Deliverability and the Law
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 – the first major law passed dictating regulations for email marketing, created by the FTC to protect people from malicious email. The act allows you to email any email address you want under five conditions (below) until they tell you to stop, a.k.a. unsubscribe. Then you have 10 days to stop emailing them before you’re considered spam (in the legal sense of the word). An important note for email marketers: CAN-SPAM regulations only apply to marketing emails. Transactional emails are exempt unless they have been deemed marketing content.
- Include a clear unsubscribe mechanism (like an opt-out link) in every email
- Accurately identify yourself, i.e. the From lines
- Accurate and relevant subject lines, i.e. clear intent
- Include a physical address (as of 2008’s revisions, this can be a P.O. Box)
- Don’t commit fraud
Privacy Policy – a policy on your website that includes information about how your customers’ and prospects’ information will be used. There should be a line in your privacy policy about how email information is collected and handled, along the lines of “We will not share, rent or sell your email address with any 3rd party.†(Also, be sure that’s true.)
Authentication – a ‘stamp’ on your email proving that you are who you say you are, according to the website at the domain you’re sending from, i.e. acme.com. The three main methods of authentication are Domain Keys, SenderID & SPF records.
Reputation – how email clients/ISPs like Gmail and Yahoo! see your domain and IP address. Generally, a good sender reputation will mean that you get delivered to the inbox and a poor sender reputation means you’ll get sent to spam or not get delivered at all.
ISP – Internet Service Provider, like Comcast or RoadRunner, often also the provider of a home email address.
Email Client – any inbox provider like Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo!, Comcast, etc.
Blocked – when your email isn’t being delivered because you’re suspected to be spam. The ISP or email client may tell you when they block you and they may not.
Blacklist – a list of domains or IP addresses that are suspected or confirmed to be fraudulent or spammy senders.
Feedback Loop – information provided by some email clients and ISPs letting email senders know which of their subscribers marked their email as spam, a.k.a. “complained.†This helps senders remove subscribers from their lists that no longer want to receive email and is important to a positive reputation.
Whitelist – a safe senders list, either defined by a subscriber, i.e. added to a Contact List or Safe Senders list, or by a third party provider like Return Path that vouches for senders after reviewing their send practices.
Seedlist – a list to be included your sends to monitor how an email looks and where it lands (inbox vs other). A seedlist may just be your internal email addresses or all your own personal addresses at each email client, or can be provided by a third party like Return Path for more granular monitoring.
Spam – legal definition: when a sender continues to email contacts that have unsubscribed or asked to be removed or does not comply with the five regulations outlined in the CAN-SPAM Act. Common definition: unsolicited and/or undesired email, meaning mail that a recipient didn’t sign up for, is surprised to get, or originally may have signed up for but no longer wants.
Spam Trap/Honey pot – email addresses that are used to trap spammers, either by creating an email address that exists but never takes an action to sign up or is listed on a website where only illegal email address harvesters would add it to their lists. NOTE: Some email clients will recycle old email addresses that have been dormant for a certain amount of time, close the accounts and then later re-open them as spam traps to catch those that keep old/unclean lists, and who are more likely spammers.
False Positive – when your valid email marketing message ends up in the spam folder/goes missing or gets marked as spam.
Phishing –an email scheme that looks like a real account email, for example an email about your bank account, but the links either go to a fake bank page where they try to get you to type your password so they can access your real account, or the link immediately downloads malicious software.
Spoofing – sending email with a forged email address, a tactic used by spammers and phishing emails. This is the biggest reason to use authentication measures – to assure email clients that you really are who you say you are.
Harvesting – an illegal method of growing your list, either by using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations, OR by scraping email addresses from a website listing.