Compliance with CAN-SPAM Act 2003 is important before designing and running any email marketing campaigns for US based targets. Violation of the Act could lead to legal and financial penalties, and result in erosion of brand value. Hence it is important to ensure that all campaigns adhere to the following 3 basic types of compliance:
Unsubscribe Compliance
- A visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism is present in all emails.
- Consumer opt-out requests are honored within 10 days.
- Opt-out lists also known as “Suppression lists” are only used for compliance purposes.
Content Compliance
- Accurate From lines (including “friendly Froms“)
- Relevant subject lines (relative to offer in body content and not deceptive)
- A legitimate physical address of the publisher and/or advertiser is present.
- A label is present if the content is adult.
Sending Behavior Compliance
- A message cannot be sent through an open relay
- A message cannot be sent to a harvested email address
- A message cannot contain a false header
There are no restrictions against a company emailing its existing customers or anyone who has inquired about its products or services, even if these individuals have not given permission, as these messages are classified as “relationship” messages under CAN-SPAM. However, it is considered a good practice to get the opt-in from the target audience.
An email campaign manager should ensure that all the above guidelines are adhered to and provide visual confirmation and preferably a checklist to eliminate mistakes.
Deskera CRM has an inbuilt Email Campaign Management system which provides pre-configured templates that are compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act. It also provides a check for compliance after the campaign is designed but has not been executed.
In addition, it has robust reporting features which give you the complete information on the effectiveness of each campaign, enabling informed decision making.
Please visit Deskera CRM to know more about the Campaign Management system.
