B2B Affiliate World

     Building an email list is an important component of your business strategy if you want to develop a customer base that will buy from you on an ongoing basis. But there are rules that govern what you can and cannot do with email. You ignore these rules at your peril.

     The rules are found in the CAN-SPAM Act which, interestingly enough, doesn’t apply only to email. CAN-SPAM applies to all commercial messages. “Commercial Messages” are “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service.” This includes email that promotes content on commercial websites.

     To put it simply, all email must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.

     If you fail to comply you can be fined on each separate email, with penalties as high as $16,000. Thus even a small mailout that is not in compliance can be very expensive.

     Here’s a summary of the law’s main requirements, taken from the the Federal Trade Commission’s website.

1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
3. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
4. Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address.
5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request.
7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.