Hard Suppression
Suppression Center
One place to decide who must not receive marketing messages, on which channel and why, with proof for every decision and DPO approval before anyone is released.
The problem
Suppression was scattered across channel tools: unsubscribe lists in the email provider, STOP handling in the SMS gateway, and one-off CSV exclusions in campaigns. No single list showed who was suppressed, nobody could prove why, and anyone with campaign access could send to a person who had opted out.
That created three risks:
- Regulatory: consent withdrawal under the DPDP Act 2023, TRAI DND rules, and GDPR-style erasure for global brands
- Reputational: spam complaints and blocked sender domains from messaging people who no longer engage
- Commercial: no view of how much revenue suppression costs, and no controlled way to bring back a customer who has consented again
How it solves the problem
- One source of truth for Email, SMS, WhatsApp and Push, checked at send time for every campaign and journey.
- Three suppression reasons, per channel: brand business rules, customer choice (STOP, DND, unsubscribe) and non-engagement.
- Hard or Soft suppression: Hard needs a manual check and DPO approval to remove. Soft lifts automatically when an exit condition is met.
- Controlled release: only the Data Protection Officer can remove someone from suppression, on a documented request with proof (maker-checker).
- Visibility: an overview dashboard, a communication-failure dashboard showing the opportunity cost of blocked sends, and a red suppression tag on the customer profile.
- Accountability: every action goes into an append-only audit log on the DPO dashboard. The DPO is notified of each new request, and the requester is told the decision.
- New role: Suppression Control, for the CRM or marketing ops team who add users and raise release requests.
Transactional messages such as OTPs and order updates are never blocked.
Use cases
| Who | Use case |
|---|---|
| CRM or marketing ops | Suppress a customer who complained, with proof attached, across all channels at once |
| DPO | Review and approve a release request for a customer who has consented again, and show regulators the audit trail |
| Admin | Set a rule to soft-suppress email for anyone who hasn’t opened in 90 days, lifting automatically when they engage |
| Campaign manager | Launch knowing every suppressed customer is excluded automatically |
| Leadership | See how many customers are suppressed, why, and the revenue at stake |