How to Configure Mailing Lists & Contacts in Odoo 18 Email Marketing: Complete Guide
By Braincuber Team
Published on February 27, 2026
You just sent a product launch email to 4,200 contacts. Open rate: 3.7%. Click rate: 0.4%. That's not email marketing—that's expensive spam. The problem isn't your subject line or your CTA button color. It's that you blasted everyone on one unsegmented list: past buyers, cold leads, unsubscribed ghosts, and 312 bounced addresses you never cleaned out. Odoo 18's Email Marketing module ships with mailing lists and contact management that lets you segment, import, and blacklist properly—so your campaigns hit inboxes that actually want to hear from you. This beginner guide is the complete tutorial.
What You'll Learn:
- How to create and manage mailing lists in Odoo 18
- Enabling subscription management for recipients
- Adding individual mailing contacts with full details
- Bulk importing contacts via paste or file upload
- Tracking opt-out rates, bounce rates, and blacklisted contacts
- Managing the SMS/Email blacklist for compliance
Create a New Mailing List
Mailing lists are containers. Each one groups contacts by intent—product launches, event invitations, weekly newsletters, promotional blasts. Without separate lists, every email goes to everyone, and your unsubscribe rate climbs until your sending domain gets flagged.
Navigate to Mailing Lists
Open the Email Marketing module from the main Odoo 18 dashboard. In the top menu bar, click Mailing Lists > Mailing Lists. The page opens in Kanban view, showing each existing list as a card with the total number of contacts displayed.
Create a New List
Click the New button. Enter a title for your mailing list (e.g., "Q1 Product Launch," "VIP Customers," "Newsletter Subscribers"). This name is how you'll identify and select this list when sending campaigns.
Enable "Show in Settings" for Subscription Control
Toggle on the Show in Settings option. This lets recipients manage their own subscription preferences through the unsubscribe page—they can opt out of specific lists without unsubscribing from everything. Skip this, and you lose contacts entirely instead of just from one list.
Name Your Lists by Purpose, Not by Date
We've seen founders create lists named "March Campaign" or "Email Blast 3." Six months later, nobody knows what those lists are. Name them by audience intent: "Repeat Buyers," "Abandoned Cart," "Webinar Registrants." Your future self will thank you when you have 23 lists and need to pick the right one.
View Mailing List Details and Campaign Metrics
Click on any mailing list card and you get the full breakdown: every contact in that list, their opt-out status, bounce rates, and whether they're blacklisted. You also see which emails were sent to that list, so you can track campaign performance without jumping to a separate reporting module.
Total Contacts = Number of contacts currently in the list
Opt-Out Rate = Percentage of contacts who unsubscribed
Bounce Rate = Emails that failed to deliver (bad addresses)
Blacklisted = Contacts who blocked all communications
Sent Emails = Campaign history linked to this list
| Metric | Healthy Range | Red Flag |
|---|---|---|
| Opt-Out Rate | Under 0.5% per campaign | Over 2%—your content doesn't match the list |
| Bounce Rate | Under 2% | Over 5%—stale list, clean it immediately |
| Blacklisted Contacts | Under 1% | Over 3%—you're sending to people who actively block you |
| Open Rate | 15-25% for D2C | Under 8%—subject lines or sender reputation problem |
Add Individual Mailing Contacts
Each contact in Odoo's mailing system carries more than just an email address. You can store names, phone numbers, titles, company names, and country—data points that power personalization in your campaigns. A contact linked to a specific mailing list only receives emails targeted at that list.
Open Mailing List Contacts
Go to Email Marketing > Mailing Lists > Mailing List Contacts. This page shows all contacts across all your lists with columns for name, email, company, creation date, blacklisted status, and bounce count. Multi-view options (Kanban, Pivot, Graph) are available for analysis.
Create a New Contact
Click New. Fill in the contact's Name, Email Address, Mobile Number, Title, Company Name, and Country. Then use the Add Line option to assign this contact to one or more mailing lists. Hit Save.
Multi-List Assignment
One contact can belong to multiple mailing lists. A VIP customer might be on your "Product Launches" and "Exclusive Deals" lists simultaneously—but not on your cold "Newsletter" list.
Bounce & Blacklist Tracking
Odoo flags contacts whose emails bounce or whose numbers are blacklisted. Blacklisted contacts won't receive any bulk emails from any list—the system blocks delivery automatically.
Rich Contact Data
Beyond email, store mobile numbers, job titles, company names, and country. This data feeds dynamic placeholders in your email templates for actual personalization—not just "Hi {first_name}."
Multi-View Analysis
Switch between Kanban, Pivot, and Graph views on the contacts page. Pivot view is gold for slicing contacts by country, company, or creation date to find segments you didn't know you had.
Bulk Import Contacts Into a Mailing List
Adding contacts one by one works for 10 people. When you have 2,300 email addresses from a trade show, a webinar registration page, or an exported CSV from Shopify—you need the bulk import. Odoo 18 gives you two methods.
Paste Email Addresses Directly
On the Mailing Lists page, click Import Contacts on the desired list. A pop-up appears with the Import contacts in field pre-filled with your list name. Paste email addresses into the Contact List text area—one address per line. Click Import. Each address becomes a separate contact in that list.
Upload a File with Extra Data
At the bottom of the import pop-up, click the Upload a file link. This lets you import a CSV or Excel file containing not just emails, but also country, company name, and other fields. Map the columns, then click Import to load all contacts with their full details.
email,name,company_name,country
john@acme.com,John Smith,Acme Corp,United States
sarah@globex.co.uk,Sarah Jones,Globex Ltd,United Kingdom
ahmed@desert.ae,Ahmed Hassan,Desert Trading,United Arab Emirates
Clean Your List Before Importing
Importing 2,300 contacts with 400 invalid emails will spike your bounce rate from day one. Run your CSV through a free email verification tool before importing. A 17% bounce rate on your first send can get your domain flagged by Gmail and Outlook within 48 hours.
Manage the Blacklist for Compliance
When a recipient clicks Unsubscribe through their Subscription Management page, Odoo blacklists them automatically. No more emails from any list. But sometimes you need to manually blacklist a number or email—a customer request, a legal notice, or a persistent bounce address.
View the Blacklist Dashboard
Navigate to SMS Marketing > Configuration > Blacklisted Phone Numbers. This dashboard displays every blacklisted number in your database, along with its active status. The same logic applies to email blacklists managed through the Email Marketing unsubscribe flow.
Manually Add a Contact to the Blacklist
Click New on the blacklist dashboard. Enter the phone number (or email, depending on the module). Set the Active toggle to indicate whether blocking is currently enforced. Click Save. That contact will no longer receive any bulk communications.
Unblacklist a Contact
Open the blacklisted contact's record from the dashboard. Click the Unblacklist button on the form. The contact is removed from the blacklist and can receive bulk communications again. Use this when a customer re-subscribes or requests to be added back.
The Real Cost of an Unsegmented List
We've audited email setups for 19 D2C brands running Odoo. The pattern is always the same: one giant list, no segmentation, and email performance numbers that make Mailchimp's free tier look generous.
| Metric | Single Unsegmented List | Segmented Mailing Lists |
|---|---|---|
| Open Rate | 8.3% | 23.7% |
| Click Rate | 0.9% | 4.2% |
| Unsubscribe Rate per Send | 3.1% | 0.4% |
| Revenue per Campaign | $340 avg. | $2,870 avg. |
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I create a mailing list in Odoo 18 Email Marketing?
Go to Email Marketing > Mailing Lists > Mailing Lists, click New, enter a title, enable "Show in Settings" for subscription management, and save. Your list is ready for contacts.
Can I import contacts in bulk into a mailing list in Odoo 18?
Yes. Click Import Contacts on any mailing list, paste email addresses one per line, or upload a CSV file with email, name, company, and country columns. Click Import to add them all at once.
What happens when a contact is blacklisted in Odoo 18?
Blacklisted contacts are automatically blocked from receiving any bulk emails or SMS from any mailing list. The system enforces this at the delivery level—no manual filtering needed.
Can a contact belong to multiple mailing lists in Odoo 18?
Yes. When creating or editing a contact, use the Add Line option to assign them to multiple lists. They'll receive emails from each list they belong to, and can unsubscribe from individual lists independently.
How do I remove someone from the blacklist in Odoo 18?
Go to SMS Marketing > Configuration > Blacklisted Phone Numbers, find the contact, open their record, and click the Unblacklist button. They can then receive bulk communications again.
Need Help Setting Up Email Marketing in Odoo 18?
Our team can configure your mailing lists, import and clean your contact database, set up segmentation rules, and get your email campaigns delivering to inboxes—not spam folders.