Spam Control

The SPAM Control function in ActiveDEMAND is very useful for controlling who can and can not contact you. A critical task for marketing is differentiating potential customers and 'noise'. When receiving online requests or phone calls from people that will never buy from you it can be a distraction. Furthermore, passing unqualified contacts onto sales is a waste of time. There are two aspects to SPAM Control in ActiveDEMAND: SPAM Keywords and SPAM Rules. Here is how each one works:

SPAM Keywords

SPAM Keywords are words and phrases you can tell ActiveDEMAND to look for when someone submits a contact form. If the keyword or phrase is found anywhere within the fields of the submitted form the contact will be quarantined (see Quarantined Contacts below). 

Adding a SPAM Keyword:

1. Under the "Administration" menu, select "SPAM Control" and click "Add Keywords".
2. Enter a Keyword or Phrase to look for. For example "advertising".
3. Select your account.
4. Click the "Save" button.

Now, whenever a form that is associated with your ActiveDEMAND account is submitted and the keyword or phrase is included, the contact will be quarantined. To remove the keyword, simply delete it from the list. 

SPAM Rules

SPAM Rules are similar to SPAM Keywords however they monitor phone numbers, email addresses, and website domains. With SPAM Rules you can control who can contact you by preventing (blacklist) or allowing (whitelist) users.

Adding a SPAM Rule:

1. Under the "Administration" menu, select "SPAM Control" and click "Add Rule".
2. Manual Spam Rule:
   This is a rule that can be an email address, (ie. someone@somecompany.com), domain (ie. somedomain.com), or phone number (ie. 555555 or Area Code . 555). When specifying phone numbers, only use any numeric characters (i.e. exclude '(' and '-'). For example, if you are blocking +1 (555)-(123) (1212) you would add a rule for 5551231212
   Contact Segment:
   this allows you to select one of your predefined contact segments.
3. Select your account.
4. Select "Blacklisted" or "Whitelisted".
   1. Blacklist: If you select Blacklisted, anyone who meets the criteria set in Step 2 will be rejected/quarantined. For example, if you blacklist area code 555, anyone calling from area code 555 will not connect with your business. This assumes you are using call tracking phone numbers in ActiveDEMAND. Another example is someone submitting a form from an email domain that you have blacklisted, the form submit will be quarantined.
   2. Whitelist: If you select Whitelist, only those meeting the criteria in Step 2 will be allowed through. Everyone else will be quarantined. For example, if you whitelist area code 555, only those calling from area code 555 will be able to connect with you.
5. Click the "Save" button.

Cloning Rules

If you are using a multi-tenant instance of ActiveDEMAND, you have the ability to clone rules across accounts.

You can clone individual rules:

or clone the entire set:

If you clone a rule, it will not overwrite existing rules, the clone will create new rules. If your rule references a contact segment, the contact segment, if it does not exist, will be created in the new account(s).

Quarantined Contacts

Whenever a contact meets SPAM criteria (with the exception of a whitelisted rule), the contact history event will be logged. The contact will still exist in your account and all subsequent activities will still be logged for that contact. The contact will be quarantined:

• the contact activities will not trigger lead processing workflows
• the contact activities will not trigger autoresponders 
• phone calls from the contact will not be connected with the company

You can view all of your quarantined contacts by visiting "SPAM Control" under the "Administration" menu. By reviewing the "Reason" a contact was quarantined you will be able to improve your SPAM Control.

Dealing with Quarantined Contact

If a contact fills out a form or calls, and the activity matches one of your rules, the contact will become quarantined.  The system will add a spam icon to the top toolbar to indicate how many contacts are currently quarantined:

If you click on the icon, you will be brought to the spam management page

The list of quarantined contacts (and the associated activity) will be listed:

When it comes to quarantined contacts, you have five options:

1. View Item Detail: You can view the information submitted by the contact
2. Blacklist Email: You can blacklist the associated email address
3. Blacklist Domain: You can blacklist the domain associated with the email address
4. Not SPAM: You can mark the contact as "Not SPAM" which means the contact will be processed automatically as if it was never quarantined in the first place.
5. Delete: You can delete the contact history. It is recommended to keep your SPAM list clean. This means reviewing it regularly and processing each contact.