GDPR in focus: The ins and outs of compliant email marketing

In the lead up to the introduction of GDPR – and in the weeks since – we’ve shared plenty of advice surrounding email marketing and how to ensure your mailshots are compliant with the new regulation. We’ve even put together a short animation covering the basics – perfect for anyone with a short attention span!

But one area that still seems to be baffling people is the process of opting in/out – and more specifically, how to ensure you’re making this procedure clear and simple for those you’re emailing.

In the weeks prior to the new legislation being implemented, inboxes were bombarded with consent-seeking emails, requesting confirmation that recipients still wanted to hear from the sender. And whilst most of these were necessary, some were surplus to the requirements set out by the ICO – namely, that current or previous customers can be contacted with marketing comms through the ‘soft opt-in’ rule.

This states that you can continue emailing individuals as long as messages are relevant to a product or service they have previously bought, and that you’ve given them the opportunity to opt-out with each one that you’ve sent. So, if you’re sending genuinely targeted emails to people who have purchased from you before – and making it clear that they can choose to stop receiving these from you at any time – then you’re doing it right.

To walk you through what these opt-in and opt-out processes should look like, we’ve put together these simple flowcharts…