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Legal Guidelines

Email marketing law boils down to these three key issues:

Gaining permission from contacts before sending email marketing materials
Providing a working unsubscribe or 'opt-out' feature in every message for those who no longer wish to receive them
Supplying honest content, contact and identity information

All of your email marketing campaigns should adhere to these three principles. Not only will it protect you from email marketing laws, it will result in popular, effective campaigns as well.

This page has been written as a brief overview of email marketing law. Divided into two parts: 'Permission-Based Email Marketing' and 'Email Sender & Recipient Details', it will clarify the grey areas and answer the most common questions. It will also provide links to useful legal resources at the bottom of the page.

Permission-based email marketing

Opt-in

All legitimate email marketing is permission based. You can only send marketing materials to customers who have given you their express permission by opting-in to your message.

This normally takes the form of:

A sign-up form where customers are asked to provide their name, email address and other optional details specifically to receive marketing communications (hard opt-in), OR
A tick box in an email or on a web page asking if they agree to receive information in addition to other services (soft opt-in)

The stronger the opt-in, the better. A double opt-in (where an auto-responder is sent to an address after a sign-up form has been filled in, asking the recipient to confirm they want to be added to the mailing list) is the strongest of all permissions gained. It shows an unequivocal interest in you marketing message and is likely to experience a stronger open rate.

An exception to this rule is where you've acquired a client or customer's email address during the course of a business negotiation or sale. It is acceptable to send these contacts emails for advertising similar or related goods and services, provided there is still a valid unsubscribe function. It is not acceptable to send email marketing materials to addresses gained during the course of holding sweepstakes or competitions where permission hasn't been granted.

Opt-out

Email marketing law dictates that all marketing emails should include a valid opt-out or 'unsubscribe' link so recipients can withdraw their permission easily. They should be easy to locate and simple to follow. Unsubscribe links that appear to have been concealed deliberately or are difficult to follow are likely to incur complaints and get you black-listed by ISPs.

Viral emails

A grey area in the subject of viral emails is, 'where does responsibility lie when a complaint is made against one: is it with the originator of the email or with those that forwarded it?'

If you have encouraged recipients to forward email marketing messages and they've then distributed it inappropriately, email marketing law states you may still have to assume responsibility unless you can prove you took adequate measures to avoid it.

You should advise recipients to forward the email only to people they know personally and are likely to find the email of interest. Also, consider including a link for recipients of forwarded emails to complain directly to you if they think the message has been sent inappropriately. It will be better for your sender reputation to deal with the complaint personally rather than have a complaint made against you.

Finally, you are not allowed to ask contacts on your mailing list for the details of people they've forwarded emails on to. Recipients of forwarded email must give you their permission before you can contact them with marketing materials.

Email sender & recipient details

Sender details

Email marketing law requires your identity as sender of an email to be clear when it arrives in recipients' inboxes. Send a test email to yourself and check your identity as sender is stated in the 'from' address.

You should also provide valid contact details for either yourself or the organisation you represent so that recipients can verify your identity. This will help to build trust between you and your contacts, making them more likely to consider you a friendly 'from' address and open your emails in future.

The commercial nature of the email should be made obvious in the subject line as it is more likely to get your emails opened and read by people who are interested in the message, and won't incur any complaints about deceptive practices.

Third party information

If you want to pass on mailing list information to third parties, you should do the following:

Obtain the contact's permission using a clearly worded tick box
State exactly what the information will be used for (e.g. the advertisement of related goods and services)
Ensure that the third party you're supplying email addresses to observes the same legal standards as yourself (e.g. provides valid unsubscribe links in their marketing messages)

Legal resources for email marketing law

We hope this information has answered the questions you had about email marketing and the law. However, if you are still unsure about any aspects, there are several governmental and industry bodies you can take your queries to, including:

Information Commisioner's Office
Direct Marketing Agency
Advertising Standard's Authority

Or why not talk to us? We can show you how to increase sales and stay on the right side of email marketing law at the same time with our seven years' worth of email marketing experience. After all, it's been in our best interests to follow the law, so we should know a thing or two about it.