Anti-spam Policy to protect people
We take Spam and permission very seriously. Our email
marketing system is fully compliant and exceeds the New Zealand
anti-spam legislation.
You can RELAX knowing the legal stuff is taken care of.
The law isn't enough, it's permission that counts
Our definition of Spam goes beyond the laws of New Zealand 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 does
not constitute permission.
What kind of email addresses are OK to send to with Create&Send?
To send email to anyone using our system, Create&Send, you must have
clearly obtained their permission. This could be done through:
- An email newsletter subscribe form on your website.
- 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?
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
Create&Send, 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 Create&Send 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.
We add it for you.
- The name and physical address of the sender.
Thats you.
How we'll know if you don't have permission
Create&Send 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.
i.e. there may be a delay in sending, so plan ahead.
- 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
will 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 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 recognise 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:
Spiral Web Design Ltd
240 Jackson Street
PO Box 33 360
Petone
Wellington
New Zealand
Telephone +64 4 5862686
Facsimile +64 4 5870181