What do SendFox contact types and statuses mean?
SendFox contact types, or statuses, show where each subscriber stands in Audience → Contacts: Engaged, New, Inactive, Unconfirmed, Unsubscribed, Bounced or Invalid.
How contact statuses work
Contact statuses work the same on every plan (Free, Lifetime and Pro). SendFox sets them automatically from each contact’s opens, sign-up confirmation and delivery history, and every contact in your list shows one status. To see only one group, pick a status from the filter at the top of the list (it reads All contacts until you choose one). For more ways to sort your audience, see How do I organize and analyze my contacts?
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Engaged | Opened a campaign in the last 90 days |
| New | Not sent a campaign yet, or got their first one in the last 90 days and hasn’t opened it |
| Inactive | Hasn’t opened a campaign in the last 90 days |
| Unconfirmed | Signed up but hasn’t clicked the confirmation link in the double opt-in email |
| Unsubscribed | Opted out, marked your email as spam, or hard bounced |
| Bounced | An email to this address bounced |
| Invalid | SendFox’s check found the address isn’t a working mailbox |
What do Engaged, New and Inactive mean?
These three statuses show how recently a subscribed contact has opened your emails:
- Engaged — has opened a campaign in the last 90 days (about three months). The Dashboard counts these contacts as Engaged subscribers, and a contact’s profile page shows the same status as Active.
- New — hasn’t been sent a campaign yet, or got their first one in the last 90 days and hasn’t opened it.
- Inactive — hasn’t opened a campaign in the last 90 days.
What do Unconfirmed and Unsubscribed mean?
These statuses are about a contact’s permission to receive your emails:
- Unconfirmed — signed up through a Form, a Smart Page or the API and was sent a double opt-in email, but hasn’t clicked the confirmation link yet. Double opt-in is on by default for every new account, and while it is on, SendFox won’t send campaigns to unconfirmed contacts until they confirm.
- Unsubscribed — clicked the unsubscribe link, marked your email as spam, or was automatically unsubscribed after a hard bounce to an invalid address.
Unsubscribed means unsubscribed from all your emails. With Enable per-list unsubscribe on (Settings → List defaults; new accounts have it on), a subscriber can leave one list and keep the rest: their status doesn’t change, and their profile marks the list they left. See how unsubscribing and resubscribing work.
There is no separate “Confirmed” label: once a contact confirms, they show their Engaged, New or Inactive status. Contacts you import or add yourself aren’t asked to confirm, so they never show as Unconfirmed.
What do Bounced and Invalid mean?
These two statuses are about whether an address can receive email:
- Bounced — an email to this contact couldn’t be delivered. A hard-bounced address is unsubscribed automatically, so it shows as Unsubscribed; you’ll see Bounced when a contact who bounced has been subscribed again.
- Invalid — SendFox checked the address and found it isn’t a working mailbox. Invalid contacts don’t receive your campaigns. If a real subscriber is flagged by mistake, choose Mark as valid in the contact’s row menu.
A bounce happens when an email can’t be delivered and is returned by the receiving mail server. There are two kinds, and too many of either hurts your sender reputation, which can lead to Optimization.
Soft bounce
A temporary delivery failure — for example, the mailbox is full, the server is briefly unavailable, or the message is too large. The address may work again later.
Hard bounce
A permanent delivery failure because the recipient address is unreachable — for example, the address doesn’t exist or the domain doesn’t exist. An address that hard bounces this way is automatically unsubscribed. SendFox does not unsubscribe a contact when the failure is on the sending side — a temporary provider block, or a domain-authentication error (SPF, DKIM, or DMARC) — because those don’t mean the recipient address is bad. Those bounces are still recorded, but the contact stays subscribed.
Troubleshooting
Should I re-subscribe a bounced contact?
- No. Never re-subscribe a contact that has bounced — sending to invalid addresses harms your deliverability. Only re-subscribe contacts who have given you permission. See How do unsubscribing and resubscribing work in SendFox?.
My emails aren’t reaching everyone
- Unsubscribed and Invalid contacts never receive campaigns, and Unconfirmed contacts don’t while double opt-in is on. See Why didn't my email go to everyone on my list?
A real subscriber shows as Invalid
- In Audience → Contacts, open the contact’s row menu and choose Mark as valid. Only do this if you know the address works.
Still stuck? Visit the Help Center or email support@sendfox.com with the contact’s email address and the status you see.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between Engaged and Inactive?
Engaged contacts have opened a campaign within the last 90 days; Inactive contacts haven’t opened one in that window.
Why does a contact show Active on their profile but Engaged in my list?
It’s the same status: a contact’s profile page labels it Active, while the Contacts list and the Dashboard call it Engaged.
Why can’t I email my unconfirmed contacts?
Because double opt-in is on: contacts must confirm their subscription before they can receive campaigns, which keeps your list permission-based and your deliverability healthy.
Can I resend the confirmation email to an unconfirmed contact?
Yes. In Audience → Contacts, open the contact’s row menu and choose Resend confirmation; the option shows until two confirmation emails have been sent.