Consent must be informed

In the deliverability space we talk about permission and consent a lot. All too often, though, consent is taken not given. Marketers and senders assume they have permission to send email, while the recipient is left expecting no email.

There are different ways that companies assume permission. A favorite is to hide the permission deep in the terms and conditions or in the privacy policy. This is problematic on a number of different levels. In some cases, the privacy policy and the terms and conditions policies contradict each other. One will say they can send email, the other says they won’t.

Other forms of taking permission include scanning badges at conferences and uploading address books to bulk sending programs. Neither of these things are actually permission. Just because someone corresponds with an employee does not mean they are giving permission to be added to mailing lists.

Modern laws are attempting to address this. Both CASL and GDPR make it clear that senders can’t simply assume they have permission to send mail. Permission must be explicitly granted and the terms of the permission must be clear. The new California privacy laws are also trying to make consent explicit.

Overall, laws requiring explicit permission are a direct result of too many marketers and senders assuming consent. The regulations weren’t created out of nothing, they’re a response to ongoing abuses by the marketing industry. The marketing industry had the ability to head this off by acting reasonably, but self regulation wasn’t on the table.

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July 2017: The month in email

August is here, and as usual, we’re discussing spam, permissions, bots, filters, delivery challenges, and best practices.

One of the things we see over and over again, both with marketers and with companies that send us email, is that permission is rarely binary — companies want a fair amount of wiggle room, or “implied permission” to send. There are plenty of examples of how companies try to dance around clear permissions, such as this opt form from a company we used to do business with. But there are lots of questions here: can you legitimately mail to addresses you haven’t interacted with in 5 years? 10 years? What’s the best way to re-engage, if at all?
We frequently get questions about how to address deliverability challenges, and I wrote up a post about some of the steps we take as we help our clients with this. These are short-term fixes; for long-term success, the most effective strategy is sending email that people want and expect. Engagement is always at the core of a sustainable email program.
We’ve also discussed the rise of B2B spam, and the ways in which marketing technologies contribute to the problem. B2B marketers struggle to use social and email channels appropriately to reach customers and prospects, but still need to be thoughtful about how they do it. I also wrote about some of the ways that marketing automation plugins facilitate spam and how companies should step up to address the problem. Here’s an example of what happens when the automation plugins go awry.
I wrote a few posts about domain management and the implications for security and fraud. The first was about how cousin domain names can set users up for phishing and fraud, and the second was a useful checklist for looking at your company’s domain management. We also looked at abuse across online communities, which is an increasing problem and one we’re very committed to fighting.
I also highlighted a few best practices this month: guidelines for choosing a new ESP and active buttons in the subject line for Gmail.
And finally, we celebrated the 80th birthday of the original SPAM. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know why unwanted email is called SPAM, but just in case, here’s a refresher….

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Permission trumps good metrics

Most companies and senders will tell you they follow all the best practices. My experience says they follow the easy best practices. They’ll comply with technical best practices, they’ll tick all the boxes for content and formatting, they’ll make a nod to permission. Then they’re surprised that their mail delivery isn’t great.

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Delete or read?

This week I attended a Data Visualization workshop presented by the Advanced Media Center at UC Berkeley. Every year I set at least one professional development goal; this year it’s learning how to better communicate visually.

Part of the class included other resources, which led me to Nathan Yau’s website. One of the articles on the front page of his site is titled “Email Deletion Flow Chart.” Well, of course I had to read the post.

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