Before sending email marketing campaigns, it is necessary that you know and apply the regulations in force in your country regarding data protection and information society services and e-commerce.
What does the GDPR say?
In Europe, in order to send commercial communications, it is necessary to comply with a series of requirements that you can check here.
The most important thing before sending to your contact list is to make sure that you have the consent of each of them. That is, that the recipients of your emails have requested to receive information from you by email or have authorised you to communicate with them by email. You may also send emails to those with whom you have a prior contractual relationship, provided that you have lawfully obtained their data and you use it to send commercial communications regarding your own company's products or services that are similar to those you initially sold to them.
However, before sending any commercial information by email, do not forget that it is essential to comply with the duty of information in relation to transparency, one of the principles on which data protection regulations are based. In other words, you have to make sure that the people you have asked for personal data have been previously informed in a way that is easy to understand, and using simple and clear language:
- Of the processing of personal data, the identity and address of the data controller or, where appropriate, his or her representative, the purpose of the data collection, the recipients of the information, the legal basis for the processing (consent or contractual relationship), the data retention period, whether there are international transfers, the possibility of exercising data protection rights and the possibility of appealing to the supervisory authority in the event of a dispute, among others.
- Of the obligatory or optional nature of their response to the questions posed to them.
- Of the consequences of obtaining the data or of the refusal to provide them.
- In the case of profiling of data on which automated decisions are taken, the right to receive information on the parameters that determine these decisions and their consequences.
In the event that the personal data have not been collected from the data subject (this would be the case of acquisition of databases from third parties or collection of data from public sources), the data subject must be informed expressly, precisely and unequivocally by the data controller or his representative, within three months from the time of recording the data.
Below you can find examples of situations in which you may find yourself and what we suggest you do in each case.
If you have any questions, you can contact our support team. However, we are not lawyers, so we recommend that you contact an internet lawyer who can give you personalised advice and tell you if you are complying with the regulations.
I have bought an email list and I am assured that it is a quality list, can I use it?
NO, because you will be sending emails to users who did not give you their consent to send them emails for commercial purposes. In addition, doing so can affect your reputation as a sender, your deliverability and the prestige of your brand.
If your database provider provides you with a contract specifying how this information has been collected, the purpose for which it was intended, specifies that it has complied with the duty of disclosure and how the data transfer is carried out, among others, you may be able to use it, but it is strongly discouraged. Many sanctioning procedures of the Data Protection Agency are related to the purchase of databases.
I want to start sending emails to my customers, but I have never done it before, can I do it?
YES, BUT... Include an unsubscribe link so they can exercise their right to stop receiving your communications. If they are not current customers and were customers several years ago, it is advisable that you first contact them to reconfirm their consent and make sure that you have complied with your duty to inform them.
We have participated in a fair and the organiser has given us a list of emails of all the attendees; can I contact them?
YES, BUT... As long as the attendees have authorised the reception of commercial communications by electronic means by the rest of the attendees when subscribing to the fair.
On the other hand, you can communicate with a company or employee of a company if it is to maintain a relationship with that company, as long as the electronic communication is not of a commercial nature.
The LSSI does not consider as commercial communications those that only include direct access data to the activity of a person, company or organisation, such as the domain name or e-mail address. In this way, it is the recipient who chooses for himself whether he wants to access the website or request information.
At our stand at a trade fair, we collected data from the people who visited us and gave us their consent to send them information about our product or services. Can I do that?
YES, since they authorised you to do so. However, we recommend that you send them your email campaign as soon as possible so that they do not forget that they have given you their consent, that you indicate in the email that from then on, they will receive periodic information and that you provide them with a link so that they can unsubscribe if they wish to do so. In addition, consent should be collected by a means that allows you to prove that it has been obtained, so it is not advisable to collect verbal consent.
I want to send an email to my LinkedIn contacts introducing my company, products or services.
YES, BUT… You should have their prior consent. From LinkedIn you can send commercial information to your contacts without asking for consent, but if you want to do it using external tools you need their authorisation. From the LinkedIn inbox you can ask them to confirm their email address and request permission to send them commercial information or suggest that they sign up for your newsletter themselves through a subscription form.
In my physical shop I provide a form for my customers to subscribe to our newsletter and receive our promotions.
YES. Since you have collected this data with the user's consent, you can send them emails. Send them emails on a regular basis to maintain your link with them and prevent them from forgetting you. Do not forget to include the consent checkbox and the required data protection information in all your subscription forms. Also, you should keep the registration forms so that you can prove that they gave you their permission if necessary.
I have a lot of business cards from potential customers; can I send them commercial information?
NO. The GDPR requires explicit consent. The handing over of the business card would not be valid to demonstrate consent. We may contact them for consent via their professional contact details (telephone or e-mail).
I have an old database that I have never sent to or have not sent to for a long time.
YES, BUT… if your email list is old, subscribers have probably forgotten that they ever gave their consent to receive your marketing communications. This can lead to a high number of unsubscribes and spam complaints. In addition, many of the addresses on the list will no longer exist, so you will get a high bounce rate which will affect your reputation as a sender. This does not mean that you cannot send them your newsletter, but it is recommended that you first clean up your list and send a reconfirmation email to your subscribers to make sure they still want to receive your communications. Before sending, confirm who collected the data, how it was collected, whether the duty to inform was complied with and whether we have proof of the initial consent.
I have an online shop and I have decided to start sending email marketing mailings to my customers, but they did not indicate that they wanted to receive communications.
YES, BUT... If you have a previous commercial relationship with them, theoretically you can send them communications by email. However, to obtain better results in your mailings, it is recommended that you activate the option to subscribe to your newsletter in the purchase confirmation and registration processes and only send to customers who explicitly subscribe. If you did not inform non-subscribing customers that their data could be used for this purpose, you should do so before sending them commercial communications. You can send them an email stating that your privacy policy has changed and that in a few weeks you will be sending them periodic marketing communications including a link to unsubscribe if they wish to do so.
I have collected through public and internet sources email addresses of companies that may be interested in my services.
NO, although the processing of company data is not subject to personal data protection regulations, the LSSI does not allow you to send communications by e-mail without prior authorisation.
I now work for another company and I want to send my old clients’ information. The new company is in the same sector as the previous one, therefore, the commercial presentation that I am going to send them is similar to what I sold them in the past. Can I do this?
NO, because this data belongs to the previous company and it is with that company that the customers had a previous contractual relationship.
I have a subscription form on my website where I collect email addresses of people interested in receiving my newsletter.
YES, this is the best way to grow your database, as users have given their consent to receive your newsletter. We recommend that you use double opt-in forms to get quality contacts.
Can I make a cold first contact by email to sell products or services without consent? Can this be done automatically/massively with an email tool or do you have to do it 1 to 1?
NO, because you do not have the consent of the recipient to send commercial communications by electronic means as required by the LSSI. You can contact them by telephone and ask for their authorisation. Whether this first communication is done massively using an email tool or by sending emails 1 by 1 is irrelevant, the important thing is to have the consent.
There is only one option for sending a first email without the need to request consent, although it allows for very limited communication: sending a non-commercial email. As mentioned above, the LSSI does not consider commercial communications to be those that only include direct access data to the activity of a person, company or organisation, such as the domain name or email address. In this way, it is the recipient who chooses for himself whether he wants to access the website or request information.
