Unsubscribes and opt-outs: the law and what the app does
By the end of this article you will know what the law asks of a business that emails and texts its customers, and which of those obligations the app meets for you before you have to think about them.
The rules are simple to state: a marketing email must say who sent it, give a postal address, and offer a working way out; a text message needs the recipient’s permission and must stop the moment they say STOP; and a way out, once used, must be honoured from then on. The app is built around those three sentences, so most of what follows is what it already does.
The unsubscribe link in a marketing email
Every broadcast you send ends with a footer the app writes: your business name and billing address, a line saying why the customer is receiving it, and an Unsubscribe link, in the customer’s language. You do not write the footer and cannot leave it out — the send is refused until a Billing Address is on file.
When a customer clicks the link, one click is enough: they land on a page confirming they are unsubscribed, and from that moment every broadcast leaves them out, including one already sending. Their page shows Unsubscribed from promotions. Nothing else changes — invoices, receipts, quotes, confirmations and reminders are the email their own business with you requires, and they keep coming.
You cannot reverse this one. Re-subscribing is the customer’s own act, and the app does not offer a control for it on their page.
STOP by text
The texts the app sends — confirmations, reminders, on the way, job finished — are permitted because the customer gave you their number to be told about their appointment. Marketing by text would need written permission, which is why the app does not send any.
A customer who replies STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT) to any of those texts stops every text from you, at the carrier and in the app; START or UNSTOP turns the service texts back on. Each reply is recorded on the customer’s page under Text message consent with the source Text message reply — Withdrawn for All messages, or Agreed for Service messages. The newest entry is the one in force, and a number that said STOP is never texted again until it says START. The email versions of the same notices still go.
Recording a spoken yes or no at the counter, and what the booking page records, are covered in Email and text preferences.
The opt-out link in a review request
A review request is not marketing, but it is a message the customer did not ask for, so it carries its own way out. The link at the bottom of the request stops future review requests and the follow-up invitations to review you on Google, Yelp or Facebook; the customer’s page then shows Opted out of review requests. It does not touch anything else they receive.
This is the one opt-out the business may lift, and only because the customer asked: see Review opt-out.
What the app does for you
- The footer — name, address, reason, unsubscribe link — is added to every broadcast at send time, so a broadcast written in a hurry is still compliant.
- Exclusions — the audience count in the composer already leaves out everyone who unsubscribed, everyone deactivated, everyone without an email, and every address that previously bounced or complained.
- STOP and START are recorded the moment the carrier reports them; no one on your team has to enter them.
- A bounce or a complaint puts the address on a suppression list so it is never mailed marketing again; you see the totals under Reports › Deliverability.
What is yours to do
- Keep the billing address current. It prints in every marketing email.
- Do not work around a choice. Re-adding an unsubscribed address as a new customer or texting a number that said STOP from another phone is exactly what the rules exist to stop, and the app will not help with it.
- Answer “how do I stop these?” by pointing at the link in the message. For texts, the answer is “reply STOP”.