When it comes to email marketing, it’s important to be aware of the laws and regulations that govern this type of communication. The CAN-SPAM Act 2003 sets rules for commercial emails, including requirements for subject lines, information inclusion, and opt-out options. Failure to comply with these laws can result in penalties of up to $50,120 and reputational damage.

While it may be tempting to engage in non-opt-in email marketing, it’s important to note that sending unsolicited emails is illegal and not recommended. Although buying email lists and cold emailing are commonly used to grow email lists, they are not supported by many leading email services providers, such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, and Campaign Monitor.

Instead, it’s essential to focus on building an engaged and permission-based email list to ensure email deliverability and engagement. By avoiding unsolicited email marketing practices and adopting legitimate opt-in email marketing strategies, such as offering valuable content and incentives, you can build a loyal subscriber base and drive conversions through email marketing.

Let’s now explore the platforms that permit sending cold emails and strategies to prevent CAN-SPAM Act violations.

Leading Platforms That Permit Sending Cold Emails 

GMass

GMass can help you legally send marketing emails to non-subscribers by providing several features and tools that comply with email marketing regulations. With features like mail merge personalization with Google Sheets, list verification, spam trigger fixing, and virtually unlimited email-sending capabilities, GMass is the perfect tool for sending cold emails and mass marketing campaigns right from your Gmail inbox. GMass allows users to send up to 10,000 personalized emails per day with a CTOR of 30%, surpassing the industry average of 22.71%.

Compliance with email marketing laws: GMass helps you stay compliant with email marketing laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act by including an unsubscribe link, using a valid physical address, and avoiding deceptive subject lines or sender names.

Email list hygiene: GMass includes features to help you maintain a clean email list, remove bounced or invalid email addresses, as well as unsubscribe requests, to ensure you’re only sending emails to people who want to receive them.

A/B testing: GMass allows you to run A/B tests on your email campaigns, which can help you optimize your messaging and improve your results. You can test different subject lines, calls to action, or email designs, increase your ROI and achieve your marketing goals more effectively.

GMass boasts an impressive user base of over 300,000 users, with a rating of 5 stars in the Chrome Web Store based on more than 6,600 reviews. The pricing for GMass starts at $19.95/month for the Standard plan and goes up to $125/month for the Premium plan.

Woodpecker

Woodpecker is a reliable solution for non-permission-based email marketing that can help you send legally compliant marketing emails. Using Woodpecker, you can buy bulk email addresses and send marketing emails without worrying about legal issues like whether it is illegal to send emails without permission or add someone to a mailing list without their consent. 

Features: 

• One interesting feature of the Woodpecker email tool is its “Safety Checker” feature, which helps users avoid potential deliverability issues and reduce the risk of being marked as spam.
• The tool can automatically extract contact information from LinkedIn profiles and add them to your email list.
• Woodpecker’s “Reply Detection” uses AI to trigger follow-up emails when a recipient responds to ensure active conversation.
• Another interesting feature of the Woodpecker email tool is its built-in email verification system, which automatically checks the validity of email addresses in your list.
• Woodpecker’s integration with third-party CRM systems allows users to sync email outreach with CRM data for better tracking, automation, and improved productivity.

The pricing plans for Woodpecker start at $49 per month for each user and enable you to contact up to 1,500 addresses monthly. If you need to contact 6,000 people, the cost is $54 per month, and for unlimited contacts, it’s $59 per month.

Lemlist

Lemlist can help you legally send marketing emails through its personalized outreach campaigns, which comply with the GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act. Unlike sending emails without opt-in or unsolicited email marketing, Lemlist offers a warm and human approach to cold emailing, by allowing you to create and customize targeted email sequences that feel personalized and relevant to the recipient.

Lemlist is a powerful email outreach tool that offers several unique features to help you improve engagement rates and increase sales.

• Lemlist allows you to send emails with video messages to improve engagement rates.
• It provides a unique feature called “Magic Templates” that enables you to create and save personalized templates for future use.
• Lemlist offers personalized images in emails, which can increase engagement rates significantly.
• It offers automated follow-up sequences that can help increase response rates and improve sales.
• Lemlist integrates with various CRM systems, including HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive, making it easy to manage your leads and contacts.
• Lemlist offers email verification and list cleaning services, helping you maintain a healthy email list.

According to a case study by Lemlist, adding a personalized image to an email outreach campaign increased the reply rate from 3.87% to 29.41% – an impressive 660% increase in engagement.

Pricing plans start at $59/month with personalization at scale, automated follow-ups, integrations + API access, and unlimited workflows and emails.

Overloop

Overloop can help you send emails to non-subscribers by providing you with a reliable and GDPR-compliant list of email addresses. Instead of sending unsolicited emails or non-opt-in email marketing, Overloop offers email verification and list cleaning services that ensure your email list is clean and free of invalid or risky email addresses.

Overloop’s credit-based system enables you to discover email IDs of potential customers or prospective clients from their social media and other websites, ensuring you only pay for what you use and maximizing the ROI of your outreach efforts. Overloop can help you build a trustworthy and effective email marketing campaign that complies with the CAN-SPAM Act and other regulations.

Features:

• Overloop offers multi-channel outreach capabilities, allowing you to create and send emails, LinkedIn messages, and Twitter DMs from a single platform.
• With Overloop’s Google Chrome extension, you can create and manage contacts, find missing email addresses, and create contacts directly from any LinkedIn profile.
• Overloop’s powerful algorithm finds missing email addresses by analyzing social media and other websites, saving you time and effort.
• Overloop’s email verification and list cleaning services help you maintain a clean and healthy email list, avoiding the risk of sending emails to invalid or risky email addresses.
• Overloop offers automated follow-up sequences that help increase response rates and improve sales, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your outreach strategy.

Pricing plans start at $82/month per user with 250 Email Finder credits, Unlimited contacts, and API & CRM integrations.

Streak

Streak is a powerful email marketing tool that can help you legally send marketing emails to non-subscribers. By leveraging its capabilities, you can ensure your cold and bulk emails comply with email marketing regulations, avoiding the risk of sending unsolicited emails. Streak was also awarded the Google Technology Partner of the Year for its powerful integration with all of G Suite – Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Sheets. This means that you can seamlessly integrate your email campaigns with other productivity tools, streamlining your workflow and boosting your efficiency.

Features:

• Streak is a customer relationship management (CRM) software that is built entirely within Gmail, making it easy to use and intuitive for Gmail users.
• With Streak, you can track and manage customer interactions right from your inbox, without having to switch to a separate CRM tool.
• The email tracking feature allows you to see who has opened your emails and when, as well as track link clicks and attachment views.
• You can use Streak to set up automated workflows that can help you manage your sales pipeline, track deals, and automate tasks.
• Streak integrates seamlessly with other popular tools like Google Drive, Google Calendar, Zapier, and HubSpot, among others.
• With Streak’s mobile app, you can manage your emails and CRM data on the go, from anywhere.
• Paid plans for Streak start at $15/month per user and support 5,000 contacts and 800 mail merge emails per day. The tool also offers a free plan but with limited features.

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What You Need To Know About Spam Rules For Marketing Emails

If you use email in your business, it’s crucial to be aware of the spam rules for marketing emails. The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets rules for commercial email. It requires commercial messages to meet specific criteria, grants recipients the right to opt out of receiving emails, and enforces severe penalties for violations. The act applies to all commercial messages, including those that promote content on commercial websites, without exception for business-to-business emails.

However, compliance with the law is not difficult. Knowing the main requirements of CAN-SPAM is the first step to making sure your marketing emails comply with the law.

1. Don’t Use Misleading Header Information

Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message. Use a legitimate and recognizable email address as your “From” line. This helps your recipients identify who you are and can increase the chances that they will open your message. Avoid using deceptive subject lines. The subject line should accurately reflect the content of the message. It’s important not to use a subject line that is misleading or false to trick people into opening the email.

2. Avoid Using Deceptive Subject Lines in Marketing Emails

It’s important to make sure your subject line accurately reflects the content of your email. Using deceptive subject lines is against the law and violates the CAN-SPAM Act. This includes subject lines that mislead recipients about the content or purpose of the email, For example, using subject lines like “Urgent: Your account is about to be deleted” when it’s not true, is a surefire way to lose the trust of your subscribers.

Deceptive subject lines not only violate the law but also damage your brand’s reputation and can lead to decreased trust and engagement from your audience.

3. Highlight Your Email as an Ad 

As per the CAN-SPAM Act, marketers are required to identify their messages as advertisements in their marketing emails. Use clear and conspicuous language to indicate that your email is a promotional message. Disguising promotional messages with sneaky tactics can erode subscribers’ trust in your brand, so it’s important to be transparent about your intentions.

For example, imagine a subscriber receiving an email that appears to be a personal message from a friend, only to realize later that it was a promotional message. This can cause frustration and a loss of trust in the brand.

4. Provide the Subscribers With a Chance to Unsubscribe

Providing an unsubscribe option for subscribers is not only a legal requirement but also a sign of respect for their preferences. An easy unsubscribe process is crucial to avoid frustrating subscribers and risking your reputation as a trustworthy brand.

Removing uninterested or inactive subscribers can improve email engagement rates and avoid getting flagged as spam, leading to a healthier email list. Using high search volume and related keywords can optimize the unsubscribe process and ensure that it resonates with your target audience.

Unsubscribing is not only a best practice but can also help tailor your content to active subscribers’ interests and needs.

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5. Include Your Location Information in Your Emails

Adding your physical location makes you more than just a faceless entity sending out emails. It helps you establish a real connection with your audience. It can make your emails stand out from the crowd of anonymous, spammy emails. By including your location, you’re demonstrating to email service providers that you’re a legitimate business, and not just a spammer.

When your subscribers know that you’re a real business with a real location, they’re more likely to engage with your emails and take the actions you’re asking them to take.

6. Be Aware of Email Recipient and Destination

If your marketing emails are ending up in the dreaded spam folder, being aware of the email receiver and destination is critical. You can increase engagement and conversion rates by customizing your emails to the proper audience and personalizing them. This not only helps you avoid getting flagged as spam, but it also demonstrates that you value your readers’ time and interests.

7. Honor the Email Opt-out Request

When it comes to marketing emails, one key aspect to keep in mind is the need to honor opt-out requests promptly. For example: If you’re sending marketing emails, you must provide an opt-out mechanism that can process requests for at least 3 to 4 weeks after the message is sent. Once a recipient has opted out, you must honor their request within 7 business days. Additionally, recipients shouldn’t be required to take any additional steps beyond sending a reply email or visiting a single page on a website.

Finally, it’s important to remember that once someone has opted out, you cannot sell or transfer their email address to anyone else.

Below are some of the International Email Marketing Regulations:

• The  CAN-SPAM Act
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)
• The  Australia’s Spam Act

Difference Between Transactional Email Vs Marketing Email

Transactional emails are messages that are sent in response to a specific action taken by the user, such as purchase confirmation, password reset email, or account activation email. Many countries have laws in place to regulate the sending of commercial email marketing messages, such as newsletters, marketing announcements, and other promotional campaigns.

However, transactional emails, such as order confirmations, shipping notifications, and password reset emails, are exempt from these laws because they are not considered spam.

This means that businesses can safely send transactional emails without worrying about violating anti-spam laws, as these messages are designed to provide important information to the customer on a purchase or membership that already exists. Essentially, while anti-spam laws regulate commercial email marketing, they do not apply to transactional emails.

Wrapping Up

If you’re considering incorporating email marketing into your business strategy, it can unlock a multitude of exciting business opportunities, ranging from generating new leads to deepening customer engagement. Compliance with the CAN-SPAM regulations can help you reach your audience and achieve your business goals.

We believe that this blog post has provided you some insights to ensure that you are following the email marketing laws that regulate sending marketing emails. If you have any questions about this topic or want to maximize the success of your email marketing campaigns, please feel free to contact us. We have a proven track record of helping clients get their digital marketing strategy figured out.