Unsubscribes are disappointing, but they provide a valuable learning experience. When you find lots of people unsubscribing from your email campaigns, it's a sign that you should change your marketing approach. This guide will help you make the most out of a wave of unsubscriptions.
What is an unsubscribe?
- When someone unsubscribes, it means they've cancelled their subscription to an electronic mailing list or online service. Reasons for this may include spammy behavior, disinterest, or even accident.
- In accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act, it is mandatory for marketers to clearly display an 'unsubscribe' button in every promotional email.
- We add an unsubscribe link in your email footer. Contacts who aren't interested can safely unsubscribe just by clicking the link. We will make sure you do not accidentally email them in future.
- In case a custom template is used, make sure you have added the unsubscribe merge tag $[LI:UNSUBSCRIBE]$. If you skip this step, you will be prompted to include it if you try to continue with your campaign.
- CAN-SPAM act compliance is mandatory.
- If there is not an easy way to unsubscribe, then 'report as spam' may be the only option left for contacts. Some contacts may take it a step further and report such campaigns.
- Contacts may not be interested in your message. It's better for your brand to respect your customers' wishes.
- We can attain valuable information based on unsubscribing trends.
Note: When you select an email template while creating content for your email message, Zoho Marketing Automation will add an unsubscribe button to your email template's footer by default as shown in the screenshot below.
However, if you select to remove the header and footer theme from your email template, then you must include the
$[LI:UNSUBSCRIBE]$ or $[LI:ORG_OPTOUT]$ merge tags to your email template preferably at the bottom as shown in the screenshot below. If you do not add the mentioned tags, your email's header and footer will be automatically replaced by our default header and footer.
What happens when someone unsubscribes?
When a contact clicks the 'unsubscribe' option, their email address is immediately added to the 'Do-Not-Mail' list. No further emails from your account can be sent to those contacts. If a contact wants to get your emails again, they will have to sign up and choose to resubscribe.
To resubscribe, your contacts can either:
- Open the unsubscribe confirmation email which contains a resubscribe option.
- Open any previous emails from your organization and make use of the footer links to sign up with you again.
Account suspension
There are certain criteria which may cause your account to be suspended. Your unsubscribe rate is one of these criteria. If your unsubscribe rate is excessive, your account may be temporarily or permanently suspended.
CAN-SPAM
CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) is an Internet solicitation law passed in 2003. Non compliance with this law will lead to severe penalties, and in some cases is considered a criminal offense. The most notable requisite is to keep the unsubscription process simple while honoring opt-out requests promptly.
Here are some other important aspects of this law:
- The header information like 'from', 'to', routing information must be accurate so that recipients can easily identify you and your domain.
- The subject line should reflect the message content and convey the sender's intention.
- The message must contain your valid physical or postal address.