Subscriber statuses explained

In MailerLite, each subscriber has their own status that shows whether or not they are active in your account and can be sent newsletters. 

To check Subscriber statuses:

1. Go to the Subscribers.

2. From the All subscribers tab, click the dropdown under the filter settings, and you can see the option to display each subscriber type. By default, only active subscribers will be showing.

The Active status shows that the email address is reachable and can receive campaigns from you.  In MailerLite, newsletters can only be sent to active subscribers. The same is true for automations, which can only trigger for those email addresses with the “active” status.

Unsubscribed recipients are subscribers that no longer want to receive your newsletter. They may have clicked the unsubscribe link in the footer of your newsletter, been unsubscribed when cleaning up inactive subscribers or been manually unsubscribed by you. These recipients can be found in the Unsubscribed section in the Subscribers tab, and will be automatically removed from your Active list as soon as their status changes to Unsubscribed. MailerLite will not send newsletters to unsubscribed recipients. 

If a subscriber was active in an automation when they unsubscribed, they will be removed from the workflow and can be found in the Canceled section of the Automation Activity. 

To learn more about unsubscribed recipients, check our guide on everything about unsubscribed recipients.

When an email bounces, it means the email can't be delivered to a recipient’s inbox; instead, it is bounced back to the sender. If this happens in MailerLite, the subscriber status will change to Bounced. However, not all bounced emails will cause a subscriber to be removed from your Active list. 

Bounces are divided into two different types: hard bounce and soft bounce. A hard bounce is an email that couldn’t be delivered for a permanent reason, while a soft bounce is an email that couldn't be delivered because of a temporary reason. To learn more, check our guide on the difference between hard bounce and soft bounce. 

Subscribers that have a campaign return with a hard bounce are automatically removed from your active list, whereas those that only return a soft bounce will remain active. However, if a subscriber’s email soft bounces three times in a row, this will be considered a hard bounce and they will be removed from your active subscribers list and labeled with the bounced status.

If a subscriber marks or reports your newsletter as spam, this is called a spam complaint. Spam complaints are automatically removed from your active subscribers list. Subscribers found under Spam complaints can not be contacted through MailerLite and will not receive any future campaigns. Once they mark your email as spam, their status will be changed from active to junk. For more information on spam complaints and what to do when you receive one, check our guide on how to make sure you don't email subscribers who have reported your email as spam.

When using Double opt-in , a subscriber’s status does not become Active until they have confirmed their subscription by clicking on the verification link in the double opt-in confirmation email. Until they verify their email address, they will have the status Unconfirmed. Keep in mind that automations will also not trigger while the subscriber has this status, as they have not yet given their consent to receive emails from you. 

For more information on unconfirmed subscribers, see our guide on unconfirmed subscribers.