Summary
Adding email addresses to accounts and marketing campaigns without consent is a detrimental practice that leads to numerous issues, impacting deliverability, sender reputation, and legal compliance. This practice violates regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM, damages email list quality, and increases the risk of spam complaints and blacklisting. The consensus is that explicit consent is crucial for ethical and effective email marketing.
Key findings
- Regulatory Violations: Adding addresses without consent violates GDPR and CAN-SPAM, potentially leading to significant penalties.
- Damaged Sender Reputation: Low engagement and high spam complaints stemming from unconsented addresses degrade sender reputation and increase the risk of blacklisting.
- Deliverability Issues: Unconsented emails often result in low engagement, high bounce rates, and poor deliverability, impacting overall campaign effectiveness.
- Security Vulnerabilities: Adding addresses without confirmation introduces security vulnerabilities and the potential for abuse or unintended consequences.
- Spam Traps: Unconsented email practices increase the risk of hitting spam traps, which severely damages sender reputation.
- List Bombing: Adding addresses without consent can lead to list bombing, overwhelming inboxes and generating numerous complaints.
- Poor List Quality: Unconsented contacts result in poor email list quality, leading to low ROI and ineffective marketing campaigns.
- Unsolicited Emails Marked as Spam: Sending emails to recipients who have not opted-in increases the likelihood of them marking the emails as spam, which negatively affects deliverability.
- Purchased Lists are Detrimental: Using purchased, rented, scraped, appended, or co-registration lists is detrimental and can cause severe deliverability problems.
Key considerations
- Obtain Explicit Consent: Always obtain explicit and provable consent from individuals before adding them to email lists to ensure compliance with regulations and ethical practices.
- Practice Permission-Based Marketing: Implement permission-based marketing strategies to build trust and foster long-term customer relationships.
- Maintain List Hygiene: Regularly clean email lists to remove inactive subscribers and addresses that generate bounces or spam complaints.
- Comply with Regulations: Adhere to the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR, providing clear opt-out mechanisms and respecting user data privacy rights.
- Secure Address Confirmation: Implement secure address confirmation processes to prevent abuse and ensure that recipients genuinely want to receive emails.
- Monitor Sender Reputation: Regularly monitor sender reputation using tools and feedback loops to identify and address potential issues proactively.
- Avoid Purchased Lists: Never use purchased, rented, scraped, appended, or co-registration lists.
- Permission Reminder: Remind subscribers how and when they signed up for your list to increase engagement and reduce complaints.
What email marketers say
11 marketer opinions
Adding email addresses to accounts and marketing campaigns without explicit consent poses significant risks and violates established best practices, regulations, and ethical guidelines. This practice leads to deliverability issues, damages sender reputation, and can result in legal penalties. Permission-based marketing is crucial for maintaining a healthy email ecosystem and avoiding negative consequences.
Key opinions
- Deliverability Issues: Sending emails to unconsented addresses results in low engagement, high bounce rates, and increased spam complaints, directly harming email deliverability.
- Damaged Sender Reputation: ISPs monitor engagement metrics and spam complaints. Adding unconsented contacts degrades sender reputation, potentially leading to blacklisting.
- Legal and Regulatory Violations: Adding email addresses without consent violates the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR, potentially resulting in substantial fines and legal repercussions.
- Spam Traps: Unconsented email practices increase the risk of hitting spam traps, further damaging sender reputation.
- Poor List Quality: Adding unconsented contacts degrades email list quality, leading to low ROI and ineffective marketing campaigns.
- GDPR Compliance: Demonstrable consent is required to comply with GDPR. Adding contacts without it is a breach.
- Sender Score: Sender scores are impacted by low engagement stemming from adding unconsented contacts.
- Violation of CAN-SPAM: Sending without permission violates the CAN-SPAM Act.
Key considerations
- Obtain Explicit Consent: Always obtain explicit consent from individuals before adding them to marketing lists. Implement double opt-in processes to ensure verifiable consent.
- Practice Segmentation: Segment email lists based on user interests and behaviors to send targeted and relevant content, improving engagement.
- Maintain List Hygiene: Regularly clean email lists by removing inactive subscribers and addresses that generate bounces or spam complaints.
- Comply with Regulations: Adhere to the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR by providing clear opt-out mechanisms and respecting user data privacy rights.
- Monitor Sender Reputation: Regularly monitor sender reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Sender Score to identify and address potential issues proactively.
- Permission Reminder: Remind subscribers how and when they signed up for your list to increase engagement and reduce complaints.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Litmus responds poor email list quality, caused by adding unconsented contacts, leads to low ROI and deliverability problems. Clean and engaged lists are crucial for successful email marketing campaigns.
23 Jan 2022 - Litmus
Marketer view
Email marketer from HubSpot shares that GDPR compliance requires demonstrable consent. Adding contacts without consent opens you up to large GDPR penalties and fines.
23 Aug 2021 - HubSpot
What the experts say
4 expert opinions
Adding email addresses to accounts and marketing campaigns without consent can lead to various problems, including the risk of being marked as spam, deliverability issues, and potential security vulnerabilities. Practices such as list bombing and using purchased or scraped lists are not advisable and can damage deliverability.
Key opinions
- Unsolicited Emails Marked as Spam: Sending emails to recipients who have not opted in increases the likelihood of them marking the emails as spam, which negatively affects deliverability.
- Potential Security Vulnerabilities: Adding addresses without confirmation creates security risks and opens the door to potential abuse or unintended consequences.
- List Bombing: Adding addresses without consent can result in list bombing, leading to high bounce rates and spam complaints.
- Purchased Lists Cause Deliverability Issues: Using purchased, rented, scraped, appended, or co-registration lists is detrimental and can cause severe deliverability problems.
Key considerations
- Obtain Consent: Always obtain explicit consent from recipients before adding them to marketing campaigns or accounts.
- Avoid Purchased Lists: Refrain from using purchased, rented, scraped, appended, or co-registration lists, as they can severely damage deliverability.
- Secure Address Confirmation: Implement secure address confirmation processes to prevent abuse and ensure that recipients genuinely want to receive emails.
- Monitor Bounce and Complaint Rates: Continuously monitor bounce rates and spam complaints to identify and address any issues related to unauthorized address additions promptly.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise responds purchased, rented, scraped, appended, and co-reg lists are not okay, and are likely to cause deliverability issues.
5 Jun 2022 - Word to the Wise
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise shares one of the main issues with ESPs adding addresses without consent is list bombing. Where if someone enters lots of peoples details to get them on a list, the first you know is lots of bounces and spam complaints.
11 Aug 2021 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Adding email addresses to accounts and marketing campaigns without consent is a violation of key regulations such as GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act. These regulations emphasize the need for explicit permission and ethical data collection practices. ESPs and marketers must prioritize obtaining clear, provable consent to avoid legal issues and maintain trust.
Key findings
- GDPR Violation: Adding individuals to marketing lists without affirmative consent violates GDPR, which requires explicit consent for processing personal data.
- CAN-SPAM Violation: Sending emails without prior consent and without an easily accessible opt-out mechanism violates the CAN-SPAM Act.
- Ethical Concerns: Ethical data collection and email marketing practices emphasize the importance of obtaining explicit consent from individuals before adding them to marketing lists.
- Account Suspension: Importing contacts into ESPs like Mailchimp without consent can lead to account suspension and other legal issues.
Key considerations
- Obtain Explicit Consent: Always obtain explicit and provable consent from individuals before adding them to email lists, adhering to GDPR and CAN-SPAM guidelines.
- Provide Opt-Out Mechanisms: Ensure all marketing emails include a clear and conspicuous way for recipients to opt-out of future communications, as mandated by the CAN-SPAM Act.
- Document Consent: Keep records of when and how consent was obtained to demonstrate compliance with data privacy regulations.
- Prioritize Ethical Practices: Adopt ethical data collection practices that prioritize user trust and comply with regulations to foster long-term customer relationships.
Technical article
Documentation from DMA emphasises the importance of ethical data collection and email marketing practices. It recommends obtaining explicit consent from individuals before adding them to marketing lists to maintain trust and comply with regulations.
26 Jul 2024 - DMA.org.uk
Technical article
Documentation from GDPR.eu explains that the GDPR requires explicit consent for processing personal data, including email addresses. Adding someone to a marketing list without their affirmative consent is a violation of GDPR.
23 Aug 2021 - GDPR.eu
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