Google's Gmail Verified Sender Pilot Program for political campaigns is up and running, and political campaigns can now apply to be part of Google's program which allows political campaign email to bypass the spam filter and be delivered directly to Gmail users' inboxes, but only once unless the user doesn't click on the big red "I don't want this" message that will accompany it.
There is a hidden legal danger in not confirming email addresses, and yes, even in the United States. We talk a lot about email deliverability (because hey, we're the original email deliverability company and consultants). And in that context we always explain how using double opt-in (i.e. confirmed opt-in) helps immensely with deliverability by reducing spam complaints and increasing interaction rates. But now we're going to talk about something that people rarely think about: not confirming someone's email address before you use it or add it to a mailing list can have serious legal consequences for you having nothing to do with CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL or any email-specific law. It can also have serious consequences for others, consequences that in turn can come back to you in serious, unexpected, but entirely avoidable, legal ways.
The one-click unsubscribe law (sometimes referred to as the "one-step unsubscribe rule") is part of CAN-SPAM. The CAN-SPAM unsubscribe rules include that a recipient be able to effectuate their opt-out with a one-click unsubscribe, whether that is by replying to the email or by visiting a single web page. The one-click unsubscribe law is part of our Federal law, and so applies to any and all mailing lists and mailing list email.
We have a customer who sends email out on behalf of a very large, very well known institution in the financial investment world. Some of these mailings lists are paid mailing lists. By which I mean that the users paid to receive these emails. And yet, they still report it as spam. Why would they do this? Here's why.
A fascinating, and a bit shocking, study was released today, rating how well online commerce sites do when it comes to responding to prospect and customer email queries. Not very, it turns out.
You may not have heard of drip email marketing, or email drip marketing, but I can assure you that you know what it is. You have either sent it, or received it, or in some other way come into contact with it. Wikipedia - not always the most reliable source, but in this case accurate - describes drip email this way: "Email drip marketing is a form of e-mail marketing where a company sends ("drips") email messages to subscribers on a scheduled basis established using e-mail marketing software."
While I'm off at the last of the three conferences in four weeks (actually I'm running the Boulder Business Retreat), I thought I'd share this little example of what not to do with your email marketing. I should be back more regularly next week; I hope you've missed me as much as I've missed you! Today's shining example of a company that just doesn't get it is AmericaRX.com.
This came into my inbox today. This is an example of just about everything we tell you not to do here. And this is a company that is going to have serious deliverability problems.
Email address confirmation messages are those messages that email senders who use best practices send to people who sign up for their mailing lists. The purpose of the email confirmation message is to confirm that the person actually wants to be on, and consents to being put on, your mailing list before they get added to the mailing list. The problem is, some email senders see confirmation messages as a place to slip in a little advertising.
We are often asked "Where can I buy email lists?" or "Where are free email lists for marketing?" and the answer is "all sorts of places".
