An opt-out is a customer saying "no more messages". It covers both the decision and the means of making it: a link in an email or text that stops future messages, or a reply such as STOP to a text. Once someone has opted out, the business must stop sending them marketing, and it must not look for another way to reach them with the same kind of message. Opting out of messages is not the same as leaving a loyalty scheme; a customer can stop the texts and still want their stamps.
Opt-outs are also feedback. A few after each message is normal; every list loses some people as their lives change. A sudden jump after one particular send says that message was one too many, too long, or not worth reading.
In practice
A florist has 420 members on its list. After a message about the first peonies of spring, 3 people opt out, about 0.7 percent of the list. That is ordinary. Two months later, a message promoting a sale on vases is followed by 15 opt-outs, about 3.6 percent. Nothing about the list changed between the two sends; the message did. The first was news people wanted, the second was an advertisement for something most of them did not need.
The owner takes the lesson and goes back to sending only when there is something genuinely new. Over the next three messages, opt-outs settle at two or three a send again.
Never try to reverse an opt-out yourself, and never contact the person another way to ask why. If they want messages again, they will say so, and it should be recorded as fresh consent.
In Counter Club
Every campaign carries the member's own opt-out link, and on Local Favourite a reply starting with a word such as STOP works too. One opt-out stops email and text from your shop, the member keeps every stamp, and the change cannot be undone from the dashboard. A member who opted out cannot rejoin by themselves; if they want messages back, you email us. See how opt-outs work.