External Sending is a ContactMonkey add-on that automatically applies compliance controls to recipients outside your organization, such as adding an unsubscribe link and keeping track of who has unsubscribed. Internal communications continue to work exactly as they do today.
External Sending provides tools to help you meet compliance requirements, but you remain responsible for ensuring your sends comply with applicable laws. The add-on does not constitute legal advice. For specific compliance questions, consult your legal or compliance team.
Prerequisites
External Sending is a paid add-on activated by ContactMonkey's Customer Success team. Before you can use it:
- Your account must have SendGrid configured
- Contact your Customer Success Manager or email support@contactmonkey.com to activate the add-on
Once active, the Compliance Center appears in Settings for Owner and Admin users.
What Counts as Internal vs External
- Internal recipients have an email address that matches a domain on your internal domain list. By default, this is your primary organization domain, for example, yourcompany.com.
- External recipients have email addresses that do not match any domain in your internal domain list. This includes contractors, partners on their own company domains, alumni or retirees using personal addresses, and anyone on a personal email service such as gmail.com, yahoo.com, or outlook.com.
Compliance controls only apply to external recipients. Internal recipients receive emails the way they always have.
What Happens at Send Time
When the add-on is enabled, ContactMonkey processes each send as follows:
- Every recipient is checked against your internal domain list.
- Internal recipients receive the email unchanged, with no unsubscribe link added.
- External recipients receive the email with an unsubscribe link added to the footer. The link opens a page hosted by ContactMonkey, in the same language as the email they received.
- External recipients who previously unsubscribed do not receive the email.
- After the send, ContactMonkey records how many recipients were internal, external, and unsubscribed.
If your contact list includes a mix of internal and external recipients, you'll see a confirmation message before sending that summarizes which compliance behavior applies.
If the add-on is not enabled, sending works as it does today, with no internal or external check, no unsubscribe link, and no unsubscribe list.
What External Recipients See When They Unsubscribe
External recipients unsubscribe from a page hosted by ContactMonkey. ContactMonkey automatically adds an unsubscribe link to the footer of every email sent to external recipients. Clicking that link opens a page confirming the recipient has been unsubscribed.
Unsubscribing is all or nothing. The recipient is unsubscribed from every email your organization sends through ContactMonkey, not just the one they received. To see who has unsubscribed, or to resubscribe someone, go to Settings > Compliance and open Manage Opt-Outs. See External Sending: Managing Unsubscribed Recipients.
What language is the unsubscribe link and page in?
The language follows the email the recipient received. You do not choose a language.
- Multi-Language Emails: each language block in the email includes its own translated unsubscribe link, which opens the unsubscribe page in that language. A recipient who clicks the link in the French block sees a French unsubscribe page. See Multi-Language Emails: Setup and Overview.
- Single-language emails: the unsubscribe link and page are in English.
- Unsupported or unknown language: the unsubscribe link and page are in English.
The unsubscribe experience supports the same 28 languages as Multi-Language Emails.
What the unsubscribe page does not do
- It does not use your organization's custom URL or landing page branding. The page shows your organization's name, not your logo or colors.
- It does not detect the recipient's browser or device language. The language comes from the version of the email they were sent.
- It does not apply to internal recipients or to organizations without the External Sending add-on.
Why Compliance Controls Matter
Emails to external recipients are subject to compliance laws, including CAN-SPAM (US), CASL (Canada), and GDPR (EU/UK). These laws typically require a clear unsubscribe option, honoring unsubscribe requests across future sends, and accurate sender information. Mishandling these requirements can hurt deliverability and, if your organization is audited, result in significant fines.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my internal email metrics change?
Your internal metrics become cleaner because external sends are classified separately. If your reports previously mixed external sends into internal metrics, you'll see that separation moving forward.
What happens to recipients who unsubscribe?
They are added to your organization's opt-out list and will not receive any further ContactMonkey emails from your organization. You can review or reverse an unsubscribe in Settings > Compliance > Manage Opt-Outs.
Can external recipients choose which emails to opt out of? No. Unsubscribing removes the recipient from all ContactMonkey emails sent by your organization.
Can I block external sending entirely for some users or domains?
Not in the initial release. The Add-on focuses on oversight and compliance, not blocking. Org-level controls are planned for a future release.
Does it work with Google Workspace?
Yes. The add-on works regardless of your email platform, as long as SendGrid is set up.