What happens when you send to lists with overlapping contacts?
It's important to remember that you CAN have the same contact show up in multiple lists, in your Email Marketing subscribers area. This does NOT mean that the contact is duplicated, it merely means that the contact is categorized in more than one way. It's helpful to think about your All list as a master, total list. And to think about all your other lists as simple filters, or lenses, for different ways of looking at that single, master list.
When you send to multiple lists with overlapping contacts
So, your contact is a member of two different subscriber lists. When you send your campaign, you select both of those lists to send the mailing to. Your contact will not receive two emails. The contact will only be sent to once. We know that that contact is not really duplicated, it's just a member of more than one list.
When you send the same campaign multiple times
If you are emailing a campaign multiple times, you do have to be careful. If you send to the first list your contact is a member of, and then send again to the second list, that contact will receive each mailing individually. This is because you've sent an entirely different mailing.
But even when sending multiple times, you can protect yourself from duplicates! Just use the Don't Resend option when you're doing multiple mailings of the same campaign! This will ensure that anyone you've already sent this campaign to will not receive it again.
Next step
- Now that you know the details, you can send your mailings confidently!