Despite the evidence that correctly setting expectations results in better delivery and higher ROI on lists some senders go out of their way to hide terms from recipients. I’ve heard many of those types of comments over the years.

If we tell recipients how often we’re going to mail them, we don’t think they’ll opt-in.

If you mail people, even those who have opted in, more than they want to be mailed, then they’re going to complain or ignore your mail. And that results in poor delivery. If you’re mailing so much even you think it’s going to drive subscribers away then maybe you need to re-think your email program.

They opted in at one point, and even though they opted out, we thought that they’d be interested in these other things we’d like to sell them.

No, the recipient opted out. An opt-out should be persistent. You cannot arbitrarily decide to opt your unsubscribes back into a new list. That’s going to cause you problems, either with your ESP or your subscribers or both.

We don’t care if the addresses don’t belong to the people who submit them, we’ll just mail those addresses anyway.

If you mail addresses that belong to people who never opted in to your mail, then you’re spamming. There are certain lists that are targets for this kind of abuse, usually partisan or highly political lists. That just means that the senders need to be even more careful about their subscription policies and setting expectations. Failure to do so results in delivery problems at major ISPs.

Setting expectations and listening to recipients is a vital part of successful delivery. Your recipients are your best allies in getting mail delivered to the inbox. Trying to deceive them or second guess their desires leads to diminished returns. Not only are you spending more money and time in strategy, but the more complex the system the less likely it is to be right.

Be clear. Be honest. Be recipient friendly.

A study conducted by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and InfoPrint reveals that of the 91 per cent of consumers who opt out or unsubscribe to emails, 46 per cent do so because the messages they receive are simply not relevant.

How are you making your emails relevant?

Today’s example is a welcome message I received from Marriott. During my recent trip to visit a client, I gave Marriott my email address. They sent me a welcome message, primarily text that looked good even with images turned off. The text of the email told me why I was receiving the email and what I could expect.

Since you recently supplied your email address to Marriott, you’ll now receive advance notice of new hotels, services to save you time and money, and hotel specials and packages.

You’ll also receive eBreaks – 20% or more off last-minute weekend travel, promoted nowhere else! See a sample.

We’ll keep our messages brief, fast and fun. To ensure our email reaches your inbox, add us to your address book now.

Should you decide to unsubscribe, simply click on the link at the bottom of any email you receive.

Welcome to service above and beyond.

I clicked through the unsubscribe link to my preferences page. There they told me what I was subscribed to, what the emails would give me and how frequently I would receive mail. They also provided links to sample emails so I could see what it was I would be receiving.

Screenshot of subscription page with sample emails opened

How many good practices did Marriott get in this email?

• I received a clear welcome message
• I was able to read the email without images turned on
• I had a clear unsubscription link that led me directly to a subscription center
• The subscription center shows which emails I am subscribed to
• I was not subscribed to all available emails by default
• I was told the frequency of messages
• I was able to preview messages I would receive

The end result? I stayed on the Marriott list instead of unsubscribing immediately.

Anyone who doesn’t want our mail will opt-out.

Most people don’t opt-out.

Therefore, most people want our mail.

This clearly fallacious reasoning is something I deal with frequently with my clients, particularly those who come to me for reputation repair. They can’t understand why people are calling them spammers, because their unsubscribe rates and complaint rates are very low. The low complaints and unsubscribes must mean their mail is wanted. Unfortunately, the email marketers’ syllogism leads them to faulty conclusions.

There are many reasons people don’t opt-out of mail they don’t want. Some of it may be practical, the mail never hits their inbox, either due to ISP level filters or their own personal filters. Some people take a stance that they do not opt out of mail they did not opt-in to and if they don’t recognize the company, they won’t opt-out.

In any case, low levels of opt-outs or even this-is-spam hits does not mean that recipients want that mail. The sooner marketers figure this out, the better for them and their delivery.

What is your opinion on putting CAN SPAM compliance information (postal address, unsubscribe link, etc) in an image?

The short answer is this is something spammers do and something that legitimate mailers should never want to do.

The longer answer needs to look at why spammers do this, why legitimate marketers may think about doing this and what affect this has on the end user perception of mail.

Spammers do this because it means that they can still be nominally legally compliant if someone looks at their email but their physical address can’t be tagged by content filters. Using images is simply a way for them to avoid filters while also avoiding legal liability for violating CAN SPAM. In fact, in some of the cases where a company was taken to court for violating CAN SPAM (no physical postal address, no unsubscribe link) the company argued that the information was in an image that the recipient didn’t keep as evidence.

Because spammers use images for CAN SPAM information has become a sign that the sender is a spammer. It is in the same category as hashbusters, or rotating from lines or whois records hiding behind privacy filters. Spammers do these things because it defeats spam filters and gets their unwanted mail into ISPs a little better than if they don’t do these things. However, any third party looking at that spam, be it a delivery consultant or an abuse desk worker will immediately decide the complaint is valid and the sender is most likely spamming.

Why might a legitimate company want to use images for CAN SPAM compliance? There are bad reasons, like not providing information that can be used for filtering. There are some less bad reasons, though. It may be that they want their entire email to be images, with no room for text. From a design perspective, I can understand this. Companies want their email to be like their print marketing, branded and consistent. Unfortunately, doing this makes the email look like spam.

Unfortunately, using images for CAN SPAM compliance information is what spammers do. Even if a company has the best intentions and isn’t trying to get away with anything, using an image where plain text will do makes that mail look like spam. It makes the sender look like they have something to hide and removes any benefit of the doubt that an abuse desk worker might give the sender.

Today I attempt to opt-out from a discussion list. It’s one I *thought* I had opted out of previously, but I could find no record of the request anywhere. OK. So I imagined unsubscribing, I’ll just unsub again and keep better records.

After digging through the headers, I find the unsub link and dutifully mail off my unsubscribe request. I then receive an email that requires I click on a link to confirm my unsub request. This causes me to grumble a bit. I have heard all the arguments about forged unsub requests and the various reasons this is good practice. I believe none of them. Requiring people to confirm an unsubscription request is bad practice.

In this case, the mailing list is a discussion list so there is no CAN SPAM violation. However, I know that some commercial mailing lists have also implemented confirm your opt-out request. For commercial mailing lists, this is a CAN SPAM violation. It’s also just plain rude. If someone says, “Stop!” then you should stop, no questions asked