I celebrated my birthday on Monday and received the usual array of "Happy Birthday's" from family, friends, and even some marketers who have implemented the ever popular "Birthday Email". That is, the email that is automated and sent on every... More

I celebrated my birthday on Monday and received the usual array of "Happy Birthday's" from family, friends, and even some marketers who have implemented the ever popular "Birthday Email". That is, the email that is automated and sent on every subscriber's birthday offering them best wishes and usually some form of special savings. I've often found these types of emails to not only be relevant and timely, but generally affective at driving incremental revenue.

Today though... three days later, I received an additional "Birthday Email" from Dove wishing me a great birthday and 'special savings' ($1 off any Dove Hair care product). While the thought was much appreciated, the timeliness of the email being sent (i.e. three days late), definitely calls into question a few things:

* Data Quality: If you have questionable data quality practices -- reconsider whether you want to setup a program like this one. As we don't support the Dove program it is difficult to know if I received this email late because of data quality issues or because they have not automated the program to run daily vs. weekly.

* Timeliness: Per the above, my suspicion is that the data is actually correct, but the approach taken was to send this campaign weekly vs. daily, which as a subscriber completely takes away the purpose and value of the communication. If you are sending a Birthday email, an Anniversary email, etc... it must be daily and on the day the event occurs. No exceptions.

Here's a copy of the email for those interested:


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DM News is reporting today that the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in its recently published Email Data Management Best Practices is now recommending that marketers only send email to those who have 'opted in' to receive it. The article further... More

DM News is reporting today that the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in its recently published Email Data Management Best Practices is now recommending that marketers only send email to those who have 'opted in' to receive it. The article further states that this is "not a surprise" given that the FTC considers this a best practice "as part of CAN-SPAM legislation.

But wait... this is not what the FTC requires. Via the CAN-Spam Act of 2003:

"It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.

Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it's illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law."

While it is admirable to pursue an opt-in or even a double opt-in method only, I'm not sure that it is necessary. The reality is that most consumers have been trained to look for and uncheck any subscription boxes they don't want selected. Additionally, consumers understand how to unsubscribe from a mailing or provide complaints through their ISP, which also inevitably results in an unsubscribe request being made.

The debate fundamentally is not about opt-in vs. opt-out, it is about providing relevant, timely content to your subscribers - regardless of the method they used to subscribe. This is the area where marketers need to focus -- not on changing their subscription logic. Less