Unsubscribe Requests Sitting in an Inbox

The reply instead of the click

Every email newsletter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Plenty of people who want to stop receiving it never scroll that far.

They press reply and write a few words: please remove me. Sometimes with a reason, sometimes in capitals.

The reply goes to whatever address the newsletter came from. If that is a shared inbox, everyone assumes someone else dealt with it. If it is a no-reply address, nobody ever sees it.

A month later the next newsletter goes out, to the person who asked to be removed.

What CASL says

Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, CASL, requires every commercial email to include a way to unsubscribe, and it is specific about how that works.

The mechanism must let people unsubscribe by the same electronic means the message came by, unless that is not practicable. A reply to an email uses that means, so treat it as a request.

The request must be acted on promptly, and in any event within ten business days, without the person having to do anything further.

The address or link given for unsubscribing must also keep working for at least sixty days after the email is sent.

Where requests end up

• Replies to the newsletter, landing in a shared or unwatched inbox.
• Emails to a staff member who once wrote to the person.
• Requests at the counter or over the phone, noted on paper.
• Replies to a no-reply address that nobody reads at all.
• Spam complaints, which reach your email service and count against you.

The fourth is the easiest to fix. A newsletter sent from an address nobody reads guarantees that every reply is lost, so send from an address a person checks.

Who checks the replies

Unsubscribe replies need an owner: one named person, with a backup for holidays.

That person checks replies to every mailing at least twice a week, which leaves room inside the ten business days even when a week goes wrong.

A filter in the inbox helps. Replies to the newsletter address can be sorted into one folder, away from orders and enquiries, so they are not buried.

Automatic out-of-office replies will fill that folder too. Skim past them; the real requests are usually short and obvious.

One removal, every list

Most small businesses send email from more than one place, often without thinking of it as more than one list.

There is the newsletter tool. There is often a point-of-sale or booking system that sends its own promotions, an online shop with a customer list, and a spreadsheet kept for event invitations.

Unless the person says otherwise, apply the request to all of them. CASL lets a person opt out of every commercial message from the sender, not only one newsletter.

Most email tools keep unsubscribed addresses marked so a later import cannot add them back, but only inside that tool. A spreadsheet imported somewhere else will quietly add them again.

A worked example

A marine supply store near a busy marina sells paint, rope, safety gear and engine parts, and sends a monthly email with specials and reminders before the spring haul-out season.

Last winter a customer who had sold his boat replied to the newsletter asking to be taken off the list. The reply went to the store's general inbox, which in the quiet months only the owner checked, and not often.

Three weeks later the store's point-of-sale system sent its own spring sale email, from a customer list nobody had connected to the newsletter. The customer phoned, annoyed, and said he would report it.

Nothing had been ignored on purpose. The request had arrived in the wrong place, and the store had two lists without realising it.

Now replies to the newsletter go to their own folder, checked every Monday and Thursday by the counter manager. Every removal is made in both systems and noted in a log.

Why a missed one matters

The person who asked has already decided. A further email does not change their mind; it turns mild indifference into irritation.

Irritated people press the spam button. Email services watch those complaints closely, and a sender with too many sees more of its mail filtered, for everyone on the list.

Some will complain more formally. CASL has a federal regulator, and continuing to email someone after a clear request is the kind of thing people report.

And a person who unsubscribed may still be a customer. Respecting the request promptly keeps that relationship intact.

Requests in person

Not every request arrives by email. People say it at the counter, mention it on the phone, or write it on a comment card.

CASL's rules on the unsubscribe mechanism are about electronic requests, but a customer who says it in person means it just as much.

Keep a simple form or notebook at the counter for these, and have the same person add them to the log and remove them from every list.

Keep a removal log

A log takes a minute per request and settles every later question.

Record the address, the date the request arrived, how it arrived, the date it was removed, and from which lists.

Check the log before importing any spreadsheet into an email tool. It is the one place that remembers every removal, whichever system it was made in.

The counter-case

A business that sends one newsletter from one tool, with replies going to an inbox the owner reads every day, has most of this covered already.

A very small list can also be handled informally. Twenty regular customers emailed a few times a year need no filing system, only someone who acts on a reply the day it arrives.

But lists grow, systems multiply, and the person who reads the inbox changes. The habits are cheaper to set up while the list is small.

So the advice stands: treat every reply as a request, give it an owner, and remove the address everywhere.

Before the next mailing

1. Send from an address a person reads.
2. Name one person to check replies.
3. Filter newsletter replies into their own folder.
4. List every system that sends email.
5. Remove each request from all of them.
6. Start a removal log today.
7. Check the log before every import.

Step four is the one that catches businesses out. Removing someone from the newsletter feels like the job is done, until a different system sends them its own promotion.

Timing those emails to the months when customers actually buy is part of a website year planned around your busy season.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.