Testing your opt-out process

When was the last time you tested your opt-out process? Did you just click the unsubscribe link to see if the page loaded? How did you confirm the email address was unsubscribed?
If you have a Gmail account, Gmail allows you to use unlimited aliases. For example, if your Gmail email address is josh@gmail.com, you can add the + symbol to your email address to create an alias. An example of an alias would be josh+test1@gmail.com. Sending an email to josh+test1@gmail.com gets delivered to the mailbox for josh@gmail.com.
On your next mailing add a Gmail alias email address like josh+unsubtest06192015@gmail.com to be included with the mailing. After sending the mailing, find the email sent to the alias address and go through the unsubscribe process.  After unsubscribing, log into your ESP or mailing software to confirm that the alias email address was successfully unsubscribed. Testing the unsubscribe process ensures that the landing page for the unsubscribe is working and that your ESP is registering the unsubscribe request.
A few reminders about your unsubscribe page:

  • The unsubscribe link shouldn’t automatically remove the subscriber as some filtering devices scan the links within the message and may automatically unsubscribe the user.
  • Brand the unsubscribe landing page to be similar to your website or the email message.
  • Include the ability to unsubscribe without asking for additional information as this is law in many jurisdictions, including the US.
  • Unsubscribe links must remain active for at least 30 days after a mailing, and the longer the unsubscribe link remains active the better.
  • Provide alternatives to just unsubscribing such as allowing the recipient to put a pause on receiving mail from you or reducing the number of messages they receive from you.

Related Posts

Where did you get my address?

Both Steve and I are trying to get answers from Amazon, Target and Epsilon about how Target acquired our Amazon specific email addresses. Target phone reps told us the mail we got was a phish, Epsilon is refusing to acknowledge Target is a customer and Amazon has promised us “they’re looking into it.”
Meanwhile, an address of mine was transferred from one customer of an ESP to another customer of the same ESP. At first I was told I must have signed up for the mail; as proof I was provided with the data I supposedly signed up. When I explained no that wasn’t true, the abuse desk told me they had discovered there was a mistake and that “These two clients use the same 3rd party ESP and they had mixed the files.” I’m not actually sure who “they” refers to, but as long as they’ve untangled the files I am not going to argue. The sad part is that it took an escalation to Return Path (the IP sending the mail is certified) to get anyone to actually respond to my report of an address given to Company A being mailed by Company B.
On the flip side, mail showed up today that actually had a link for “how was I added?”
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When you click on the link it shows exactly where the address came from and when it was added to the list.
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It would be great if more companies provided this information to their recipients. I think it would probably decrease spam reports and make consumers feel more comfortable about how companies are collecting and using information.

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My holiday email prediction

I was on IRC with a group of ESP delivery specialists last week and one of them was looking for something to blog about. I suggested a list of holiday predictions. Not that I have a huge number of holiday predictions, but I did come up with one.
During the holiday season at least one retailer will decide that they have information so important that they will ignore my opt-0ut request and add me to their holiday blast list.
So what’s your holiday email prediction?
 

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Unsubscribing is hard

A comment came through on my post about unsubscribing that helpfully told me that the problem was I didn’t unsubscribe correctly.
As you know, there are usually two unsubscribe options in many of the bulk senders emails. Are you unsubscribing from the global or the offer unsub? Unless you are unsubscribing from both, you will still be on the lists.
To address the underlying question, I did unsubscribe from both links for those very few mails in my mailbox that had double unsubscribe links. I know that some spammers use multiple unsubscribe links in their emails. We routinely recommend clients not use 3rd party mailers with double unsubscribes because it’s a clear sign the 3rd party mailer is a spammer.
Given the presence of double unsubscribes I generally assume the point is to confuse recipients. By having multiple unsubscribe links the spammers can ignore unsubscribe requests with the excuse that “you unsubscribed from the wrong link.” Plausible deniability at its finest. The best part for the spammer is that it doesn’t matter which unsubscribe link the recipient picks, it will always be the Wrong One.
I’ve been dealing with spam since the late 90s, and have been professionally consulting on delivery for over 14 years. If I can’t figure out what link to use to unsubscribe, how is anyone supposed to figure out how to make mail stop?
In some cases, the unsubscribe links admitted that the address I was trying to unsubscribe was already removed from the list. They helpfully refused to let me unsubscribe again through their form. But they offered a second way to unsubscribe.
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The address I was unsubscribing was the same one I was unsubscribing. Some of the emails even helpfully told me “this email was sent to trapaddress@” which is the address in the above screenshot.
I’m sure my friend will come back and comment with “why didn’t you unsubscribe by forwarding the email?” Because I was spending enough time unsubscribing as it was, and I didn’t want to have to try and navigate yet another unsubscribe process. I knew they weren’t going to stop mailing me, no matter what hoops I jumped through.
I’m not saying that all unsubscribe processes are broken, there are millions and millions of emails sent every day with simple and effective unsubscribe links. What I am saying is that there is a lot of mail getting to inboxes that users never requested nor wanted. “Just unsubscribing” from this mail Does Not Work. It just keeps coming and coming and coming.
But of course, the mail still coming is my fault, as I was unable to correctly unsubscribe. 53635233

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