How can I legally send marketing emails?

If you send out mass marketing emails to recipients who did not request to receive your emails or subscribe to your mailing list, you are spamming those recipients. It doesn't matter whether you offer an unsubscribe option in the email - sending out bulk unsolicited email is the same as sending out spam. Users often don't click on unsubscribe links in unsolicited emails because, for all they know, clicking on that link may lead them to download malware or a virus, or to subscribe their email address to more spam lists. Therefore, providing an unsubscribe link in your unsolicited email does not necessarily stop the email from being spam.

The Australian Government has strict laws regarding the sending of spam. To ensure you don't accidentally send out spam, we encourage you to familiarise yourself with the rules and regulations set out by the Spam Act 2003. You can do so by reading the articles located here.

A few key points to remember

• The recipient must consent to receiving the messages. Under certain circumstances, consent may be inferred from their conduct, existing business relationships or existing personal relationships
• The message must contain accurate information about the person or organisation that authorised the sending of the message. It must also contain their contact details.
• The message must contain a working 'unsubscribe' function. Unsubscribe requests must be honoured within five working days

Another key point to remember is that your subscribers will often stop using or delete their email accounts. You are required to keep your mailing list up to date and to remove non-existent email addresses from your mailing lists. If you do not do this, our anti-spam system may prevent you from sending out emails because your account has reached its max number of sends per hour.