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The Opt-Out Process

Even if you follow all of the list acquisition and management best practices, you can undermine all of your hard work if you don’t balance these processes with an easy way for subscribers to opt-out of your lists.  As mentioned above, it’s not the quantity of addresses on your list that determines the success of your campaigns; it’s the quality of the list.  Subscribers’ needs change over time and list churn is a regular part of the email marketing process.  You can keep the churn to a minimum by sending targeted, relevant emails to your subscribers using features like dynamic profiling and dynamic content, but you will still encounter subscribers that want to be removed from your lists.  And you need to make the unsubscribe process as quick and easy as it was for those subscribers to opt-in to your lists.

First and foremost, you must abide by the CAN-SPAM regulations outlined above or your emails will be in violation and you will be subject to penalties and fines.  Here are some other best practices you can follow to make the process easier for your subscribers:

• Include the unsubscribe link at the top of the email – don’t bury it in the footer where it might be missed.  If people can’t find the unsubscribe link, they’ll use the Report Spam button instead
• Implement a single click unsubscribe process instead of requiring subscribers to enter their email addresses
• Include a way for subscribers to opt-in to your lists again in case they accidently removed themselves from your list
• Set up a valid email address subscribers can reply to in order to unsubscribe from your list and monitor it closely.  According to CAN-SPAM you have 10 days to remove the subscribers from your list but it’s better to remove them immediately
• Remember that your opt-out mechanism must be able to process requests for at least 30 days after the message was deployed
• Always always always use a suppression list

For more information on list management tactics, watch Listrak’s webinar “List Management Strategies for Email Marketers” or contact one of our email marketing experts today.