At Traction Marketing Group, we take spam and permission very seriously. By creating an account and agreeing to our Terms of Use, you are also agreeing to this anti-spam policy.
The law isn't enough, it's permission that counts
While the CAN-SPAM laws
are a step in the right direction for reducing the spam problem, we
don't feel they go far enough. Our definition of spam goes beyond the
laws in most countries and encompasses what we believe to be true
permission email marketing.
Spam is any email you send to someone who hasn't given you their direct permission to contact them on the topic of the email.
But
that's not enough. Permission is a fuzzy word open to interpretation.
Let's get into some specific scenarios so it's clear what does and
doesn't constitute permission.
What kind of email addresses are OK to send to with MagneticMail?
To send email to anyone using MagneticMail, you must have clearly obtained their permission. This could be done through:
- An email newsletter subscribe form on your web site.
- An opt-in checkbox on a form. This checkbox must not be checked by default, the person completing the form must willingly select the checkbox to indicate they want to hear from you.
- If someone completes an offline form
like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it
was explained to them that they would be contacted by email AND they
ticked a box indicating they would like to be contacted.
- Customers who have purchased from you within the last 2 years.
- If someone gives you their business card
and you have explained to them that you will be in touch by email, you
can contact them. If they dropped their business card in a fishbowl at
a trade show, there must be a sign indicating they will be contacted by
email.
Basically, you can only ever email anyone
who has clearly given you permission to email them specifically about
the subject you're contacting them about.
What kind of email addresses ARE NOT OK to send to with MagneticMail?
Anything
outside the examples above doesn't equal permission in our eyes, but
here are some examples to make sure we're crystal clear. By using
MagneticMail, you agree not to import or send to any email address which:
- You do not have explicit, provable permission to contact in relation to the topic of the email you're sending.
- You bought, loaned, rented or in any way acquired from a third party, no matter what they claim about quality or permission. You need to obtain permission yourself.
- You haven't contacted via email in the last 2 years.
Permission doesn't age well and these people have either changed email
address or won't remember giving their permission in the first place.
- You scraped or copy and pasted from the web. Just because people publish their email address doesn't mean they want to hear from you.
Sure,
some of these people might have given you their email address, but
what's missing is your permission to email them commercial messages.
Blasting promotional emails to any of these people won't be effective
and will more than likely see your email marked as spam by many of your
recipients.
What content MUST I include in my email?
Every email you send using MagneticMail must include the following:
- A single-click unsubscribe link that instantly removes the subscriber from your list. Once they unsubscribe, you can never email them again.
- The name and physical address of the sender. If you're sending an email for your client, you'll need to include your client's details instead.
How we'll know if you don't have permission
MagneticMail has numerous layers of approval and monitoring to ensure you comply with our anti-spam policy. Here's a few of them:
- Until your account has been approved by a member of our team, every email you send will need to be approved.
- Our software is directly integrated into the spam reporting systems
for some of the biggest ISP's like Hotmail and AOL. If you don't have
permission and someone marks your campaign as spam, we'll know about it
the moment that button is pressed. If you receive a complaint rate
greater than 0.25% of all recipients (that's 25 complaints for every
10,000 recipients) your account may be terminated. This is a generous
figure that takes into account false spam reports.
- Our team verifies all large lists imported into our software. Until we've given it the all clear, you can't send to it.
- We monitor blacklists and our abuse accounts all day every day. We can pinpoint who is causing us delivery problems or attracting complaints very easily.
If
we do discover that you're emailing people without their permission, we
will terminate your account with MagneticMail immediately.
In
the end, it's really common sense. Take off your marketing hat and put
yourself in your recipient's shoes. If they don't recognize who you are
or aren't interested in what you're sending, they'll think you're a
spammer. It's that simple.
If you have any questions about
our Anti-Spam Policy, or if you want to report spamming activity by one
of our customers, please contact us at:
Traction Marketing Group
127 NW 63rd
Oklahoma City, OK 73118
Telephone: (405) 603 4600
Fax: (405) 603 4025
info@tractionokc.com
Updated 1 October 2007