Many complaint problems begin before the campaign is written. A person signs up for one thing, receives something broader and no longer recognises why you are emailing them.

Start with the subscription promise. What did the person ask for, from which sender, and how often did they expect it?

Keep signup context with the record

My recommendation is to retain the signup source, date, confirmation state and subscription selected. When complaints rise, these fields help you distinguish a copy problem from an audience-acquisition problem.

Google's subscription guidance recommends confirming an email address after it is entered on a website or app. This helps establish control of the address. It does not give you permission to send unrelated content indefinitely.

Avoid purchased lists and preselected signup choices. Check referral, partner and giveaway sources against the same subscription promise as your own forms.

Separate subscriptions from essential service messages

Newsletters, marketing lists and some notifications are subscription messages. Password resets, receipts and one-time passwords are examples of non-subscription messages triggered by a user's action or request.

Google recommends different sending addresses for subscription and non-subscription messages, with a clear identity for each subscription list through List-ID or a unique From address.

Keep your actual workflows consistent with those categories. Adding a promotion to an essential message can create a different recipient expectation from the one that originally justified sending it.

Make suppression part of the workflow

Honour unsubscribe requests within 48 hours. Check that imports, retries and synchronisation jobs cannot accidentally restore an opted-out person to the same subscription.

Use an inactivity policy appropriate to your sending frequency and product. Review multiple signals where possible. A lack of recorded opens alone is an incomplete picture of whether someone still wants the subscription.

If you run a re-engagement program, define who qualifies, why the message is expected and what happens when there is no response. Keep it small enough to assess before expanding it, particularly if the audience has been inactive for a long time.

When you review complaints, compare the source and subscription rather than treating the whole list as one audience. That gives you a concrete place to fix the experience.

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