It looks like Smart List subscriptions contain unsubscribed users...can I remove them?

[Kirsten_Hughes]

Hi everyone,

We often send out discount offers/special deals to customer groups via Marketo, and were hoping to start to use automated Smart List subscriptions to send a .csv of recipients to our Customer Service team (They can upload this list into their own system and have the recipients automatically tagged as having received various offers without needing to constantly query our comms plans...)

Currently, it appears that marketing unsubscribed/Marketo blocked users will still feed into the smart list subscription.  This means we're needing to add an additional flow step to add users to an a new smart list *after* the  email has sent, to set up a smart list subscription based on 'email delivered'...but we'd really rather not go and retrofit this to every single campaign, when a smart list already exists within them (and the function for a simple list subscription!!)

Is anyone aware of a setting that can exclude unsubscribed/marketing blocked users showing in list subscriptions? Or a method easier than addition an additional list/flow step to all of our campaigns?  Thanks!

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

This won't be possible as it would undermine the multifunctional character of Smart Lists. Remember, a Smart List isn't only for email. Smart Lists can qualify people to request campaigns that run webhooks, and they can be used as filters in other SLs, and they can be used to report on past web activity -- none of which should filter people based on whether they are currently able to receive email.

Your question is related to the difference between (1) the raw SL count and (2) the SL count less the number "Blocked from emails".  You have to change your SL filters to mimic the blocked criteria if you want the two to be the same.

It would be cool (maybe) if there were a setting that automatically made an SL emailable-only but I think it would cause more harm than good.

[Kirsten_Hughes]

Thanks Sanford.  Really great explanation for a new Marketo user like me!!  Going forward we'll probably go with the building of the flow step and additional Smart List 'post-email-send'

[SanfordWhiteman]

Sounds good.

Note also that if your external system has an (inbound) API, you could potentially send this information directly into that database via a webhook.  Although if you're sending hundreds of thousands of emails per day, that's not going to work w/this approach (due both to triggering on Email Delivered and to webhook overhead itself).