Targeting based on complaints and unsubscribe events

Last Updated: 6/5/2026     Tags: target expressions, target, expression, complained, complaint
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Taguchi provides two predicates that help you identify and manage subscribers who have complained about your communications or triggered an unsubscribe event.

Complained Predicate

The complained predicate targets subscribers who have submitted a spam complaint through a given channel. This is useful for suppressing complainants from future sends or analysing complaint trends over time.

Syntax

complained [channel]
complained [channel] [date range]

Where [channel] is either email or sms.

Examples

Expression Description
complained email Returns all subscribers who have ever submitted a spam complaint via email
complained sms Returns all subscribers who have ever submitted a spam complaint via SMS
complained email last 30 days Returns all subscribers who submitted a spam complaint via email in the last 30 days
complained email this year Returns all subscribers who submitted a spam complaint via email this year

Common use case: Suppressing complainants from future sends

To exclude subscribers who have ever complained from a campaign, combine complained with the not operator:

~ complained email

This will target subscribers who have not submitted a spam complaint via email, effectively suppressing all complainants.

To learn more about unary operators, see the Target Expression Reference.


Tracked Unsubscribe Event

The tracked predicate supports a range of custom event types logged via the Taguchi API. The unsubscribe event type can be used to target subscribers who have had an unsubscribe event recorded against their profile through custom tracking.

Note: This differs from the standard list unsubscribe. The tracked unsubscribe event is logged via the Taguchi custom tracking API and can carry additional data fields alongside the event.

Syntax

tracked unsubscribe
tracked unsubscribe [date range]
tracked unsubscribe [field] [operator] [value]
tracked unsubscribe [field] [operator] [value] [date range]

About fields in tracked unsubscribe

The [field] in the syntax above refers specifically to a Subscriber Event Custom Field — not a standard subscriber profile field. Only custom fields with the field type set to "Subscriber event" will appear in the field dropdown in the target expression builder.

If a field you want to filter on is not appearing in the dropdown, ensure it has been created under Settings > Custom Fields with the field type set to Subscriber event.

Examples

Expression Description
tracked unsubscribe Returns all subscribers who have ever had an unsubscribe event logged
tracked unsubscribe last 30 days Returns all subscribers who had an unsubscribe event logged in the last 30 days
tracked unsubscribe source = "preference-centre" Returns all subscribers who had an unsubscribe event logged with a Subscriber Event Custom Field named source having the value preference-centre
tracked unsubscribe count>=2 Returns all subscribers who have had at least 2 unsubscribe events logged

For the full list of supported event types, date ranges, and count syntax, see the Custom Tracking Predicate in the Target Expression Reference.