The whole workspace: all mail from every domain of the workspace. The setting is read when the recipient unsubscribes, so changing it affects new unsubscribes only.
3. An unsubscribed event is created, and sent to your webhooks if you subscribe to it. Its details.unsubscribe says whether it applied to the group (the sending domain) or the workspace.
4. An unsubscribe is never counted as a spam complaint.

To let someone receive your email again, remove the address from the Suppressions page (you confirm that the recipient opted in again).