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Suppression Lists

Use Lead Distro AI suppression lists to block specific phone numbers and emails from being delivered to a buyer. CSV upload, hashed storage, DNC compliance, and FAQs.

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What Are Suppression Lists?

Suppression lists prevent specific phone numbers or emails from being delivered to a buyer. Upload a list (CSV) and Lead Distro AI silently routes matching leads past that buyer to the next eligible one. Useful for honoring DNC requests, blocking known bad leads, and preventing duplicate sends to a buyer's existing clients.

How Storage Works

Phone numbers and emails are stored as MD5 hashes, not plain text. When a lead comes in, Lead Distro AI hashes the lead's phone and email and looks up the hashes in the buyer's suppression list. This preserves privacy — you can upload suppression lists without exposing the raw contact data to Lead Distro AI's storage layer.

Uploading a Suppression List

  • Open the buyer detail page → Suppression Lists tab.
  • Click Upload CSV.
  • CSV format: one column header (`phone` or `email`), one value per row. Optionally include both columns.
  • Lead Distro AI hashes each value on upload — the raw values are not stored in the database.
  • Save. New suppression entries take effect on the next ingested lead.

Common Use Cases

Use caseWhat to upload
Don't re-send to existing clientsThe buyer's CRM contact list — phones and emails of clients they've already converted
Honor DNC requestsPhones the buyer has flagged as opted-out — federal/state DNC compliance
Block known bad leadsPhones flagged by the buyer as fake, fraudulent, or low-quality
Compliance suppressionTCPA litigators (also use [Blacklist Alliance integration](/docs/integration-blacklist-alliance)) — disqualified at the buyer level

How Suppression Interacts with Distribution

Matches are silent skips — the buyer is excluded from that lead's distribution, the lead routes to the next eligible buyer per the campaign's distribution method. From the supplier's perspective, the lead is accepted (no rejection); from the buyer's perspective, they never see it.

Suppression lists are buyer-scoped — uploading a list to Buyer A doesn't affect Buyer B. For account-wide suppression (e.g., a true global DNC), upload the same list to every buyer or use a campaign-level inbound filter on phone/email patterns. For TCPA litigator scrubbing, use the dedicated [Blacklist Alliance integration](/docs/integration-blacklist-alliance) which scrubs at the campaign level before any buyer is involved.

Frequently Asked Questions

How are suppression lists stored in Lead Distro AI?
Phone numbers and emails are stored as MD5 hashes, not plain text. When a lead arrives, Lead Distro AI hashes the lead's phone/email and looks up the hashes in the buyer's suppression list. The raw contact data isn't stored — useful for privacy compliance and reducing data exposure surface.
Can I upload a suppression list with thousands of entries?
Yes — practical limit is hundreds of thousands of entries per buyer. CSV upload supports up to 50,000 rows in a single file; for larger lists, split into multiple uploads. Lookup is sub-millisecond regardless of list size (hash table lookup, not linear scan).
Does Lead Distro AI hash phones consistently regardless of format?
Yes — phones are normalized to E.164 (`+15551234567`) before hashing. A lead with `(555) 123-4567` and a suppression entry with `555-123-4567` will both hash to the same value after normalization. This works correctly regardless of how the supplier formats the phone in the incoming lead.
What's the difference between a suppression list and the Blacklist Alliance integration?
Suppression lists are buyer-scoped, manually-managed lists of phones/emails you upload. Blacklist Alliance is an industry-wide TCPA litigator database checked at the campaign level (before any buyer). Use Blacklist Alliance for litigator risk; use suppression lists for buyer-specific DNC, existing-client deduplication, and known-bad-lead blocking.
Can I remove entries from a suppression list?
Yes — re-upload the CSV with the entry omitted (the upload replaces the list). For surgical removal of single entries, contact support — UI for entry-level removal is on the roadmap. Most agencies treat suppression lists as additive and rotate the whole list periodically.
Does a suppression match trigger any logging?
Yes — the lead timeline shows `suppressed by buyer XYZ` for matched entries. Useful for debugging 'why didn't this buyer get this lead' questions. The actual matched value isn't shown (it's hashed), but the buyer and the suppression event are visible in the timeline.

Related Articles

Buyer Basics
Manage buyers in Lead Distro AI: delivery methods, lead caps, pricing, state and field filters, white-label client portals, and real-time acceptance rules for every buyer in your lead operation.
Blacklist Alliance (TCPA Scrub)
Connect Blacklist Alliance to Lead Distro AI for real-time TCPA litigator scrubbing. Per-campaign and per-supplier scrub rules, daily lookup caps, Slack alerts, and FAQs.
Inbound Filters
Use inbound filters to reject leads at the campaign level before distribution. State allowlists, custom field rules, AND/OR groups, scheduling, and FAQs for Lead Distro AI.

If you have any questions, send us an email at support@leaddistro.ai

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