An overview of spam rules for B2B marketers
LimeLeads takes spam issues very seriously. Our stated goal is to modernize the email marketing industry and, as such, we take a stance against abusive individuals and organizations.
Overview of CAN-SPAM
In 2003, Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act, a federal law that defines and regulates the sending of unsolicited commercial email. This law became effective on January 1, 2004.
CAN-SPAM does not prohibit the sending of unsolicited email for commercial purposes. It simply requires that companies immediately honor any and all opt out requests from email recipients. CAN-SPAM also provides us with a simple to follow 8-point compliance checklist:1. Don’t use false or misleading header information – your FROM, REPLY-TO, and domain information must be legitimate and actually identify the real sender of the message (sections 4(a), 5(a)(1), and 6).
2. Don’t use misleading subject lines – this is self-explanatory, and rarely an issue for B2B marketers (section 5(a)(1) and 5(a)(2)).
3. Tell recipients where you are located – all emails must contain your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered (section 5(a)(3) and 5(a)(5)(A)(iii)).
4. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you – include a clear and conspicuous unsubscribe mechanism in every email (section 5(a)(5)(A)(ii)).
5. Identify the message as an advertisement/solicitation – the law does not state how or where this identification must be made, and thus provides a lot of leeway. This rarely a problem for B2B marketers, as our messages to prospects would be difficult to confuse with anything other than a commercial message. (section 5(a)(5)(A)(i)).
LimeLeads cannot offer any legal advice. Luckily, there are fantastic resources online to refer to:
The FTC’s official CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Businesss
True Influence – Business Brief: CAN-SPAM and the Opt-In Misunderstanding (8-point checklist)
Harvard Business Review – B2Bs: Your Email Policy Could Be Hurting You
To date we haven’t had any major complaints from the thousands of companies using LimeLeads. On behalf of the team we ask you to take the time to understand the laws in your country. We hope this helps!
– The team at LimeLeads
