Mailing lists: spam best practices

To prevent being labelled a spammer, you need to ensure that your intended recipients have given their consent to receiving an email via some affirmative means, such as a double opt-in procedure.

It is also important that you have procedures in place that allow the recipient to easily revoke their consent i.e. an ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘remove’ link in the mail.

Best Practices to conduct a legitimate mailing list:

• Make use of a double opt-in procedure. The user must first actively subscribe to the mailing list and then confirm their subscription via a follow-up email. Only once this confirmation is completed will they be added to the list. This helps ensure the subscription was intentional and prevents users from being signed up by mistake or by someone else without their consent.
• A ‘remove’ or ‘unsubscribe’ link (an opt-out procedure) must be provided to make it easier for the recipient to revoke consent or to cancel their subscription. Mailings must cease promptly once a subscription is cancelled.
• Mailing list administrators must take adequate steps to ensure that their lists are not used for abusive purposes.
• Avoid multiple font sizes and colours as these promote mail being flagged as spam.
• Blank spaces increase your spam percentage allocated by most scoring systems.