Email marketing works great and ensure fore-many that every month the revenues are growing. But it is not always quite so simple. Besides the more practical challenges, such as generation of email addresses, the appealing subject line, the proper call-to-actions, etc. there are also challenges in the legal field. And internationally it usually looks again very different than at home. Since it is difficult to keep track. But it is important, however, if you do not want to pay penalties.

The first question is of course always: Who should I include in my mailing list. Almost worldwide there are laws to prevent unwanted mails. And in almost every country, it is necessary that the recipient agrees to receive newsletter (Double Optin). An exception is only the United States. There no consent is necessary if the receiver can at any time unsubscribe from the newsletter. It is also important that not only a consent is necessary, but that this also based on information (IP address, timestamp, URL of the registration) is later proven.

If the recipient is on the the list legally, it goes with the provisions further. In all countries, an unsubscribe link in the newsletter is absolute duty. In addition, the sender must uniquely identify and in almost all countries, it is also necessary to specify a postal address and contact details.

Whoever fails to comply with the legal requirements, sometimes has to dig deep into his pocket, because it can be really expensive, to violate the law. The fines vary naturally by type of infringement etc. – but in Germany the cost can be, for example, up to € 4.000 per e-mail and in Canada, the total penalty amount to 10 million CAD.

Before email marketing you should therefore always check the laws of the country in order to minimize the risk of penalties as low as possible.