Who actually receives my automatic emails?
The most common surprise in email is the gap between two numbers: the people in your contact book, and the people your emails can actually go to. On a bernard site that gap is shown to you plainly — Buyers · 12, Students · 5, Everyone who's said yes · 19 — and it exists for a good reason.
Your contact book is a record; your audience is a permission. Three kinds of yes put someone in the audience:
- They bought from you. Buyers and students may be emailed about what they bought and closely related things — the thank-yous, care advice and check-ins in Thank people after they buy and Look after a new student automatically.
- They signed up and confirmed. Joining a list on your site sends a welcome with one button; pressing it is the yes. Until then they're a contact, not an audience — which is exactly what Remind people who didn't confirm their signup politely helps with.
- Nothing else. Hand-added contacts, imported lists and one-off enquiries stay in the book but out of the audience until a real yes exists.
The other half of the promise is the exit: every unsubscribe works, applies instantly, and stops journeys mid-flight as well as one-off news. Nobody — not you on a deadline, not an AI assistant with the best intentions — can send around these rules, and every email that does go out was approved by you first. That's not bureaucracy; it's why your emails keep landing in inboxes instead of spam folders.
The prompt
“Show me my audiences with honest numbers — who can receive emails today, who's in my contact book but not emailable, and why.”
The [bracketed] parts are yours to fill in. First time? Connect bernard to your AI over MCP — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI — then paste the prompt above.
Questions people ask
- Why can't I email everyone in my contact book?
- Because a contact and a permission are different things. Your book can hold anyone — someone you added by hand, an imported list, an enquiry. Emailable people are the subset with a recorded yes: buyers and students (who bought from you), and sign-ups who confirmed. Bernard shows both numbers honestly rather than letting you find out from a spam complaint.
- What counts as a yes?
- Two things. Buying from you — the law calls that a soft opt-in and it covers emails about what they bought and similar things you do. Or signing up AND pressing the 'Yes, keep me posted' button in the welcome email. A ticked box alone isn't enough until it's confirmed.
- What happens when someone unsubscribes?
- Every marketing-flavoured email carries a working unsubscribe link. One click and they stop receiving everything from your site — journeys mid-flight included — immediately and permanently. An unsubscribe from you doesn't affect their relationship with any other business, and vice versa.
- Can bernard or my AI assistant override this and email someone anyway?
- No. The audience is computed by the platform on every send — it isn't a setting anyone can loosen, and there's no approve-my-way-around-it. That's deliberate: it protects your sending reputation and keeps you on the right side of the law without you having to be an expert in it.