Welcome to the Hotel California
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
relax, said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave!
The Eagles, 1976
When subscribers opt-out of your message, legally, you must stop messaging to them.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, It is a requirement of The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that:
Your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a “menu” of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.
Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor’s email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address.
Last year, in the course of research (unrelated to opt-outs) for a client, I subscribed to an email that was industry specific so I could better understand this type of communication to industry insiders.
On November 2, 2006 I opted-out of email communication from this company. Yesterday morning, I opted-out again for the seventh time.
The opt-out method for this company is an email process in which I send them an email with “Unsubscribe” in the subject line. The email address appears to be specific for this purpose. It begins with “unsub”.
This isn’t my preferred method of unsubscribing. It leaves too much room for human error, however after seven attempts; you would think that someone would make sure that I was opted-out.
Automated Opt-out mechanisms that are a part of most major ESPs are more effective because it removes the human error factor.
The fines for reported offenses such as these can be as much as $11,000 per offense. It’s imperative that when someone opts-out, they are truly removed and will not receive another message from the brand.
Mistakes like these create a bad name for legitimate email marketers.
Posted by MindComet on Apr. 27, 2007