Keep your contact list clean automatically — without manual review every week. Automated List Management monitors how recently your contacts have engaged with your emails and assigns engagement-based statuses to them on a weekly basis. This ensures that contacts who stop engaging are flagged before they become a deliverability risk, and that contacts who re-engage are automatically returned to an active marketing status. This article covers what the two engagement statuses mean, how to configure the thresholds for each, and important behavior to understand before enabling the feature.
Why Automated List Management Protects Your Email Deliverability
Sending marketing emails to contacts who have stopped engaging is one of the fastest ways to damage your sender reputation. Inbox providers monitor engagement signals across your entire list — when a large portion of your recipients never open or click your emails, providers interpret that as a signal that your emails are unwanted and begin routing them to spam or blocking them entirely.
Automated List Management removes the need to manually review and segment your list for disengaged contacts. The feature automatically assigns engagement statuses to contacts based on how recently they opened, clicked, or submitted a form — and updates those statuses weekly. Contacts who re-engage are automatically returned to an active status. Contacts who remain unengaged are flagged and, if configured, eventually blocked from receiving marketing emails until they re-engage on their own. This keeps your sending list focused on contacts who actually want your emails, which protects your deliverability and improves your campaign performance.
Understanding the Two Engagement Statuses
Automated List Management uses two engagement statuses to categorize contacts who have not engaged with your emails within the configured time thresholds. Understanding what each status means is important before configuring your thresholds.
Unengaged Marketable
A contact receives the Unengaged Marketable status when they have not opened an email, clicked a link, or submitted a form within the configured Unengaged Marketable threshold. Contacts with this status can still receive your marketing emails — the status is a warning indicator, not a block. The default threshold for this status is fixed at 4 months and cannot be changed.
When a contact with the Unengaged Marketable status opens an email, clicks a link, or submits a form, their engagement status automatically updates back to their previous active status. No manual action is required.
Unengaged Non-Marketable
A contact receives the Unengaged Non-Marketable status when they have not opened an email, clicked a link, or submitted a form within the configured Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold. Contacts with this status are not eligible to receive your marketing emails. The only way for a contact to be reactivated from this status is for them to re-engage on their own — by opening an email, clicking a link, or submitting a form.
The recommended threshold for this status is 6 months. The threshold is adjustable between 1 and 24 months. The Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold must always be set to a value equal to or greater than the Unengaged Marketable threshold — it cannot be set to a shorter time period than the Unengaged Marketable threshold.
How to Set Up Automated List Management
Follow the steps below to enable Automated List Management and configure the engagement thresholds for your account.
Click Marketing in the left-hand navigation. Then click Settings from the Marketing submenu. The Marketing Settings page opens.
Click Automated List Management on the Marketing Settings page. The Automated List Management configuration panel opens.
Set the Unengaged Marketable threshold to the number of months of inactivity after which a contact should receive the Unengaged Marketable status. The recommended threshold is 3 months.
Toggle the Enable Unengaged Non-Marketable Status switch to the On position to activate the Unengaged Non-Marketable status for your account.
Set the Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold to the number of months of inactivity after which a contact should be blocked from receiving marketing emails. The recommended threshold is 6 months. The Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold must be set to a value equal to or greater than the Unengaged Marketable threshold.
Click Save Email Address Status Limits to save your configuration. Your settings take effect on the following Saturday morning when the weekly status update runs.
You can disable Automated List Management at any time by returning to the Automated List Management configuration panel and toggling the Enable Unengaged Non-Marketable Status switch to the Off position. Note that disabling the feature does not retroactively change the engagement status of contacts who were already updated by the feature.
Trusted Partners for Email Deliverability and List Management
If you would like professional guidance or additional tools to improve your email deliverability and list health, the following trusted partners offer relevant services:
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Email deliverability specialist training, consulting, and software
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List cleaning services
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Form security and list protection
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this article cover?
This article covers what Automated List Management is, what the Unengaged Marketable and Unengaged Non-Marketable statuses mean, and how to configure Automated List Management in your account. This article does not cover manually opting contacts out, running re-engagement campaigns, or managing individual contact engagement statuses. To learn how to send a re-engagement email to unengaged contacts, see How to Send a Re-engagement Email to Unengaged Contacts in Keap™.
How often does Automated List Management update contact statuses?
Automated List Management updates contact engagement statuses once per week on Saturday mornings. Changes you make to your threshold settings will take effect on the following Saturday — they do not apply immediately after saving.
Can I change the Unengaged Marketable threshold from 4 months?
No. The Unengaged Marketable threshold is fixed at 4 months and cannot be adjusted. Only the Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold is adjustable, between 1 and 24 months.
What happens to contact statuses if I turn Automated List Management off?
Turning the Unengaged Non-Marketable Status toggle to Off stops the feature from assigning new statuses going forward. It does not retroactively change the status of contacts who were already assigned the Unengaged Non-Marketable status while the feature was active. Those contacts will retain their Unengaged Non-Marketable status and will remain blocked from marketing emails until they re-engage on their own.
How does a contact with the Unengaged Non-Marketable status get reactivated?
A contact with the Unengaged Non-Marketable status can only be reactivated by re-engaging on their own — by opening one of your emails, clicking a link, or submitting a form. When a contact re-engages, their status automatically updates back to their previous active status. You cannot manually reactivate a contact from the Unengaged Non-Marketable status without a re-engagement action from the contact.
Can the Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold be set to a shorter time period than the Unengaged Marketable threshold?
No. The Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold must always be equal to or greater than the Unengaged Marketable threshold. For example, if the Unengaged Marketable threshold is set at 4 months, the Unengaged Non-Marketable threshold must be set to 4 months or longer.
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