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 CAN-SPAM alters e-mail list rental practices February 9, 2004 BY REGINA BRADY The dust is settling from the whirlwind passage of the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which went into effect Jan. 1. While most marketers have come to grips with the new law's impact on ongoing communications, many may not realize its requirements have a monumental impact on e-mail prospecting. Here's a look at the major changes and thoughts on how e-mail list rental practices will change in the longer term. The marketer is the sender. In e-mail prospecting, the sender is now defined as the marketer whose "product, service or Internet Web site is advertised or promoted by the message." This represents a sea change from the "old" days of 2003 when the industry standard was that the marketing message came from the list owner, which obtained permission to send third-party offers. To allay spam complaints there will still be prominent explanation in the message header or footer explaining why the recipient is receiving the message. The opt-out link is to the marketer. The law states that in every commercial (marketing) e-mail "there must be the clear and conspicuous opportunity ... to decline to receive further commercial electronic mail messages from the sender." That means the recipient is opting out of future messages from the marketer. Now, most list owners require that the marketer provide an opt-out link that goes directly to the marketer's unsubscribe form. This is sensible. It is onerous and potentially dangerous for the list owner to collect this information and be in legal compliance. Marketers must be sure their opt-out link works for at least 30 days after the prospect message is sent and must process opt-outs within 10 working days. Marketers must include a postal address in each e-mail. This is a modest change to the message content and already is being implemented on all retention e-mails. It is easy to comply with this change. No prospect e-mail should go to an e-mail address that has previously opted out from the marketer. This is the thorniest change mandated by the federal law. The premise of CAN-SPAM is that individuals who have indicated they no longer wish to receive a marketer's message should have their request honored. To be compliant, a marketer must now provide the list owner with an opt-out suppression file that the list owner must match against all individuals on its list. If an e-mail address is found to be on the marketer's opt-out file, the name must be deleted from the mailing. So, what does this mean for marketers? You must build an internal suppression file of all opt-outs. You must provide this file to each list owner whose file you wish to use, and you must provide this on a timely basis before the mailing. Marketers affected least by this requirement are those whose opt-out pages allow specific opt-out choices. So, what's the future for e-mail prospecting? In the short term, prices will increase. List owners now must do additional processing to prepare any order. This charge is reasonable since it represents an additional burden on list owners. In the longer term, expect to see "traditional" merge-purge services finally put in place for e-mail. Up until now, marketers had no way to ensure individuals received only one prospecting message since merge-purge was virtually non-existent and each mailing was sent by the list owner. List owners were compelled as the sender and the entity with responsibility for immediate processing of opt-outs to handle all aspects of e-mail prospecting. Now, the marketer is the sender and also the recipient of opt-outs, so we should see the dynamics change. It will now be practical for marketers to do a merge-purge on all e-lists using their global opt-out file to ensure only interested individuals receive a prospecting or lead-generation e-mail. This allows marketers to ensure that only one message is sent to one individual. Regina Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions, a direct and e-mail marketing consultancy. She can be reached at reginabrady@att.net. Return to Articles | ||||||||||||
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