Consent & suppression
Overview
Two lists decide who receives marketing — and they work in opposite directions:
- Consent is the positive gate: only a confirmed consent permits a marketing send.
- Suppression is the negative gate: whatever is on it is not contacted again, whatever else may
apply.
Both are checked hard before every marketing send — not in the interface, but in the send itself. An audience may contain someone the send still leaves out.
The life cycle of a consent: pending → confirmed → withdrawn, plus expired when the confirmation deadline passes unused.
Core tasks
Inspect consents. With proof: timestamp, origin hash and the consent text that was agreed to. That is exactly the evidence that matters in a dispute.
Understand double opt-in. Signing up creates a pending consent with a token and a deadline; only confirming through the link makes it valid. Unconfirmed consents expire automatically through a daily run.
Process withdrawals. A withdrawal sets the consent to withdrawn and immediately creates a suppression entry. Unsubscribing from a mail takes effect at once — not at the next send.
Maintain suppression. The default is a global entry: unsubscribed means unsubscribed. A brand-only entry is the documented exception, not the normal case.
Understand returns. Bounces and complaints also lead to suppression; a plain delivery confirmation does not.
Fields in detail
The What it does column answers what changes in the system — not what the field is called. The grey name behind the label is the API field: the same thing runs under that name through automation, import and AI tools.
Recording a consent
| Field | Required | Values / format | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
Email address email | yes | address | Who consented. The address is the key — not the customer, because a consent attaches to the address. |
Channel channel | no | email, phone, post | What the consent covers. Consent for email does not cover a phone call. |
Purpose purpose | no | text | What may be advertised. The narrower the purpose, the more dependable the consent — "newsletter" does not carry sales calls. |
Brand brandId | no | one of your brands | Which brand it applies to. Consent given to one brand is not consent to all. |
Proof proofText | no | text | How and when the consent came about — form, time, IP address, wording. This is the real value of the mask: in a dispute what counts is not that you claim a consent but that you can evidence it. |
Already confirmed alreadyConfirmed | no | yes/no | Set to yes no confirmation mail is sent. Only set it when confirmation demonstrably happened elsewhere — otherwise you deprive yourself of the evidence. |
Suppression list
Alongside consents this page keeps the suppression list: addresses that receive nothing. An unsubscribe lands there automatically. An entry on the suppression list beats every audience and every consent — that is intended and must not be worked around.
Settings & permissions
- Module
module.marketing. marketing.consent.view— inspect consents and the suppression list.marketing.consent.manage— maintain them. Both pre-assigned to the role Vertrieb.- A suppression entry can be added repeatedly without harm — it is unique by address, scope and
brand, so a duplicate cannot come about.
- Retention and subject requests run through GDPR / data protection.
FAQ & troubleshooting
A contact receives no mail although they are in the audience. Then confirmed consent is missing, or the address is on the suppression list. Both are checked by the send, not by the audience.
The consent stays "pending" and nothing happens. The confirmation mail was not clicked. After the deadline the entry expires.
A mail arrived after someone unsubscribed. That should not happen: unsubscribing withdraws and suppresses immediately. Check whether the person has a second address.
An address is suppressed although nobody unsubscribed. Then a bounce or a complaint came back. Both suppress — for good reason.