
For example, in Canada, you’re allowed to send marketing emails if the email address is available publicly. Other non-GDPR countries also pass their email marketing laws, even if they aren’t as strict as GDPR policies.

You need clear consent before sending your marketing emails.

Nevertheless, that is illegal in GDPR-regulated countries. Now, whether you can send non-permission-based emails, implied or express permission emails, depends on who you are sending it to, and how you got their email.įor instance, in most states of the US, you’re allowed to send cold emails if you provide a way for the subscriber to opt out. They would prefer that you use their tools to send emails only to those who opted into your list in the first place. These email marketing services don’t want their brand names attached to spam emails. There is a reason that adding people who did not opt into your email list is against the terms of service of most email marketing services. Is sending emails without permission illegal? We often feel good about getting emails from brands that we have a relationship with, and annoyed (or worse) by marketing emails that we didn’t ask for. How do you feel if you receive a marketing email from one of your favorite brands or organizations? And how do you feel when you receive a marketing email from a brand that you haven’t heard of and signed up for? Non-permission-based email marketing should be avoided because even if your recipient opens the email, they will likely see it as spam, immediately delete it, and have negative feelings toward your brand. Whenever possible, express permission is the way to go because your recipients have already welcomed and expected your communication. You send content to a list of email addresses you received second hand (i.e., buy an email list or cold email people off of social media.) Express permission happens when you specifically ask for someone’s email address, and they give you permission to send them marketing emails - often via the use of a form or a checkbox. The most common example of implied permission is when someone fills out a contact form.Įxpress permission-based email marketing. A person gives you their email address but hasn’t stated that they want to receive marketing emails from you. Implied permission-based email marketing. There are several variations on permission-based email marketing, including: The beauty of well-executed permission-based email marketing is that you’re only collecting the email addresses of people who are genuinely excited about what you offer. By offering something of value to the audiences, something that they really want, they - in exchange - give you their email addresses and agree to let you send future correspondence about your brand, products, or services. Simply put, permission-based email marketing is sending communication only to people who have consented or opted-in to receiving content from your brand.īefore sending your messages, you need people’s consent and the messages need to be tailored towards their interests.

If not yet, let’s explore in this blog post! What is permission-based email marketing?

Have you ever heard of permission-based email marketing? However, there’s a way to make sure that you are on the right side of anti-spam laws. Therefore, sending mass emails to users’ inboxes, especially without permission, is a terrible idea - and poor practice, too. The same rule applies in the email marketing world. In the real world, breaking into someone’s house is illegal, and we all know that.
