Suppression lists

Suppression lists specify groups of users who will never receive messages. Admins can create dynamic suppression lists with segment filters to narrow down a user group the same way you would for segmentation.

How it works

Suppression lists are dynamic and automatically apply to certain forms of messaging, but you can set exceptions for selected tags. If your selected exception tags are used in a campaign or Canvas, then that suppression list won’t apply to that campaign or Canvas. Messages from campaigns or Canvases with exception tags will still reach any suppression list users that are part of your target segments.

Messages not affected by suppression lists

As part of the beta, suppression lists will not apply to the following message types (in other words, suppression list users will still receive messages that belong to the following):

• Feature Flags
• Transactional use cases
• API campaigns
• API-triggered campaigns
• API-triggered Canvases
• Campaigns triggered by the Braze API (/messages and /send)

You don’t need to add an exception tag for any of these use cases, as suppression lists automatically won’t apply to them. To exclude a group of users from a message within these use cases, you need to create a target segment that excludes these users.

Channels affected by suppression lists

Suppression lists are dynamic and will automatically apply to all of the following channels (unless the campaign or Canvas contains an exception tag):

• SMS
• Email
• Push
• In-app messages
• Content Card
• Banner
• SMS/MMS
• Webhook
• WhatsApp
• LINE

Setting up suppression lists

Because suppression lists can significantly impact the messages you send, only admins can edit, save, active, and deactivate suppression lists (all users can view suppression lists).

1. Go to Audience > Suppression Lists.
   
   
   
   
2. Select Create Suppression List and add a name.
   
   
   
   
3. Use segment filters to identify the users in your suppression lists. You must select at least one.

4. Determine whether to have exceptions based on tag by checking the box beneath your segment name (refer to How it works for more information), then add the tags of campaigns or Canvases that users in this suppression list should still receive.
   
   In other words, if you add the exception tag “Shipping confirmation”, users in your suppression list will be excluded from all messaging except those that use the tag “Shipping confirmation”.
   
   
   
   
5. Save or activate your suppression list.
   • When you save, your suppression list will be saved but won’t be activated, which means it won’t go into effect. Your suppression list will remain inactive until you activate it, and inactive suppression lists won’t impact messaging (users won’t excluded from messages).
   • When you activate, your suppression list will be saved and immediately go into effect, which means users in your suppression list will immediately be excluded from campaigns or Canvases (except for ones containing an exception tag).

You can deactivate or archive suppression lists when you no longer need them.

• To deactivate, select an active suppression list and select Deactivate. Deactivated suppression lists can be reactivated later.
• To archive, do so from the Suppression Lists page.

Suppression list usage

For campaigns

If a user is in a suppression list, they won’t receive a campaign for which that suppression list applies. Refer to Messages not affected by suppression lists for cases when a suppression list won’t apply.

Checking which suppression lists are applied

To check for suppression list usage within a campaign, go to the Suppression List section on the Target Audience page to view which suppression lists are being applied to that campaign.

For Canvases

If a user is in a suppression list, they will still enter the Canvas but won’t be able to receive Message steps within the Canvas. When they advance to a Message step, they will be exited from the Canvas. However, a user in a suppression list is still able to receive non-Message steps prior to a Message step.

Preventing segments from entering a Canvas

For a segment to not be entered into a Canvas at all, you can configure that Canvas’ Target settings to exclude that segment by following these steps:

1. Build a segment using the same filters and criteria as your supression list.
2. In the Target step, use the Segment Membership filter to target users who aren’t included in your segment.

For example, let’s say you have a Canvas with an applied suppression list. The Canvas has a User Update step followed by a Message step. In this scenario, suppression list users will enter the Canvas, proceed through the User Update step (where the user may be updated, based on how that step is configured), and then exit at the Message step (at which point the user will be included in the “Exited” metrics).

Checking which suppression lists are applied

To check for suppression list usage within a Canvas, go to the Suppression List section on the Target Audience page to view which suppression lists are being applied to that Canvas. You can also view applied suppression lists in the Summary step.