Contact Consent Management
Sender-level subscription status lets you manage opt-ins and opt-outs separately for each SMS sender or email sending address. This gives contacts more control over which messages they receive while helping ensure campaigns honor the correct subscription status at send time.
For example, a contact can be subscribed to one SMS shortcode but unsubscribed from another, or subscribed to one email newsletter address but unsubscribed from a different sending address.
The Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP) evaluates subscription status at two levels:
Contact-level subscription status: the contact’s overall subscription status for the account.
Sender-level subscription status: the contact’s status for a specific SMS sender or email “from” address.
Sender-Level Subscription Status for SMS and Email
To enable sender-level subscription, contact your Zeta account team. They can help review how this feature may affect your current programs, suppression lists, and reporting.
When sender-level subscription is enabled, Zeta uses both levels to determine whether a promotional or transactional message can be sent.
The sender depends on the channel:
Channel | Sender used for evaluation |
|---|---|
SMS | The message provider selected for the campaign, such as a shortcode or long code. |
The confirmed “from” email address used by the campaign. |
Sender-level subscription applies to SMS and email. Other channels, such as push and app inbox, continue to use contact-level subscription status only.
How Subscription Checks Work
When a campaign is sent, Zeta checks:
Whether the contact is eligible to receive messages overall.
Whether the contact is subscribed to the specific sender used for the campaign.
For promotional messages, both checks must allow the send.
For transactional messages, sender-specific unsubscribes do not prevent delivery, although undeliverable addresses and bounce conditions may still block the message.
Campaign audience estimates also reflect sender-level filtering.
Contacts With No Sender-Level History
If a contact has never interacted with a specific sender, they may not have a sender-level record for that sender. In this case, Zeta treats the contact as eligible at the sender level and uses the contact-level subscription status to determine whether the message can be sent.
A sender-level record is created when Zeta processes an event for that sender, such as a subscribe, unsubscribe, complaint, or bounce.
How Sender-Level Status Is Updated
Sender-level status is updated automatically based on subscriber actions and delivery events.
Examples include:
Unsubscribing from messages sent by a specific sender
Marking messages as spam or complaints
Delivery failures or bounce events
Sender-specific subscribe actions
These updates apply only to the sender involved unless the event affects the contact globally, such as a permanent delivery failure.
For SMS campaigns, sender-level subscription is based on the sending number or shortcode associated with the campaign.
For email campaigns, sender-level subscription is based on the “from” email address used for the send.
Subscription Data
Sender-level subscription information is stored alongside the contact’s existing subscription preferences.
Your existing contact-level subscription setup continues to work as expected.
If two contact records are merged, sender-level subscription statuses are preserved so that sender-specific unsubscribes are not lost.