# Marketing opt-out

> How customers stop your marketing messages, how Soosh finds out, and what it does differently for them.

Source: https://docs.soosh.io/concepts/marketing-opt-out/

Customers can tell WhatsApp, or you, that they don't want marketing messages
from your business. When they do, Soosh marks them as opted out and leaves
them out of marketing messages. They still get order updates and other utility messages,
and your team can still chat with them.

## Why it exists

WhatsApp lets every customer turn off marketing messages from any business,
from inside WhatsApp. It's Meta's way of keeping promotions welcome. A
customer who can say "no more offers" is less likely to block or report you,
and blocks and reports lower your
[number's quality](https://docs.soosh.io/concepts/messaging-limits-and-number-quality/).

Meta also limits how many marketing messages one person gets from businesses
overall. So a marketing message can be held back even when the customer
hasn't opted out.

## How Soosh finds out

Soosh marks a contact as opted out in 4 ways:

- **The customer turns off your marketing messages in WhatsApp.** Meta tells
  Soosh, and the contact is marked. If they turn them back on, the mark goes.
- **The customer replies with a stop word.** A message that is only `STOP`,
  `UNSUBSCRIBE`, `STOP ALL`, `OPT OUT` or `OPTOUT` marks them. Capital letters
  and a full stop or exclamation mark don't matter. A longer message, like
  "please stop the offers", doesn't count.
- **A marketing message fails because they turned them off.** Soosh marks the
  contact, and the campaign's results show **Turned off your marketing
  messages**.
- **You import contacts** with the column **Opted out of marketing** set to
  Yes. An import never removes an opt-out.

If Rahul answers a campaign with "STOP", Soosh marks him, sends him a short
confirmation and starts no bot reply. This works whether or not your bot is
on. Template footers that tell customers to reply STOP rely on it.

A customer who opted out can opt back in by replying `START`, `SUBSCRIBE`,
`UNSTOP` or `OPT IN`. Soosh clears the mark and confirms. These words do
nothing for a customer who hadn't opted out, so a flow or keyword reply built
on "start" keeps working. There's no switch on the contact page to change the
mark by hand.

## What Soosh does for opted-out customers

Opted-out contacts show **Opted out of marketing** in the chat and on their
contact page. In the chat's contact details, **Marketing messages** says they're
opted out. [**Contacts**](https://app.soosh.io/contacts) counts how many contacts are **Opted out**.

Soosh then leaves them out of marketing messages everywhere:

- **Campaigns.** When you add people with a marketing template, opted-out
  contacts are skipped, and the **Add customers** window says how many. If
  someone opts out after you added them, Soosh skips them when it sends.
- **Follow-ups.** Automatic follow-ups to a campaign skip them too.
- **Chats.** Soosh won't send a marketing template to them from a chat.
- **Shopify messages.** Marketing messages from the Shopify integration skip
  them.

Utility and authentication templates still go to opted-out customers. So do
your team's normal replies when the customer writes to you.

> **Note:** Only the customer can undo an opt-out: by turning your marketing messages
> back on in WhatsApp, or by replying `START`. Soosh has no way to remove it
> for them.

## What it means for you

- **Your audience can be smaller than the tag.** If 500 customers have the
  tag *VIP* and 20 opted out, a marketing campaign reaches 480.
- **Category changes matter.** If Meta moves a utility template to marketing,
  opted-out customers stop getting it. See
  [Template categories](https://docs.soosh.io/concepts/template-categories/).
- **Watch the number.** A growing opt-out count means your offers are too
  frequent, or not what those customers want.
- **"Held back" isn't an opt-out.** A message that fails with **Held back by
  WhatsApp to protect engagement** hit Meta's limit on marketing messages for
  that person. Soosh doesn't mark them. Try them later, or send to people who
  engaged recently.

## Related

- [Send a campaign to a tag](https://docs.soosh.io/guides/campaigns/send-a-campaign-to-a-tag/)
- [Import contacts](https://docs.soosh.io/guides/contacts/import-contacts/)
- [Read campaign results](https://docs.soosh.io/guides/campaigns/read-campaign-results/)
- [Template categories](https://docs.soosh.io/concepts/template-categories/)
- [How campaign pricing works](https://docs.soosh.io/concepts/how-campaign-pricing-works/)
- [Messaging limits and number quality](https://docs.soosh.io/concepts/messaging-limits-and-number-quality/)