Inman

E-mail marketers struggle with spam compliance

More than one-third of e-mail marketing offers tracked by JupiterResearch are not compliant with the federal Can-Spam Act. In the March report JupiterResearch tracked more than 50 leading e-mail marketers in a variety of industries, including retail, travel, media and financial services, to measure how well these companies complied with the new federal Can-Spam Act.

 

While the majority of companies provided a working opt-out mechanism, the research found that many marketers are challenged to meet the finer points of the federal law.

 

Only 64 percent of the commercial electronic mail messages tracked included the street address of the sender, which is required by the law. Nearly one-quarter of marketers continued to send e-mail marketing messages after opt-outs were submitted and 16 percent sent messages after the legally prescribed 10-business-day period.

 

When asked in a JupiterResearch executive survey about their opt-out suppression frequency, one-quarter of marketers surveyed were found to be at high risk of breaking Can-Spam guidelines, indicating their opt-out suppressions occurred monthly, quarterly or never.

 

“E-mail marketers that are not complying with these most basic aspects of the law are leaving their company unnecessarily exposed to the risk of legislation, fines and doing what amounts to a virtual high wire act without a net,” said David Daniels, research director at JupiterResearch.

 

JupiterResearch advised marketers to diligently scrutinize offers, adopt automatic opt-out suppression routines and accept opt-out requests to sending addresses to mitigate risks and fully comply with the law.

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