CAN-SPAM Compliance: What Is CAN-SPAM Why Does It Matter?

When you are about to start email marketing, you would often come across this term – CAN-SPAM.
What is CAN-SPAM and Why is It Important?
It’s possible that you don’t even know what CAN-SPAM is. Maybe you think that it involves a popular processed meat product. However, if you’re going to send email to your customers, CAN-SPAM is a very important law that you need to know about. It governs whether the email you send is considered a legal communication or an illegal piece of unsolicited spam. If you don’t abide by it, you’re subject to fines and penalties from the U.S. federal government.
A Touch of History: The Passing of the CAN-SPAM Law
In 2003, as inboxes were being flooded with unwanted email spam, the United States federal government took action with the passing of the CAN-SPAM law. CAN-SPAM stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited por*ography and Marketing Act of 2003. Essentially, the law set forth a number of requirements that need to be met in order to send commercial email to customers.
CAN-SPAM Compliance Checklist
Once you get past all the government language, CAN-SPAM isn’t that complicated. If you just follow seven simple steps, you’ll be completely safe.
Step One: Be Who You Say You Are!
You can’t pretend to be another website or company just to get a user to open an email (or to get into the inbox). This is a popular trick offshore spammers use to get through spam filters, but it’s illegal.
Step Two: Don’t Lie in the Subject Line
This one is easy. If your subject line says that opening the email will give the user a daily quote of the day, then that’s what needs to be in the email. You can’t use a subject line that promises a discount on groceries and then present an email that promotes anything other than a discount on groceries. In short, your subject line has to be truthful. The terminology of the law is that your subject line can’t be “misleading”.
Step Three: Tell Them That You’re an Advertisement
You can do this many ways, including small print at the bottom of the email. However, somewhere in your email, you need to make it clear that the email is an advertisement. It may seem obvious to you, but the law says that you need to make it explicit at least once in the email.
Step Four: You Need to Have an Actual Physical Location
This one is also simple. Somewhere in your email you must provide a physical postal address (street or postal box) where you can receive communications via mail. This ensures that you are not a scammer and also allows customers a way of sending a verified communication to you to remove themselves from your mailing list.
Step Five: You Have to Let People Know How to Opt-Out
You cannot (and should not) send a marketing email without letting users know how to stop you from sending future emails to them. This is called allowing users to Opt-Out of your email list. This is typically done at the bottom of the email. The only actual CAN-SPAM requirement is that it be easy for an ordinary person to recognize and read this information.
Step Six: When People Want Off Your Email List, Take Them Off.
When somebody requests an opt-out or unsub from your email list or lists, you have up to 10 business days to remove them.
Step Seven: Make Sure You Know What Your Marketing Agency is Doing!
Also make sure that you know what your affiliates are doing! Make sure that you know what anybody who sends email on your behalf is doing! You are legally responsible for the actions of anybody you hire or authorize to send marketing email on your behalf.
There you go. When you are doing email marketing, just follow these simple seven steps and you will be CAN-SPAM compliant.