Managing unsubscribe lists is a huge part of any company leveraging email marketing. There are countless reasons why an individual or business may request to be taken off a contact list. What’s most important is for that request to be honored 100% by anyone representing the brand. While this may be understood by your organization generating emails in-house, things can get a little tricky when third-party affiliates are sending emails, too. These might be advertisers or outside marketing consultants, but regardless of who they are, they also need to treat unsubscribe lists with consideration and importance. Let’s take a look at three unique challenges when it comes to managing unsubscribes with affiliate partners.
1. Eliminate Unsubscribe Silos
It’s not uncommon for a company to work with multiple affiliates, especially when they’ve spent some time trying to do their marketing campaigns in-house. Perhaps the business is small and doesn’t have the time to generate advertisements; they might be rolling out a new product and entering a new industry. Reaching out to channel partners makes sense in these cases. Affiliates can bear the weight of marketing needs while the company focuses on doing whatever it is they do best.
However, when multiple affiliates are working on campaigns, they’re also generating their own unsubscribe lists. A big problem we see here at UnsubCentral is a lack of communication between multiple parties. When these silos go up, there’s no way to guarantee one affiliate won’t start contacting someone on the other’s unsubscribe list. A tool like UnsubCentral that syncs the separate opt-out or Do Not Contact requests can help prevent this kind of communication breakdown.
2. Enforce the Importance of Brand Protection
When someone unsubscribes, they’re telling you, in no uncertain terms, that they don’t want to hear from you via email anymore. As a brand, you need to honor that request. In fact, it’s less of a request and more of a certainty. Removing them from a contact list needs to happen in a reasonable timeframe. This is all part of protecting your brand when you’re working outside of your organization with third party partners. The affiliates you choose likely want to do the best job possible. However, at the end of the day they’re still their own company. That means it’s up to you to ensure they understand the value of your brand and why it’s so vital to protect it.
When you choose UnsubCentral as your unsubscribe management solution, you can help your brand remain intact and protected. Failing to honor unsubscribe requests might mean gaining a reputation as some sort of spammer or robotic. Remember that even if someone chooses to unsubscribe, they may eventually return or recommend you to a peer. The UnsubCentral platform joins all unsubscribe requests and can even be automated to sync between all your tech stack ensuring realtime suppression.
3. Protect Yourself from Regulatory Fines
Even beyond the ethical importance of unsubscribes is the legal obligation companies have. In 2003, the CAN-SPAM Act was signed into law, laying out the specific requirements for email marketing and advertising. One of the crucial tenants of this act is to honor opt-out requests promptly. As listed on the FTC website, companies, “must honor a recipients opt-out request within 10 business days.” The legislation goes on to say that, “Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list.”
Failing to meet these requirements can result in hefty fines. In fact, each email sent in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act can cost up to $42,530. Additional fines could stack up as an unsubscribe request is ignored. By partnering with UnsuCentral, however, you can automatically remove individuals from email lists and ensure they’re not mistakenly contacted, even when it’s done by an affiliate.
Managing unsubscribes is an important task of any company marketing themselves via email. If you’re struggling to keep up and make sure opt-out requests are on the suppressed list, UnsubCentral is here to help.