Known Customers vs. Suppression: What Is the Difference?
Visual Visitor provides two ways to handle visitors who are already part of your database — Known Customers and Suppression.
These functions look similar but behave very differently. Choosing the wrong one can result in missed data or unwanted alerts.
Known Customers
When you add a contact to your Known Customers list:
- The visitor still appears in your reports and dashboard.
- No alert (real-time, daily, or weekly email notification) is sent when they visit.
- The identification does NOT consume a credit from your monthly plan.
- Webhook and connector integrations (e.g., HubSpot, CRM) will not push the contact downstream as a new lead.
- You retain visibility into when existing customers return to your website, which is useful for spotting upsell opportunities or gauging product interest.
Use Known Customers when you want to track returning contacts without burning credits or cluttering your sales team's lead feed.
Suppression
When you add a contact or company to the Suppression list:
- The visitor is completely hidden from your reports and dashboard.
- No alerts are sent.
- No credit is consumed.
- The contact will not be visible anywhere in the platform.
Use Suppression for competitors, internal employees, vendors, or any traffic you never want to see. This is permanent exclusion.
Comparison at a Glance
| Feature | Known Customers | Suppression |
|---|---|---|
| Appears in reports | ✔ | ✘ |
| Triggers alerts | ✘ | ✘ |
| Consumes a credit | ✘ | ✘ |
| Pushed to integrations | ✘ | ✘ |
| Visible in dashboard | ✔ | ✘ |
Large File Uploads
Both lists support bulk uploads via CSV. For lists over several thousand records, uploads may take time to process. Duplicate entries in Known Customers have no negative effect on functionality.
See the article "Uploading Known Customers Function In a Large File" for formatting guidance.
Suppression vs. Known Companies
The Suppression list works at the individual contact level. The Known Companies feature is separate and works at the company level — adding a company to Known Companies prevents that company from triggering alerts or credit charges, but it is distinct from the contact-level Suppression list.