Subscriber and Data Management26% of the exam
Subscriber statuses, bounces, unsubscribes and suppression lists
How a subscriber moves between Active, Bounced, Held and Unsubscribed, how soft, block, technical and hard bounces are handled, how publication-list, universal and global unsubscribes differ, and how suppression, auto-suppression and List Detective quietly shrink a send.
Given a customer scenario, identify and troubleshoot send discrepancy based on subscriber preference management.
~7 min read · 10 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Explain how a subscriber becomes Bounced, Held or Unsubscribed, and how a Bounced or Held subscriber returns to Active.
- Apply the bounce rules: soft-bounce retries, the third soft bounce, the 15-day hard-bounce rule and trusted domains.
- Tell a publication-list opt-out from a universal unsubscribe (business unit or enterprise) and a global unsubscribe, and fix each.
- Troubleshoot suppression lists, auto-suppression and List Detective when fewer people receive a send.
- Key terms: All Subscribers (the account-level record of each subscriber's status); Held (Undeliverable; no future sends); universal unsubscribe (Unsubscribed in All Subscribers for an account); global unsubscribe list (system-wide, all accounts); auto-suppression list (applied to sends automatically); List Detective (blocks addresses known to be invalid, inactive or spam traps).
Key facts
Soft bounce retries
- Detail
- Every 15 minutes for 72 hours, up to 288 tries; equals one soft bounce
Third soft bounce
- Detail
- Status set to Held
Held from hard bounces
- Detail
- 3 bouncing campaigns, more than 15 days since the first
Trusted domain
- Detail
- One hard bounce is enough (Gmail.com, Hotmail.com)
Block and technical bounces
- Detail
- Retried in the next send
Reactivation
- Detail
- Image render, click, or Active import resets count to 0
Universal unsubscribe scope
- Detail
- Enterprise or business unit, by account setting
Global unsubscribe removal
- Detail
- Email abuse@abuse.salesforce.com from that address
Suppression list import
- Detail
- No status column
Auto-suppression
- Detail
- Applied automatically; shown in Tracking Summary
List Detective check
- Detail
- validateEmail with ListDetectiveValidator
- Why do hard bounces from an ordinary provider need more than 15 days between the first bounce and the third bouncing campaign before Held?
- When does one unsubscribe stop sends from every account on the platform?
- Where do you review the members of an auto-suppression list?
- Which unsubscribe scopes can a subscriber choose from the footer link?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
Keep reading with the Marketing Cloud Engagement Specialist pack
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