Manage the “Do Not Contact” lists

You can manage the “Do Not Contact” lists to view the contacts, remove them from the lists, and even export those contacts into a CSV file.

Marking leads as Do Not Contact

You may mark leads as Do Not Contact to honor their request to opt-out from receiving your automation; or simply because you don’t intend to message them anymore.

This is a useful practice that avoid your texts / emails from being marked as spam.

Managing the “Do Not Contact” lists

  • On the left sidebar, click on Settings > Do Not Contact Lists

In this view, you can:

  • See all the contact items (text / email) marked as “Do Not Contact”
  • Filter the view by text or email
  • See the Date they were marked
  • And, the User who marked them
  • Export the results as CSV
Filter the results

You can filter the results to appear by:

  • Emails marked as Do Not Contact

  • Phone Numbers marked as Do Not Contact

Manage the "Do Not Contact" Lists

  • And by the User who marked the contact item

Remove a contact from the Do Not Contact List

To remove a contact item from the do Not Contact List, under Actions, click on remove. And OK to confirm.

Automatically, the contact item (phone number or email) will be removed from the list. And the Stop button turns back to black in the lead view next to this contact item.

Export results as CSV

To export the results into a CSV file, click on Export CSV

The list is saved in your documents.

The fields exported are:

  • The ID of the record
  • The Email or Text according to the selected filter
  • The Date Marked on
  • The ID of the User who marked it
  • And the user’s full name

Handle “Outgoing SMS with error code” through Triggers

aNinja allows you to automatically handle the outgoing SMS with an error code through Triggers. You can set a trigger action to set those leads as “do not contact”.

SMS with Error code

When you attempt to send a text through aNinja, the system uses the primary phone number saved in the lead contacts to send your text.

If the phone number saved in the lead contacts is wrong, landline, or blocked by the carrier, your sent SMS will return with an error code.

Setting a trigger to automatically mark leads as “do not contact”

You can configure automatically marking a lead as “do not contact” and handle outgoing SMS with an error code through triggers. You don’t want to keep on sending texts to an invalid phone number.

  • On the left sidebar, click on Automations > Triggers
  • Hit + Add Trigger
  • In the Trigger Event:
    • Choose “Outgoing SMS with error code
    • From the dropdown, choose the error message you want to execute the trigger action.handle incoming SMS with error code
  • In the Trigger Action:

Set “Add all lead contacts to do not contact list

Regarding the leads that that were added to the “do not contact” list, they do get included in the bulk sequence, but their texts get blocked from our side so it doesn’t get actually sent.
You can check them by clicking on the blocked leads count in ‘Bulk Sequences’ widget.

Also, set “Break after Trigger executes” to YES / true so that no other triggers execute after this match on that Lead.

It’s good to give this trigger a high priority level (e.g. 100). This indicates which trigger should be processed first.

Save “Do Not Contact” list as Smartlist

When leads are marked as do not contact, they are added to the do not contact list. And automatically the system stops all the sequences they are included in. You can save the “Do Not Contact” list as a Smartlist and export the results as CSV file.

Marking leads as “Do Not Contact”

When leads reply to you asking to stop receiving from you, you want to honor their request.

You can handle the stop incoming texts through triggers to automatically add those leads to the do not contact list; or you can manually mark the leads as do not contact. Then, they will automatically be added to the do not contact list afterward, and all the sequences they’re included in will stop.

Smartlist query for “Do Not Contact” list

  • To extract the list of the leads marked as do not contact, type this query in the top navigation bar:

contact.donotcontact=true

  • This query fetches all leads that have at least one contact marked as “do not contact”.

  • Afterward, the system brings you the results in the Leads View.
  • Lastly, click on Save as Smartlist to save the “Do Not Contact” list as Smartlist.Saving "Do Not Contact" list as Smartlist

Note!

Don’t forget to save the results before leaving the page to avoid losing the search. Otherwise, the leads view displays all the leads you have in your account.

Exporting results as CSV

  • After saving the “Do Not Contact” list as Smartlist, click on Smart Lists next to the top navigation bar. And select the Smartlist to view the results in the Leads View.
  • Then, scroll all the way down and click on Export as CSV

Handle “Incoming STOP texts” through triggers

When leads send you an opt-out message such as STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT; adding them to your “do not contact” list is crucial to avoid further contact and potential legal issues. You can automatically handle those incoming STOP texts to set the lead as “do not contact” through Triggers.

Otherwise, recipients might mark your messages as spam or if they consistently ignore them, telephone carriers may flag your messages as spam and prevent them from reaching anyone’s phones.

Managing Opt-outs

Adding opted-out leads to your do not contact list is a simple process, but it’s important to make sure you’re doing it correctly.

  • First, provide an Unsubscribe link to your texts.
  • Create a trigger that adds the lead that opted out to the do not contact list.
  • Finally, regularly review and manage your do not contact list to keep you in compliance with anti-spam laws.

Setting a trigger to automatically add leads as “do not contact”

You can configure automatically marking a lead as “do not contact” and handle the incoming STOP texts through triggers:

  • Hit + Add Trigger

  • In the Trigger Event:
    • Choose “Incoming email or SMS
      • Presently, this feature is available for incoming texts only.
    • Set Body content matching to: “STOP | STOPALL | UNSUBSCRIBE | CANCEL | END | QUIT“. Add any other words that your leads use to ask for stopping.

    • Select the type of matching in the “Specify the type of matching“dropdown:
      • exact (only matches texts having exactly the same content)
      • word (matches all texts that contain the content anywhere in the body)
      • any (matches all texts that contain the content anywhere in the body and in any form, e.g., “test” would match “testing”)

    • This will match any incoming text with the defined content (not case insensitive) according to the type of matching you choose.
  • In the Trigger Action:
    • Set “Add all lead contacts to do not contact list

Handle incoming STOP texts/emails through triggers

    • Regarding the leads that that were added to the “do not contact” list, they do get included in the bulk sequence but their texts get blocked from our side so it doesn’t get actually sent.
      You can check them by clicking on the blocked leads count in ‘Bulk Sequences’ widget.
    • To honor your client’s opt-out request, you can send them an automated message.
    • Also, set “Break after Trigger executes” to YES / true so that no other triggers execute after this match on that Lead.
    • It’s good to give this trigger a high priority level (e.g. 100). This indicates which trigger should be processed first.

 

Reordering Lead Contacts

The Lead’s contacts are the info you have on a lead, saved in his lead view. A lead might have multiple contacts saved in his lead view. This could be the example of a company and its employees.

The first info saved in the Lead’s contacts is considered the primary contact. And the system automatically selects the primary contact for the outbound emails and texts.

With aNinja, you can change the order of the lead contacts in the way that suits you.

The contact items (email, phone number, URL) inside the contact also can be reordered.

Reordering the lead contacts & items

  • When on the lead view, you can see the lead contacts on the left side.

Reordering Lead ContactsIn this picture, this lead has 2 contacts. Demo (primary contact) and Demo1.

  • Drag Demo1 to the top, and the system will consider it as the primary contact.
  • Also, if there are multiple phone numbers in the contact, you can reorder them to make the primary one for example the mobile number.

Does reordering the lead contacts affect the sequences and triggers

Reordering the lead contact does not affect the previously saved sequences and triggers. As their data was pulled on the day they were created and are waiting in queue till the launching date of the sequences or triggers. So any changes in the lead info after creating a sequence are not reflected in the sequences.

Does reordering the lead contacts affect the “do not contact”

If the primary contact happens to be marked as “do not contact“, the system uses the second contact saved in the lead.

So, if you don’t want your automation to reach a specific lead, make sure to mark ALL his contacts as “do not contact”.

 

Changing the Lead’s Status in the Workflow

Changing the Lead’s status in the workflow represents the lead’s position in the Sales/Marketing pipeline until you turn them into a customer.

Changing the Lead’s Status in the Workflow

  • Search for your lead in the top navigation bar
  • Type any info you have on your lead (name, company, phone number, email, custom fields, etc…) and aNinja will bring the results to the leads view. Click on the lead and you will be redirected to their lead view.
  • Then, when in the Lead View, on the top of the page, you can manipulate the status of the lead in the workflow. This allows you to keep a close follow-up on the lead’s progress from prospect to closing.Changing the Lead's Status in the Workflow

Activities using the workflow steps

Marking a lead as “Do Not Contact”

When you don’t intend to message a certain lead, you can mark them as “Do Not Contact”.

Moreover, through triggers, you can stop emails or texts sequences for this lead separately.

Marking a lead’s contact as “do not contact”

To mark a lead as “do not contact”,

  • Go to the lead View, on the left side, click on the plus sign (+) next to Contacts.

  • Push the Stop next to a contact item to activate the “do not contact”.
    • e.g. If you want to stop sending texts to a certain lead, just click on the stop button next to the phone number(s).
    • If you want to stop sending emails and texts to a certain lead, click on the stop button next to all contact items (emails and phone numbers).

mark lead as "do not contact"

  • Once the “do not contact” button turns red, all automatic messages (emails or texts based on your selection) will be automatically blocked for this lead.
  • You can still however manually contact the lead through email from the lead view.
  • If you’re replying to a lead’s text after being marked as do not contact, it will show you “no contact” in the phone number section.
  • Regarding the leads that were added to the “do not contact” list; they do get included in the bulk sequences but their texts get blocked by aNinja so it doesn’t get actually sent.
    You can check them by clicking on the blocked leads count in ‘Bulk Sequences’ widget.
  • Adding a lead’s contact to the “do not contact” list”, can be automatically executed through Triggers, based on an event that verifies the trigger’s condition.
  • You can manage the contacts saved in the “Do Not Contact List” in Settings > Do Not Contact Lists (view, remove from the do not contact list, and export as CSV).