Your email is not a Swedish furniture store
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on April 10, 2008
When the disinterested subscriber is looking for something to click, better they find the unsubscribe link than the "report spam" button.
So we agreed that one way to reduce spam complaints is to make your unsubscribe link more prominent.
Ah, but we forgot something.
This only helps reduce complaints if the actual unsubscribe process is quick and painless. If it isn't, your unsubscribe link actually increases spam reports.
Graham Charlton reports on one complicated unsubscribe process and notes:
"How many email users would choose to go through this...when they can just hit the spam button and achieve the same effect for far less hassle?"
Exactly.
It's not hard to find others with similar stories. Anna Billstrom describes an example here. And one irate consumer makes the point robustly.
Here's the graph:
Unfortunately, some marketers take the Ikea approach to subscriber management. Once you're in Ikea, it's hard to get out again. Not without following the long route that takes you through almost the entire store.
Ikea can "trap" me because I have no viable alternative once I'm in. Plus there's a restaurant at the end selling cheap meatballs and cake, which makes up for the long walk.
Subscribers, however, do have alternatives if they feel trapped by your inadequate unsubscribe process. They can hit the "report spam" button instead. (And you don't give them cake for not doing so.)
So how do you make the unsubscribe process painless? Some quick tips...
1. Don't require subscribers to login to change their email preferences
"I could spend 10 minutes searching for my login details or I could spend 1 second hitting the "junk email" button."
2. Don't require more than 3 clicks to achieve the goal. One click to get to your website through the unsubscribe link. One click to maybe uncheck/check the right box (if you must). One click to hit the "confirm" button.
3. Don't require additional information from the user before accepting the unsubscribe request. You can ask for additional information (like the reason for unsubscribing) but don't make this obligatory.
4. Check the technology regularly and make sure it works. Not just when you set it up, but at regular intervals after that, too.
And four related tips:
1. Be prepared to process requests that don't come the conventional way.
2. When someone unsubscribes on your website, display a page confirming the removal. If they send in an unsubscribe request by email, send an email telling them they are no longer on the list.
If you don't confirm the unsubscribe, the subscriber has no way of knowing if their request actually worked. So they may resort to the "report spam" button just to be sure.
3. Get the address off your list as fast as possible.
Sometimes anti-spam law (like Can-Spam in the USA) gives you a period of grace before you have to stop sending emails following an opt-out. Ex-subscribers give you a period of grace too. About 5 seconds.
Any email arriving after an unsubscribe will likely be seen as spam.
They won't think, "Oh, clearly there are some internal database management issues that limit the timeliness of address removal processing, so I'll wait a few days before I get concerned."
They'll think, "Why am I getting this after I asked them to stop?"
If an unsubscribe is not immediate, warn people that they might get another email before the changes take affect.
4. As we've discussed before. Not everyone really wants to unsubscribe. If you have the resources, set up a subscriber preference center to give subscribers control over how much email they get and how often.
Articles elsewhere on unsubscribe processes:
Why Easy Unsubscribing Really Is Better by Stefan Pollard
Email Marketing Mistake #2: Not Optimizing the Unsubscribe Process by Loren McDonald
Managing unsubscribes (archives here at Email Marketing Reports)
Tags: email marketing, unsubscribe links, list management, email deliverability
So we agreed that one way to reduce spam complaints is to make your unsubscribe link more prominent.
Ah, but we forgot something.
This only helps reduce complaints if the actual unsubscribe process is quick and painless. If it isn't, your unsubscribe link actually increases spam reports.
Graham Charlton reports on one complicated unsubscribe process and notes:
"How many email users would choose to go through this...when they can just hit the spam button and achieve the same effect for far less hassle?"
Exactly.
It's not hard to find others with similar stories. Anna Billstrom describes an example here. And one irate consumer makes the point robustly.
Here's the graph:
Unfortunately, some marketers take the Ikea approach to subscriber management. Once you're in Ikea, it's hard to get out again. Not without following the long route that takes you through almost the entire store.
Ikea can "trap" me because I have no viable alternative once I'm in. Plus there's a restaurant at the end selling cheap meatballs and cake, which makes up for the long walk.
Subscribers, however, do have alternatives if they feel trapped by your inadequate unsubscribe process. They can hit the "report spam" button instead. (And you don't give them cake for not doing so.)
So how do you make the unsubscribe process painless? Some quick tips...
1. Don't require subscribers to login to change their email preferences
"I could spend 10 minutes searching for my login details or I could spend 1 second hitting the "junk email" button."
2. Don't require more than 3 clicks to achieve the goal. One click to get to your website through the unsubscribe link. One click to maybe uncheck/check the right box (if you must). One click to hit the "confirm" button.
3. Don't require additional information from the user before accepting the unsubscribe request. You can ask for additional information (like the reason for unsubscribing) but don't make this obligatory.
4. Check the technology regularly and make sure it works. Not just when you set it up, but at regular intervals after that, too.
And four related tips:
1. Be prepared to process requests that don't come the conventional way.
2. When someone unsubscribes on your website, display a page confirming the removal. If they send in an unsubscribe request by email, send an email telling them they are no longer on the list.
If you don't confirm the unsubscribe, the subscriber has no way of knowing if their request actually worked. So they may resort to the "report spam" button just to be sure.
3. Get the address off your list as fast as possible.
Sometimes anti-spam law (like Can-Spam in the USA) gives you a period of grace before you have to stop sending emails following an opt-out. Ex-subscribers give you a period of grace too. About 5 seconds.
Any email arriving after an unsubscribe will likely be seen as spam.
They won't think, "Oh, clearly there are some internal database management issues that limit the timeliness of address removal processing, so I'll wait a few days before I get concerned."
They'll think, "Why am I getting this after I asked them to stop?"
If an unsubscribe is not immediate, warn people that they might get another email before the changes take affect.
4. As we've discussed before. Not everyone really wants to unsubscribe. If you have the resources, set up a subscriber preference center to give subscribers control over how much email they get and how often.
Articles elsewhere on unsubscribe processes:
Why Easy Unsubscribing Really Is Better by Stefan Pollard
Email Marketing Mistake #2: Not Optimizing the Unsubscribe Process by Loren McDonald
Managing unsubscribes (archives here at Email Marketing Reports)
Tags: email marketing, unsubscribe links, list management, email deliverability
[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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