Showing posts with the label unsubscribe

Ask Al: Can I require login to unsubscribe? (in 2025)

Hey, on the one hand, I am genuinely surprised this question still pops up in 2025. But I get it. Every day, someone is new to this whole email thing, and they haven't yet navigated the long path we've trodden to define some of these foundational rules, both from a legal perspective and the gospel of best practices. The core question is this: Can I require a user to log in or enter a…
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It's actually usually safe to unsubscribe

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece warning readers not to click unsubscribe links in emails . The idea is that these links are sometimes traps used by bad actors to harvest information, confirm live addresses, or serve up malware. That's not entirely wrong, but it…

Ask Al: Can we email the opt-outs?

A friend sent me the following question the other day: “Hi Al! How are you? I have one client who wants to send an email to more than 600,000 recipients who have already opted-out. I’m worried that this is a very bad idea, but I do not see a lot of documentation out there. What…

List unsubscribe ... for Android RCS messages?

In certain email clients and webmail providers, like Gmail, the mailbox provider utilizes the list-unsubscribe header to offer up an in-app "unsubscribe" button that shows up above or next to an email message, saving a subscriber from having to scroll down to an emai…

One click unsub confusion: Let's clarify!

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post called ' One Click Unsubscribe: Don't do it! ' and ever since then, I think people have misunderstood it. Especially in this new age where Yahoo and Google now require one click unsubscribe support from marketing senders an…

The billion dollar unsubscribe link

Adam Silver silver is a "contract interaction designer with a strong technical background" and a savvy blogger, who just figured out something that I've known for a while: One-click unsub is a bad idea . I don't fault him for being new to the party -- you don&…

SFMC: Two-Click Unsubscribe with AMPscript

Adam Spriggs recently posted a very helpful Salesforce Marketing Cloud tip to his blog, which you'll find here . In it, he guides you through how to use AMPscript to implement a "two click unsubscribe" process. Why would you want to do that? To keep bots and emai…

I love RFC 8058 and you should, too

Last week I talked about one-click unsubscribe and why I don't think it's a great process. Basically, my concern is bot clicks. I've seen it happen too many times -- email security software will scan an email message body and follow all the links in the message. Th…

One-click unsubscribe: Don't do it

I've talked about unsubscribe practices in more detail before, but I think it's important enough to call this one out on its own. If your email send platform, CRM, or newsletter tool, includes a "one click unsub" link, you're going to end up with false po…

Let's talk all about Unsubscribes!

Last time, I wrote about list-unsubscribe methodology specifically , but today I’d like to broaden the topic to all the different methods that senders use to offer an opt-out option for their subscribers. That could include “one click” unsubscribe links, or leading users to uns…

3 Ways Pardot Protects Your Email Reports from Non-human Activity

From The DRIP : More great content from Lucy Mazalon . This time around, she details what Salesforce Pardot does to help users deal with non-human interactions, aka bot and security device clicks and activity. Metrics Guard and Visitor Filters being two key Pardot features that…

Unroll.me to close to EU users

As mentioned on Slashdot, TechCrunch is reporting that unsubscription service Unroll.me is saying that EU users are no longer welcome, claiming that it's not possible to comply with GDPR.

More on "Smart Unsubscribing"

I mentioned recently that Google has implemented a feature wherein they'll suggest to "Inbox by Gmail" users that the user may want to unsubscribe from communication from a sender under certain circumstances. Turns out Yahoo Mail does something similar. Tom Sathe…

Inbox by Gmail will remind you to unsubscribe from unread promo emails

Engadget reports that Gmail's "Inbox by Gmail" web interface and Android app are proactively offering up a suggestion to unsubscribe from any promotional emails that haven't been opened in the past month. This could be significant. Most good senders focusing…

Why list-unsub doesn't let you "opt-down"?

If you're familiar with the "list unsubscribe" functionality, support for which is implemented in Apple's iOS Mail Client, as well as Gmail and Outlook.com, you might wonder why these implementations might not allow you to land at a preferences page when click…

Making it Easy to Unsubscribe (#2)

Back in my e-commerce days, we used to use this "one weird trick" to help reduce spam complaint rates: We put a prominent "click here to unsubscribe" link at the top of the email message. No need to scroll down to the footer to unsubscribe. What happened? Sp…

Making it Easy to Unsubscribe (#1)

Found on the web:  Gina Lofaro explains the user experience of finding it hard to unsubscribe . What galls me is that the list owner actually decided it was wise to argue the law with an angry subscriber. Knock that off! If she wants off the list, say OK, thank you, and it has …

More Misdirected Messages

In what may become a recurring theme , Consumerist reports today about a financial institution sending daily emails to somebody who is not actually a customer of that institution . If you're sending valuable transactional notifications via email, here are a few questions th…

The Transactional Unsub

Is there ever a good reason as to why you, email sender, might want to include an unsubscribe link in your transactional email messages? Why yes, yes there is . This isn't the first time I've seen somebody have to resort to publicly crying "uncle" due to the d…