If you're like me, you have as many email addresses as pairs of shoes. Just keeping the inbox clean can be a daily challenge. To help manage them I find myself constantly unsubscribing from email lists that at one time filled a need but now just serve as clutter. After all, I can always subscribe again . No worries, right?
So, what does letting your audience unsubscribe have to do with staying off an Internet Service Provider's (ISP) blacklist? Glad you asked! Just the other day I tried to unsubscribe from a large corporation's email list but, to my surprise and chagrin, there was no way to do so. But of course there was a nice "Subscribe" link prominently displayed in the header. So, now my choices are either A), continue receiving email I don't want or B), mark it as SPAM. Hmmm? What to do? What to do?
Just imagine if this were your email campaign and others wanted off your mailing list. Every recipient that marks your message as SPAM pushes you ever closer to dreaded blacklist. Ouch! Avoid this potential painful lesson and stay compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act by having a "visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism" present in every email. It doesn't have to be the most prominent part of your message but it does need to be accessible.
Besides, do you really want to keep members on your email lists against their will? You're now paying good money to send an email to someone who is most likely going to delete it unread. Do the right thing. Let them unsubscribe. For more info on how to stay CAN-SPAM compliant read our free email marketing whitepaper Enterprise Email: Managing Risks and Liabilities.
Ryan Oldfather
Internet Marketing Manager
Having multiple databases for subscriber information can be cumbersome when attempting to keep all your data up-to-date. Keeping lists clean and current is a common reason clients use the ExactTarget API. Our API lets you update individual subscribers on a particular list, or you can update an entire list by using the API to kick off an import.
If it is a small set of subscribers that are being updated, the “single subscriber adds” or “subscriber edit calls” would suit you. This would allow you to update subscriber attribute values or even update subscriber’s status to unsubscribe.
If you have a larger set of subscribers (as many of you do!) using a batch import would be the best option. You can FTP the .csv or .txt file to the ExactTarget FTP location, and then use an API call to tell ExactTarget to import that file name into a particular list id. You can also indicate the import type just as you can through the user interface: add and update new and existing subscribers, add only new subscribers, or update only existing subscribers.
Alternately, you can use the ExactTarget API to pull subscriber lists back in an XML format. When pulling back a list of subscriber, the API lets you return all subscribers on that list, or to filter based on status. For example, you can pull subscribers in an Unsubscribed, Undeliverable, Held, or Unsubscribed status, which is helpful if you have a different (or multiple) subscriber databases. Pulling your subscriber lists out of our application means you can take advantage of ExactTarget’s powerful subscriber management tool and propagate that data across all databases for email marketing. By automating these pushes and pulls to run daily (or weekly depending on email frequency) it will reduce the time needed to manually update your subscriber lists and help you stay Can-SPAM compliant.
No matter where your data is, the ExactTarget API can help you build, maintain and clean your subscriber lists. And at the end of the day, that means you’re well on your way to building a better list.
Jessica Koch
Integration Consultant
If you were looking for some advice from someone who talks to companies sending email, and ISPs receiving email, all day long every day – today's your lucky day! I'm in the mood to share.
Today's advice is on what NOT to do; what NOT to say when talking to an ISP or other site that receives mail from you or your clients.
Don't say: My emails are CAN-SPAM compliant.
If you do say it: You will be scorned. You'll attract derision. At the very least, you're going to make an ISP or spam filterer roll their eyes at you.
Why? Because everybody sending any form of legitimate (or sometimes even illegitimate) mail is CAN-SPAM compliant. Citing this as a reason that an ISP should accept your emails is a lot like bragging that your email has a subject line.
“So?” The ISP employee will ask themselves. “Do they expect a gold star for doing what everybody else does?” From the ISP perspective, only bad guys (and misinformed good guys) tout their CAN-SPAM compliance.
CAN-SPAM allows you to send spam, if you follow certain rules. Right away, your announcement makes them wonder, are you a spammer? Bad guys tell them all the time, “I don't spam, because my mail is CAN-SPAM compliant.” That's practically a non-sequitur. It just doesn't make any sense. CAN-SPAM makes little reference to permission best practices. It practically allows spam. Telling the world that you shouldn't be considered a spammer because you comply is telling the world, “I am not a spammer because I comply with a law that allows me to send spam!” It's not a great message to send. It does not set you apart, and it doesn't convey the true adherence to opt-in best practices that ISPs require to ensure they'll accept your mail.
CAN-SPAM compliance is such a bare minimum as to be useless for describing your email practices. Your send practices have to be CAN-SPAM compliant, sure. But that's far from enough. It takes a lot more than just CAN-SPAM compliance to get an ISP to accept your mail.
ISPs block millions of CAN-SPAM compliant messages daily. They do not care that your messages are compliant with CAN-SPAM. They care only if your mail is desired by their customers, your recipients. That means opt-in; clear opt-in, with details. That means up front signup disclosure regarding who you are, what you'll be sending, and how often. It means proper management of bounces and unsubscribes. It means keeping your list engaged.
Even worse, when you mention CAN-SPAM to an anti-spam group, they usually stop responding to you, or refuse to remove you from a blacklist, or at the very least, they're going to laugh at you. They've heard it all before. After all, the vast majority of people who proudly announce their CAN-SPAM compliance are ... spammers! Don't sound like a spammer, and don't be a spammer.
People who aren't spammers instead say other, better things: My mail is opt-in. People sign up for my mailings directly here at this website (and include a link). I don't buy or sell lists. I don't bury the opt-in notice in a privacy policy. I clearly tell people what they're signing up for and how often I'm going to send it to them.
That's what you need to say, and that's what you need to do.
If my inbox is any indication, list growth was a common goal set for this year. In the past week, I have been asked for information on email appends and other list growth tactics by several clients a day.
Most email append providers offer what we call an "opt-out" email append service. The process looks something like this:
1) Client provides a file containing street addresses of customers or prospects that is matched against a database. Where a match to the client's list is found, the email address is appended to the record.
2) An email is then sent to the individuals on the newly created list with the option to opt out. (Interestingly, many email append companies advertise the low number of opt-outs that are received... but more on that in a minute)
3) After allowing some time for people to opt-out (typically a week), two files are returned to the customer. The first file is a list of successfully appended and delivered emails. The second is a list of opt-out emails to be used for suppression.
Cost
We have worked with several third parties on email append projects with clients. Pricing is competitive in this industry with rates from reputable email append providers starting around $0.50 per appended email address with significant discounts based on volume. Pay attention, since there are hundreds of companies that advertise significantly lower rates. If someone quotes you rates starting at $0.05, or even $0.10, per email append... RUN!
Issues with Opt-out Append
1) Those low opt-out rates are not a good thing.
One prominent player in the email append space advertises, "Less than one-fourth of one percent choose to opt out." No one should be impressed by this since opt-out rates are always low. The industry wide average opt-out rate is about one-tenth of one percent. So, quoting one-fourth of one percent suggests that their average opt-out rate is 2.5 times higher than the industry averages. Not good!
2) Quantity, not quality.
The opt-out approach to email appends provides no incentives for the email append provider to ensure that the names will be responsive. They get paid by the address they provide back to you, regardless of whether or not the address is responsive. While reputable providers do have an interest in repeat business and referrals, which is some incentive, the fact still remains that you pay for the email addresses you receive back at the end of this process. The only requirements are that the email address is deliverable and they did not opt-out to a single email sent to them as part of the process. These are embarassingly low thresholds. In my experience, addresses acquired through opt-out append are less responsive than new registrants from other sources. At least part of this can be attributed to “recipient dilution”, which you can read more about in Al’s recent post. At the end of the day, you just end up paying for a lot of deadweight.
3) "Opt-out" is not permission.
Why is this important? Because lists that are not permission-based result in higher unsubscribe rates, higher percentage of people clicking this "This is SPAM" button, and lower open, click-through, and conversion rates. These factors lead to problems with your online reputation, and thus, your ability to get your email delivered. Just because someone does not unsubscribe or report you as SPAM the first time you send an email to them (as part of the opt-out append process) is no indication that they will not do so later. The best predictor of someone reporting you as SPAM is the level of permission you obtained when they were added to your list. "Opt-out" lists, while legal under CAN-SPAM, do not meet the demands of most ISPs receiving your email, significantly increase the likelihood that your email will be blocked, and make it much more difficult to get your email unblocked.
"But all the email addresses are 'double opt-in'!" is a common protest when we bring up this point. Well, yes... maybe at some time they double opted-in for something. But, they never opted-in to anything for you! Permission in marketing is non-transferable.
For that reason, ExactTarget is a permission-based ESP. All ExactTarget clients sign an agreement agreeing that the lists they provide are permission-based and are not permitted to send to opt-out lists using our system.
4) Opt-out append leaves a negative impression with some recipients.
I have yet to find a way to measure the financial impact of the negative impression that is left in the minds of unwilling recipients of appended emails, but there is no question that there is a dark side. Forrester provides excellent insights based on a survey they conducted in August 2004. "Nearly 50% of likely email subscribers wouldn't mind and would read appended emails from a cataloger. However, appended email blatantly offends between 25% to 39% of consumers, depending on the type of business sending it. And it has hidden risks. About 20% of consumers say that even though they read appended emails, they find them annoying. Another 12% say that although they don't unsubscribe, appended emails annoy them."
5) Results are spotty at best.
MarketingShepra's 2007 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide indicates that of marketers who have tried email appends, more than half said it either didn't work or it wasn't worth the effort.
Part II coming soon... email appends done right!
Initially, I let it slide. I even got interested in doing some last minute online shopping today and clicked through on a link in today's email from Sam's Club. I did my shopping and at checkout I was faced with the following, oh so friendly (yet somewhat expected) message: "You must be a logged in member to purchase." Well, you guessed it, this means becoming a member of Sam's Club, membership fees and all.
What I don't get is why? Of course, I understand how Sam's Club works, but I am a Costco member. I don't want to pay another membership fee to Sam's Club. My why refers to WHY engage in such horrible practices?
- Sam's Club started emailing me without my permission
- WalMart shared my data in (seeming) violation of their own privacy practices
- I am not a Sam's Club member, it seems like they should have checked into that first
- Sam's Club won't let me buy online without becoming a member of their club
- Why put both brands at such risk??
There is a lesson here for the rest of us. The allure of a "bigger list" is always looming. Companies often see taking on their sister companies' lists as one way of growing their list. This is what Sam's Club apparently did, they simply took the WalMart list and called it their own without ever asking me if this was what I wanted. If this is something you are considering, know that lack of planning around three areas is likely to get you in trouble:
- Do the people you are bringing into your program from a sister company WANT to be in the program? Simple solution... run an opt-in campaign. Tell the people you are inviting how you got their name, what you plan to offer them, and ask for positive opt-in.
- Does the audience you are inviting even make sense? Sam's is sending me emails and I can't even buy from them until I become a member. In other sceanrios I have seen, the target demographics of the two sister companies are completely different... why send email to people who aren't likely to (or worse... can't) buy your products. It is a ROI loser!
- Don't violate your own privacy policies. CAN-SPAM is one thing, violating your own stated policies is, at minumum, a PR nightmare waiting to happen. At worst, it is a legal nightmare.
As for Sam's Club and WalMart. You need to update your privacy policy... especially if you want my trust as you so emphatically claim in your privacy policy:
We realize that making purchases at Walmart.com, or any other web site, requires trust on your part. We value your trust very highly, and pledge to you, our customer, that we will work to protect the security and privacy of any personal information you provide to us and that your personal information will only be used as set forth in this Policy. This includes your name, address, phone number, email address, and credit card or checking account information, in addition to any other personal information that can be linked to you, personally.
