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    1. Emarsys
    2. Gestión de datos
    3. Gestionar sus contactos

    End-user guides:: Deleting contacts
    Actualización

    There are various ways to delete contacts and contact lists in Emarsys. When you delete a contact their entry in the database will be deleted but they will still be counted in the reporting for the campaigns they responded to. This is why, when you drill down in these reports to view the contacts, you may find that the number of contacts displayed is different to the total shown in the report. 

    If a contact is deleted and quickly recreated, for example, for testing purposes, it could suffer various side effects of the deletion process. For information see, Affected pages.

    Deleting individual contacts

    Please note that we are not only removing contact data, but we are collecting and removing all historical behavioral data that might be linked with that individual. This means that the reporting screens which use contact-level data may show slightly different results. Screens which use aggregated data will not be affected.

    This also means that if you have the Loyalty add-on, all points and rewards are removed for the deleted contact. This data is not restored even if the contact is registered or imported into Emarsys again with the same identifier (e.g. email address).

    To delete a single contact:

    • Use the API endpoint Delete a Contact.
    • Search for them using the Search function and click the skull icon to delete them from your database.
    • Open a segment or list to display the contacts and click the skull icon to delete them from your database.

    What happens to deleted contacts in Emarsys?

    Contacts can be deleted for various reasons:

    • contacts request you to delete all their personal data in compliance with legal guidelines,
    • other reasons not related to legal guidelines such as:
      • you need to delete inactive Mobile Engage contacts for technical reasons,
      • your money-back guarantee policy,
      • database maintenance.

    When you delete a contact, then all data, including historical behavioral and revenue data, relating to that contact is also deleted. This will retrospectively affect any reports which use contact-level data.

    Affected pages

    Contact deletion involves removing all historical behavioral and revenue data of the deleted contact. As a result, reporting screens using contact-level data may show slightly different results. Deleting contact data affects the following reports and metrics:

    Important:

    • In general, contact deletion has a minor impact on the revenue. However, in some specific cases, deleting contacts may cause a noticeable difference in the revenue.
    • Contact deletion can affect your analytics and reports, especially the year-to-year comparison on the Main Dashboard.
    • Main Dashboard:
    • Strategic Dashboard - Overview: Numbers may change across all strategies and objectives and deleting contacts will also affect the AOV (Average Order Value).
    • Strategic Dashboard - Strategy reporting: You may experience changes in:
      • the strategy-level reporting both for the current year and the selected period it is compared to. 
      • the results of the Tactics related to the selected strategy, due to the adjustments to the number of purchases, level of engagement and revenue.
    • Revenue Analytics:
      • You may experience changes in the following figures:
        • Total revenue
        • Total attributed revenue
        • Purchases
        • Revenue impact rate
      • Deleting contacts will also affect the AOV (Average Order Value).
    • Revenue Attribution Service:
    • When deleting contacts from the contact database, all their corresponding purchase entries from the Smart Insight database will be deleted as well.

    If you delete a contact, and create another one right after with the same external ID, Smart Insight will not delete the corresponding purchase entries; unless you perform a Smart Insight load between the two actions.

    • The Customer Lifecycle Dashboard and all the Smart Insight reporting screens, including the Customer Lifecycle, Product Affinity and Impact pages: You may experience the following changes:
      • figures may change in all charts because contact deletion affects all calculations.
      • deleting contacts also affect conversion rates, the AOV (Average Order Value) and lifecycle calculations.
    • Predict: You may experience sudden changes in the following metrics after deleting contacts, but it will not affect your reports retrospectively:
    • Mobile Engage reports: 
      • You may experience slight changes in the following statistics on the Mobile Engage Dashboard:
        • Monthly active users
        • Total installs
      • Anonymous contact deletion may also have an impact on your Mobile Engage reports. Depending on your anonymous contact deletion configuration, you might experience changes in the overall number of users.

    Anonymous contacts are created in Mobile Engage each time a user without a user ID (contact field value is null) uses a Mobile Engage service from an unknown device. In this case, a new contact will be created in the contact database with their hardware ID. Similarly, a new contact will be created if a contact logs out and there is no existing anonymous contact with the same hardware ID in your contact database.

    • Trend Reporting:
      • You may experience changes in revenue data because it is retrieved from the Revenue Attribution Service.
      • The data of deleted contacts, including sends, opens, clicks, unsubscribes and purchases, is not represented in the reports anymore.
      • Behavior metrics are only affected if you reload your data.
    • Email Analysis: You may experience changes in:
      • revenue because that data is retrieved from Trend Reporting.
      • contact-level detailed metrics.
    • Deliverability reporting: Deleting contacts may affect domain-level results.
    • Interactions programs: Deleting contacts is not an instantaneous process. For our backend processes it may take up to one month, to fully erase the traces of a contact in a GDPR compliant way.
      If a contact is deleted and quickly recreated, for example, for testing purposes, it could suffer various side effects of the deletion process. For instance, among others, it may not be picked up by Interactions. This means that even if Web Extend picks up the actions of the contact, the relevant Interaction program may not be triggered by those particular actions. To avoid this, make sure to use new, unique email addresses for repeated tests instead of reusing deleted contacts.

    It is highly recommended to test Web Extend using private computer instead of shared ones to avoid inaccurate event identification. A Guest browser session may also be useful.

    • Loyalty Dashboard: Deleting contacts will retroactively affect the data shown here. Deleting users may cause:
      • Lower point redemption rate shown in Engagement Rates graphs
      • Lower number of accumulated and redeemed points in Points Analytics graph
      • Lower number of vouchers shown in the Voucher Analytics graph
      • Lower total revenue and Loyalty revenue impact shown in the Revenue Generated by Loyalty Customers graphs, as these are sales data based numbers
    • Open Data: Contacts who are deleted from the contact database, are also removed from Open Data.

    Deleting entire lists of contacts

    To delete a batch of contacts:

    1. Create a contact list and go to Contacts > Delete Contacts.
    2. Click the skull icon to delete the list and all the contacts in it.

     

    • This is a useful way to clean up your database (for example by deleting all contacts who you know to be invalid).
    • Deleting a large list may take a few minutes.
    • In order to delete contacts, you need administrator rights.

    Deleting a contact in a contact list

    You can also delete a contact in a list by clicking the icon to display the contacts. You can now:

    • - Edit a contact’s properties.
    • - Remove a contact from the contact list.
    • - Delete a contact from your database.

    Alternatively, you can use the Remove Contacts from the Contact List endpoint as well.

    Deleting a contact list but not the contacts in it

    If you only want to remove a contact list from your account without touching any of the contacts in it:

    • Use the API endpoint Delete a Contact List.
    • Go to Contacts > Contact Lists and click the trash icon to remove the contact list.

    Deleting personal data after the retention period has expired

    You can build an Automation Center program that deletes personal data belonging to inactive contacts after the retention period has expired.

    Your retention period is the length of time you store customer and supplier data (or records) for business or compliance purposes. When the retention period ends, you must remove the data.

    Please note that the duration of the retention period depends on multiple factors such as your configuration, local legislation, type of the data, and so on.

    This is how such a program looks like:

    Here is what you need to do to build a program that deletes personal data of inactive contacts every day:

    1. Create an Automation Center program, add the Recurring filter entry point to it and set it to run Every 1 day(s) at the required time.

    2. Open the Segment node and select a segment that contains inactive contacts.

    You can target inactive contacts by using the following attributes:

    • Last session date: predict last session date
    • Last purchase date: SI last purchase date
    • Last mobile activity date: <Your App Last Mobile Activity>
    • Missing email activity: No email response (open or click)

    In the following example, contacts are considered inactive if they:

    • Registered more than X days ago (we have added this criterion to avoid deleting new contacts),
    • Ended their last session more than X days ago or had no active sessions at all,
    • Made their last purchase more than X days ago or made no purchases at all,
    • Were active in the mobile app more than X days ago or have not logged into the app at all (no activity),
    • Did not respond to emails (including opens and clicks) in the last X days.

    Please note that you can adjust the retention period according to your needs.

    You can also add other criteria related to inactivity to your segment by using custom contact fields or Relational Data.

    This segment contains the following contact criteria:

    • predict last session date Was more than X day(s) ago

    or

    • predict last session date Is empty

    AND

    • SI last purchase date Was more than X day(s) ago

    or

    • SI last purchase date Is empty

    AND

    • <Your App Last Mobile Activity> Was more than X day(s) ago

    or

    • <Your App Last Mobile Activity> Is empty

    AND

    • Date of first registration Was more than X day(s) ago

    This segment also contains the following email and mobile behavior criteria:

    • No email response (open or click)
    • Responded to no emails
    • In the last X days

    This segment looks like as follows:

    3. Add the Delete contacts node to your program and check the configured limit.

    Please consider the following:

    • Segments or contact lists exceeding the specified limit will not be processed and you will receive a notification about these unprocessed batches. This safety measure helps you avoid deleting all contacts from your database accidentally.
    • This limit does not apply to transactional programs.
    • If you receive a notification about an unprocessed batch, go to the specific program, open the Delete contacts node and increase the limit as required. When you are ready, you need to wait for the program to run again the next day.
    • Due to technical limitations and the GDPR, it is not possible to recover contacts or their data once they have passed through this node and have been deleted.

    4. When you are ready, activate your program.