Author: David James

In the United States, the majority of laws and regulations pertaining to email marketing falls within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government.  With the CAN-SPAM Act, a series of laws passed by Congress in 2003, various rules were put into place to better control how companies interact and communicate with customers through email for marketing purposes. An online company must develop strict internal policies concerning how they handle opt-in and opt-out requests from potential customers in order to prevent legal and liability problems from occurring.  Are you CAN-SPAM compliant?

Contrary to what many marketers may think, the CAN-SPAM Act actually has no specific requirements for opt-in rules.  That is why some companies continue to use single opt-in procedures while the majority has moved on to double opt-in.  With the latter, the subscriber not only must sign up for full service email newsletters or a marketing list through the company’s website, but also must verify this by clicking a link sent to them through email.  While double opt-in isn’t required, it is now the de facto industry standard.  Furthermore, companies that engage in single opt-in are much more likely to be penalized by ISPs and email providers by being placed on spam lists.  So while it places a greater burden on the consumer, having them to go through a double opt-in is definitely beneficial to your company.  Fortunately, many popular email services use this type of opt-in exclusively.

It is the opt-out email rules that the CAN-SPAM act explicitly defines.  Under the current laws, every commercial email message sent to a reader must have a set of easy-to-read instructions included at the bottom or the top of the message detailing how a reader may cease all further communications from the company.  The opt-out procedure must be simple and quick in order to limit any potential liabilities. Furthermore, once a customer has opted out of a newsletter or further emails, the company must respond to this request within ten days by removing the email address from the database.  A subsequent email verifying that the address has been deleted and no further communication will be forthcoming is permitted under the law.

One of the tactics which many companies use today in order to try and maintain customer engagement is to build an email customer preference page as part of the customer’s account.  Through this preference page, each customer can decide how often they wish to receive communications from the company.  This can also be presented to a reader who is attempting to opt-out of emails, although a choice of ceasing all communications must also be available in order to remain compliant with the law.

Under new provisions which were updated in 2008, companies cannot place undue requirements on customers who wish to opt-out of emails.  This includes charging a fee, no matter how small, as well as requiring information other than the person’s email address and communication preferences.  These laws were updated in response to marketing companies circumventing the 2003 laws by requiring often confusing and convoluted steps to be completed before a reader would be unsubscribed.

Handling opt-out and, to a lesser extent, opt-in requests in a professional manner is absolutely essential for any business.  To not do so, runs the risk of fines and even prosecution under current federal laws. Fortunately, the legal requirements are simple and straight-forward.  Therefore, they’re easily and relatively inexpensive to implement on a company wide basis.

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Publisher and President of Bethesda Emedia Marketing and Bethesda List Center, David James offers many years of experience in direct marketing, eMail marketing and social media marketing.

Both organizations work with business-to-business marketers, medical and life science, associations, publishers and the like. Follow David on Twitter as well! djamesbethesda

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Image courtesy of (anankkml) from freedigitalphotos