What are the best practices for sending legally mandated email notifications?

Key findings

• ISP communication: Proactive outreach to ISPs is crucial for mandated mailings. They can often make accommodations for such essential communications, helping to prevent deliverability issues.
• Dedicated infrastructure: Using dedicated IPs and a specific domain (or subdomain) solely for legal or mandated emails is recommended to isolate potential deliverability impact from regular sending activities. This can help to protect your primary domain's sender reputation.
• Gradual sending: Splitting the send into smaller chunks over an extended period (e.g., several weeks) minimizes sudden volume spikes that could trigger spam filters or lead to blocklisting. This is a common strategy for large email campaigns.
• Audience segmentation: Prioritize sending to the most engaged and recent subscribers first. Gradually extend to older, less engaged segments, accepting that some older addresses may result in bounces or complaints.
• Legal requirements: Courts or regulatory bodies may mandate contacting the entire list, even with high bounce expectations. ISPs are often aware of this and can factor it into their filtering decisions, especially if pre-notified. The M3AAWG Best Practices for Mandated Email offers comprehensive guidance.

Key considerations

• Domain choice: A new subdomain of an existing, reputable domain is often the preferred option. It leverages some of the parent domain's trust while isolating the potentially risky mandated sends. A completely new domain lacks reputation and may face significant inboxing issues due to its age and unknown sending patterns.
• IP warming (or lack thereof): While regular IP warming applies to marketing, ISPs may manage dedicated IPs for mandated sends differently, reducing the risk of them going cold between infrequent mandated sends, provided they are notified.
• Authentication: Ensure proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) for any chosen domain or subdomain to establish sender legitimacy. Learn more about DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.
• Content clarity: The message content should be clear, concise, and focused solely on the notification, avoiding any promotional material to minimize spam complaints. Adherence to regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act is paramount, even for transactional messages.

Key opinions

• Reputation risk: Using an existing transactional domain for a massive mandated send poses a significant risk to its established good reputation, as it could be adversely affected by higher bounce rates and complaints. Similarly, a new domain starts with no reputation and might be seen as suspicious by ISPs.
• Subdomain preference: A new subdomain is generally considered the best compromise. It inherits some trust from the main domain while isolating the potential negative impact of the mandated send. This helps maintain the health of your primary sending domain for regular emails, an important part of consistent sender identity.
• Slow and steady rollout: Breaking down large mandated sends into smaller, manageable chunks over a period of weeks (e.g., 14 days or more) is highly recommended. This strategy minimizes volume shocks and allows for better monitoring of deliverability. This is vital for avoiding deliverability issues.
• Segmentation strategy: Prioritize sending to the most recently engaged subscribers first, then progressively move to older, less engaged segments. This helps to manage spam complaints and blocklists, and recognizes that at some point, older, garbage addresses will likely be blocked.

Key considerations

• Domain age recognition: ISPs, including Gmail, are sophisticated enough to factor in a domain's age when assessing its reputation. A brand new domain can look suspicious, regardless of the sender's intent.
• Legal mandates vs. deliverability: There can be tension between legal requirements to reach an entire list and the practical realities of email deliverability. While legal teams might push for a full send, deliverability professionals need to advise on the potential consequences and best mitigation strategies.
• Content focus: For notification emails, the content should focus on a single, clear idea, avoiding promotional elements that could confuse recipients or trigger spam filters, as noted by Stripo.email's notification email advice.
• Sender address best practices: Using a professional email address and avoiding generic no-reply@ addresses can improve trust, as highlighted by Merge.email's guidance on cold emailing regulations.

Key opinions

• ISP accommodations: ISPs are willing and able to make special accommodations for legally mandated mail, provided they are notified preemptively. This helps manage expectations and prevent unintended blocking. For more on how ISPs manage emails, see our guide on why emails go to spam.
• Dedicated infrastructure for mandated mail: It is strongly recommended to use dedicated IPs and domains specifically for legal and other mandated mailings. This practice isolates the reputation impact of these sends from regular marketing or transactional emails.
• Anticipate bulk filtering: It is normal for mandated emails, especially to very large or old lists, to be subjected to bulk filtering by ISPs due to user complaints. ISPs can, however, provide some assistance if forewarned. Even with the best practices, some emails will inevitably be sent to a blocklist.
• Domain and IP sharing: Dedicated IPs can be shared across multiple customers as long as they are used for the same category of mail (e.g., all mandated mailings). This helps maintain a consistent sending profile for that specific type of traffic.

Key considerations

• Pre-send notification: The ability of ISPs to manage dedicated IPs for infrequent mandated sends (preventing them from going cold) is conditional on prior notification. They need to know the sending plans before the emails are sent.
• DKIM signing: Always DKIM sign mandated emails and inform the ISP of the domain being used. Proper authentication is a foundational aspect of email deliverability. For general best practices in email domain authentication, consider reviewing our resources.
• Unrelated domains for extreme cases: In extreme scenarios, such as data breach emails to hundreds of millions of recipients, using a completely unrelated domain might be considered to absorb the anticipated negative deliverability fallout and protect the brand's primary sending domains.
• No universal answer: While there are best practices, there isn't a single universal solution for every legally mandated email scenario. The optimal approach often depends on the specifics of the send, including list size and legal requirements.

Key findings

• Legal preparation: Preparation for sending mandated emails should include having all legal requirements in order, identifying recipients and timing, and selecting appropriate sending platforms. The M3AAWG Best Practices document is a key reference.
• Accurate information: Mandated emails must not use false or misleading header information or deceptive subject lines. The sender's physical address must be included, as required by the CAN-SPAM Act.
• Opt-out provisions: For messages that are not purely transactional (e.g., service updates with a promotional element), recipients must be told how to opt out, and all opt-out requests must be honored promptly, as per TermsFeed's legal requirements guide. This is critical for email unsubscribe compliance.
• GDPR consent: The GDPR generally requires explicit consent for marketing emails and clear information about identity and intent. While mandated notifications are often exempt from explicit consent, understanding GDPR principles for data handling is important, as outlined by Usercentrics on email marketing compliance.

Key considerations

• Transactional vs. marketing: Distinguish between truly transactional or legally mandated emails (which might not require explicit consent or an unsubscribe link under certain laws) and marketing emails. The legal obligations differ significantly.
• Disclaimers: Email disclaimers can be important for ensuring compliance and protecting liability, especially for sensitive communications. Resources like Exclaimer's guide on email disclaimers provide insight into their importance.
• Data privacy: Compliance with email privacy policies and regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) extends to all emails, including mandated notifications, particularly regarding how recipient data is handled and stored.
• Clear sender identity: Ensure that the email clearly identifies the sender. This is a common legal requirement across various jurisdictions and helps recipients trust the message, reducing the likelihood of it being marked as spam or blocked. Learn more about best practices for email sender addresses.