The Federal Baseline for Commercial Email Marketing.
The CAN-SPAM Act establishes federal requirements for commercial email and gives recipients the right to stop receiving marketing email from a sender.
CAN-SPAM is not limited to large-scale email campaigns or traditional “spam.” Businesses that use commercial email should understand the law’s basic requirements and consider how those requirements affect their marketing activities.
Here are seven core requirements businesses should know.
1. Use Accurate Header Information. Commercial email must not use materially false or misleading header information. Sender and routing information should accurately identify the source of the message.
2. Do Not Use Deceptive Subject Lines. The subject line must not mislead recipients about a material fact concerning the contents or subject matter of the message.
3. Identify Commercial Messages as Advertising Where Required. Commercial messages generally must clearly and conspicuously identify themselves as advertisements or solicitations, subject to applicable exceptions, including where the recipient has provided prior affirmative consent.
4. Include a Valid Physical Postal Address. Commercial email must include a valid physical postal address for the sender.
5. Provide a Clear Opt-Out Mechanism. Recipients must be provided with a clear and conspicuous way to request that future commercial email stop.
6. Honor Opt-Out Requests. Qualifying opt-out requests generally must be honored within 10 business days, and the opt-out mechanism must remain capable of receiving requests for at least 30 days after the message is sent.
7. Understand Responsibility for Third-Party Email Marketing. Using another company to send commercial email does not necessarily eliminate the responsibility of the business whose products or services are being promoted.
CAN-SPAM Is Only Part of Email Marketing Compliance.
CAN-SPAM provides an important federal baseline, but it may not be the only requirement affecting an organization’s email marketing activities.
Depending on the business and campaign, additional considerations may involve state laws, privacy requirements, mailing-list practices, affiliates and vendors, advertising requirements, artificial intelligence, tracking technologies, and other compliance issues.
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Need Help Putting These Requirements Into Practice?
Understanding the requirements is the starting point. The more difficult challenge is determining how to incorporate them into your organization’s actual email marketing processes.
CLIClaw subscribers have access to operational email marketing resources designed to help organizations develop and document processes involving campaign review, sender practices, mailing lists, suppression, affiliates, vendors, monitoring, governance, and audit readiness.
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