Behavior of duplicate emails with unsubscribe and suppressions

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
March 24, 2026
4 replies
100 views

My understanding is that if multiple contacts share the same email, Targeted Email and Send an email in a workflow only sends an email to the contact who most recently had that email address added to their record. If that contact is not included in a saved search for a workflow due to suppressions, e.g. marked as deceased, or their email is marked as unsubscribed, will that mean that no one with that email address will receive an email? Or does it send to the next most recent?

Best answer by rachel moody

Hi Kevin!

Only Subscribed email addresses are eligible to be emailed. The recipient count is explicitly “the number of subscribed email addresses,” and “Opted Out” (Unsubscribed) addresses are not emailed.
If the same email address appears more than once in the audience, EA dedupes it so that only one message is sent to that email address.
When deduping duplicates, EA attributes/selects the contact record with the most recently added instance of that email address

So, to your scenario:

If the only contact record in the workflow/Targeted Email audience that has that email address is not emailable (e.g., the address is Unsubscribed / otherwise not Subscribed), then no one at that email address will receive an email, because EA won’t email opted-out addresses.
If there is another contact record in the audience with the same email address and that email is Subscribed, EA will still send one email to that address, and it will be attributed to whichever included record qualifies under the “most recently added email address” rule.

rachel moodyAnswer

Community Manager

Hi Kevin!

Only Subscribed email addresses are eligible to be emailed. The recipient count is explicitly “the number of subscribed email addresses,” and “Opted Out” (Unsubscribed) addresses are not emailed.
If the same email address appears more than once in the audience, EA dedupes it so that only one message is sent to that email address.
When deduping duplicates, EA attributes/selects the contact record with the most recently added instance of that email address

So, to your scenario:

If the only contact record in the workflow/Targeted Email audience that has that email address is not emailable (e.g., the address is Unsubscribed / otherwise not Subscribed), then no one at that email address will receive an email, because EA won’t email opted-out addresses.
If there is another contact record in the audience with the same email address and that email is Subscribed, EA will still send one email to that address, and it will be attributed to whichever included record qualifies under the “most recently added email address” rule.

Rachel at Bonterra

Kevin FAuthor

First Timer

Perfect. That’s what I needed to know. Thanks, Rachel!

A

Anna Kehde

First Timer

If there is another contact record in the audience with the same email address and that email is Subscribed, EA will still send one email to that address, and it will be attributed to whichever included record qualifies under the “most recently added email address” rule.

Is this the same behavior for sending phone numbers via an API to a separate p2p tool? For example, we have 2 records with the same phone number, both are on the list to send to a p2p campaign. Does VAN prioritize the name and phone number for the record where the phone was most recently added, even if the phone number on that record is not the preferred phone?

rachel moody

Community Manager

Hey @Anna Kehde! This is definitely a more involved question so I passed this along to @torvic vardamis and he is going to reach out to you to dig in more.

Rachel at Bonterra

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