Block and Remove Listeners

To remove a listener's access to a feed, find them in the Listeners area of the feed and flip the switch for "Enabled". When the switch is grey, they will no longer have access to the feed. All episodes are removed from their feed and links to content will no longer function.

You can block multiple listeners at once by selecting them in the listener list using checkboxes, then click "Update Select Listeners". Choose "Disabled" from the dropdown and click "Update Listeners".

The Difference Between "Disabled" and "Deleted"

Deleting a listener is the same as blocking them, but they are then removed completely from the list of listeners. The difference is purely aesthetic. 

Delete the listener if you'd like to clean up the list. Otherwise, blocking them by setting their status to "Disabled" will allow you to keep record of who used to have access to the feed in case you need to reactivate them. We recommend not deleting listeners for this reason. (You can add them back manually if you delete them, but not deleting them can save you time since they're already in your list of listeners.)

Automatically Blocking a Listener

You can set a listener's status to "Disabled" automatically using Zapier, or an ActiveCampaign automation webhook.

Using Zapier

Start your Zap with a trigger of your choice, e.g. contact is tagged in your CRM. If you haven't connected Hello Audio to Zapier yet, you can get started by following this help document.

Add Hello Audio as a step after the trigger and choose the Action Event "Edit Listener". Click Continue.

Choose your Hello Audio account, and Continue again.

Select the feed you'd like to remove the listener from, then find their email address from the Trigger of the Zap.

Set their status to "Inactive" (or "Deleted" if you'd like to not see them in your list of listeners). Click Continue.

Test & Continue, then turn on the Zap when you're ready.

Using an ActiveCampaign Automation

In your Hello Audio integrations page, scroll to "ActiveCampaign Automations" and select your feed. (If you haven't generated an API key yet, click Generate first. Treat your API key as your password; do not share the key.)

Copy the URL for blocking a listener.

In ActiveCampaign, head to Automations and create a new Automation. Start from scratch, and select your trigger, e.g. Tag is added.

Click the Plus to add a step and choose Conditions and Workflow → Webhook.

Paste in the URL you copied from your Hello Audio integrations page.

Finish up the automation by adding an End step, naming the automation, and click Active.

Any contact that is added to this automation will be removed from the feed. They are not deleted.

Using ThriveCart's Behavior Automation

Each product in ThriveCart has a custom HTML option in the Behavior section for when someone cancels a membership. You can use this to block a listener automatically by following these instructions that connect Hello Audio to ThriveCart.

FAQs

Does removing a listener only block their access to future episodes, or past episodes as well?

All future AND past episodes. We remove all episodes, so their feed is empty of content. They won't receive future episodes, and the old ones are gone.

Can someone continue listening if they downloaded the episodes before being blocked?

Maybe, depending on their app settings. Some apps keep the files on their phone if they've been downloaded. We can't remove files from their phone. Almost all apps delete the files once they've been listened to. So, at most, they get one more listen.

Will they still see the list of episodes in the app?

Probably not. We empty the feed of all episodes, so the next time the app checks the feed, it should remove the list of episodes in the app. This usually happens once an hour but some apps check once a day. And some apps remove the feed completely when it's empty; it won't show in their list of subscribed feeds in the app. If the listener sees an episode and tries listening, they'll receive an error and not be able to play the content.