It is e-mail marketing 101 to know that you have to have permission to send e-mails. It is considered a best practice by the industry and is part of the CAN-SPAM Act.
This is true even if a consumer buys something from a company. They still should opt-in to receive e-mails. So it is surprising to hear that some marketers are not sticking to this permission-based ethos. According to a new study, by Return Path 31% of retailers have added purchasers to their e-mail lists without requesting permission.
This is such an easy mistake to avoid. In fact, customers are often happy to sign up for e-mails, and marketers have the check out opportunity as a place to ask a customer for permission. If they don’t give permission, then they may not be the best people to be on the e-mail list.
Handraisers are definitely the best subscribers in terms of ROI, so marketers should be respectful if a customer doesn’t want to sign up. Perhaps e-mail is not their marketing channel of choice, or perhaps they want to interact with the brand on their own terms, when they want to make a purchase.
