Most SMEs send a newsletter, a product update or an event invitation now and then, and the list usually comes straight out of the CRM. The question nobody asks until a complaint arrives is: did all these people actually agree to receive it? A CRM that cannot answer that per contact turns every mailing into a gamble. Pomio CRM recommends recording one clear marketing email status on every contact, with a date and a source, and checking it before anything goes out.
Sales email and marketing email are not the same
A personal reply to a question, a quote or a follow-up after a meeting is one-to-one sales email. A newsletter, a campaign or an announcement sent to a list is marketing email. The consent question is mainly about the second kind. Mixing the two up leads either to mailing everyone or to being afraid to email anyone; writing down the difference already removes a lot of doubt.
Four statuses are enough
Consent. The person actively agreed, for example through a sign-up form with an unticked box or by asking to be added. Record the date and the form or channel.
Existing customer. Many EU countries allow email about your own similar products to existing customers, provided they could object when you collected the address and can unsubscribe in every message. Record the purchase or contract that this relies on.
Opted out. The person unsubscribed or asked not to be mailed. This status is final until they actively sign up again, and it is never overwritten by an import.
Unknown. Everything else, including old records, business cards and event lists. Unknown means no marketing email, not "probably fine".
Record the date and the source
A status without proof is a guess. Store when the status was set and where it came from: the form, the event, the unsubscribe link or the email in which someone asked to be removed. That is the same discipline as giving every lead a source, and it makes the status defensible if someone asks how you got their address.
Imports are where it goes wrong
Most consent problems arrive with a spreadsheet: a trade fair list, an export from an old system or a purchased list. Import those contacts as "unknown" unless the list itself proves consent, and never let an import change an opted-out contact back to anything else. Run the duplicate check before the import, because a duplicate without the opt-out is exactly the record that gets mailed by mistake.
An opt-out always wins
When someone unsubscribes from the newsletter tool or tells a salesperson "please stop the mailings", the CRM status changes the same day. If the mailing tool and the CRM are separate, agree who copies opt-outs back and how often; a weekly sync is the minimum. Do not delete the contact to make the problem go away: an archived record with an opt-out status prevents the address from being imported and mailed again.
Check before every mailing
Select recipients by status, not by "everyone in the CRM". Export only contacts with consent or a valid existing-customer basis, and add the share of "unknown" contacts to your monthly data quality check. If that share keeps growing, the problem is in how contacts are added, not in the mailing.
Country rules differ
The rules for marketing email come from national law on top of the GDPR, and they differ. In the Netherlands, prior consent is required for individuals, while generic company addresses are treated more leniently. In Germany, prior consent is generally required for business recipients as well, and double opt-in is the usual way to prove it. If you mail across borders, use the strictest rule for the whole list or keep the country on the contact, and have your approach checked by someone who knows the law in your markets. This article is practical guidance, not legal advice.
How Pomio CRM supports it
In Pomio CRM you can use a small fixed list of labels for the four statuses and add a dated note with the source. Labels are filterable, so a mailing list is a filter rather than a manual selection. Roles decide who may change records, and the audit log shows who changed a status and when.
In short
Give every contact one marketing email status — consent, existing customer, opted out or unknown — with a date and source; treat unknown as no; let opt-outs win the same day and survive imports; and select mailing recipients by status every time.