CiviMail: Mystery Unsubscribes

Question

I just did our first email blast and it went pretty well. I'm using the token {action.optOutUrl} in the footer, plus the domain address, but that's it. The Opt Outs appear to have worked fine and they're labeled "No Bulk Emails (User Opt Out)" in the CiviCRM database. The bounces processed properly as well.

The weird thing was that the Mail Report shows that 5 people made "unsubscribe requests". How did they do that since the token isn't there?? Plus, their records aren't flagged with any red message, tho they do show up in Advanced Search. Did these people hit the spam button on their email programs? Will they get future emails? Am I supposed to do something with them? Thanks, in advance! Jim

Answer 1

I had this question also and just figured it out!

Civimail always includes a List-Unsubscribe header in the messages it sends out (https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-3251).

That header is invisible to most recipients and is intended as a way for mail clients to provide easy and standardized unsubscribe mechanisms (http://www.list-unsubscribe.com/).

I note that google doesn't seem to do anything with it, though they do expose the list unsubscribe option for mailman lists, or used to .. But, it appears that Windows Live does use it, so anyone using that software that receives Civimail can use it.

The only clue I had was in my apache logs - the time of the unsubscribe matched a soap request that came in via UAS/CiviSMTP that handles the bounces for this domain.

Thanks to Leyla UAS/CiviSMTP support (http://www.civismtp.com/) for confirming this idea.

For bonus points, assuming you really only want people to opt-out instead of unsubscribing, you can include this in a custom extension or module, changing 'hook' to the name of your custom extension or module.

function hook_civicrm_alterMailParams(&$params, $context) {
  if ('civimail' == $context || 'flexmailer' == $context) {
    $params['List-Unsubscribe'] = str_replace('mailto:u.','mailto:o.',$params['List-Unsubscribe']);
  }
}

Answer 2

I suspect that unsubscribes are a subset of opt out. So in CiviCRM, when a user opts out, they are also automatically unsubscribed from the mailing list groups you used.

As opposed to those that might unsubscribe (if you had included that link) wherein they would be removed from the mailing list group they are in but would not have been opted out.

Answer 3

It's weird indeed. Are you using an external provider to handle the mailings (eg mandrill or mailjet?) by any chance?

Given the low number, I would suggest you to contact the 5 to tell them that you quite don't understand what happened with your mail server, if they could remember and explain you what they did to unsubscribe, it'd be super useful for you to understand their workflow.

(be clear it's a personal email, not a mass mailing one and that you will remove them from the mailing list). I would send them from your mail client, not via civi

Please update us on your finding.

Answer 4

OK - I think I have this (thanks for input from @pradpnayak)

according to the docs for hook_civicrm_alterMailParams:

You can add custom headers by appending to $params['headers']. Example:

$params['headers']['X-My-Header'] = 'my header value';

The headers key may not exist in the $params array when passed into the hook.

so this was the codce in an extension to unset the existing 'List-Unsubscribe', and put in a NULL replacement into the headers:

/**
 * Implements hook_civicrm_alterMailParams().
 *
 * @link http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/hook_civicrm_config
 */
function custom_civicrm_alterMailParams(&$params, $context) {
  if ($context == 'flexmailer' || $context == 'civimail') {
    // remove existing header
    unset($params['List-Unsubscribe']);
    // replace via the 'headers' key
    $params['headers']['List-Unsubscribe'] = NULL;
  }
}