Unsubscribing, and what every issue carries

Every issue Issue Mint sends carries an unsubscribe link in its footer, and the headers that put an unsubscribe button in the mail client’s own interface. Both halves of the message carry them, the formatted part and the plain text part, and there is no setting that removes either.

What is in the footer

The footer of an issue holds four things: an unsubscribe link, a link to read the issue on your website, your postal address if you have set one, and a Powered by Issue Mint credit.

The plain text alternative carries the same four as labelled lines, because a subscriber whose mail client prefers plain text is reading the same email and should not get a worse one. The read online link points at the issue’s own page on your newsletter’s website, which is what gives a forwarded issue somewhere to live. The unsubscribe link and the credit are the two links in an issue that are never routed through click tracking, so neither of them can inflate your click figures.

The headers behind the one-click button

Every issue carries three list headers: List-Unsubscribe, holding the same signed address as the footer link, List-Unsubscribe-Post, which is what tells a mail client that one click is enough, and List-ID, which names your newsletter so a client can file it.

Gmail and Apple Mail read those headers and offer their own unsubscribe control, above the message and nowhere near your footer. A reader who uses it never loads a page: their client posts to the address in the header, Issue Mint answers immediately, and the reader stays where they were. One-click unsubscribe has the background on why mailbox providers now expect this.

Hosted issues are built as raw mail rather than through the simpler form Amazon SES offers, for this reason alone: the simpler form will not carry arbitrary headers, and these three have to survive exactly as written or the button does not appear.

What happens when somebody unsubscribes

An address moves to unsubscribed the moment the link is used, before any page appears.

There is no confirmation step and no “are you sure”, by design. The page that follows reports what has already happened, and it names your newsletter rather than the reader’s own address, so a forwarded link cannot be used to find out whether somebody is on your list. The subscriber stays on your list with an unsubscribed status rather than disappearing, which is what your list shows afterwards.

Each unsubscribe link also carries which issue it came from, so the report for that issue can say how many readers it cost you. That figure sits under the funnel in the delivery numbers, next to bounced and complained.

The resubscribe undo

The page a reader lands on offers a Resubscribe me button, and pressing it puts the address straight back to active with no confirmation email.

Somebody who has this moment proved they can reach that mailbox does not need to prove it again, which is why the undo skips double opt-in rather than restarting it. Pressing it twice, or reloading the page, does nothing the second time.

The undo will not reverse a complaint or a permanent bounce. Those two statuses are never undone by a click, whoever is clicking, and bounces and complaints explains why.

Your postal address

The postal address in the footer comes from one optional field, on the Website tab of your newsletter’s settings.

Issue Mint shows it in the email footer and in the footer of your website, and does nothing else with it. It is not required and it is not checked, but it is worth filling in: most anti-spam law expects a marketing email to carry a physical address, and a studio, a registered office or a box number all satisfy that. Issue Mint does not supply one on your behalf, because an address that is not yours is worse than no address at all.

Why every issue carries all of this

Mailbox providers weigh how easily a reader can leave against how often readers report you, and the two are connected.

A reader who cannot find the unsubscribe link presses the spam button instead, and a complaint costs you far more than an unsubscribe does. An unsubscribe is one reader leaving. A complaint counts towards the complaint rate that pauses sending, and it suppresses that address for your newsletter permanently. Making the exit obvious is the cheapest deliverability work available to a publisher, which is why there is no setting to remove the link or the headers, and why a test send is the only message Issue Mint sends without them.