Getting Email Consent right under the new GDPR legislation

With GDPR coming in law in just a few short months now is the time to make sure all your email marketing is compliant.

One of the things causing the biggest headache for many businesses is how to collect your audiences consent. It is likely that the way you have been collecting your subscriber’s data and consent up until now will no longer meet the standards of the new legislation.

Your subscribers must opt-in

For your subscriber’s consent to come in line with the new laws they must actively give their consent. This means there must be a prominent and clear opt-in. Previously you may have used pre-ticked boxes with text along the lines of ‘I would like to subscribe’. To be in line with new legislation pre-ticket boxes do not constitute consent, the user must tick the box themselves. The same guidance applies for tick boxes with text along the lines of ‘tick here if you DO NOT wish to subscribe’

All business must be aware that the GDPR also applies to existing mailing list. If you have an existing subscriber list and the consent was not given in a GDPR complaint way, then you must recollect consent from your subscribers. A simple and easy way to do this is a re-permission email campaign sent out before 25 May asking your subscriber to opt-in and using this data to update your records.

Keep consent requests separate and make sure it is freely given

Under the new legislation, email consent must be kept separate and users must freely choose to give it. In practice, this means if you have downloads such as case studies, white papers or eBooks on your website that in order to be downloaded the user is required to subscribe to your emailing list you can no longer do this as this type of consent is not considered freely given.

Subscribing to your email list must be kept separate from everything else. It can’t be bundled in with terms and conditions for downloads or for purchasing your business services or products.

Withdrawing consent must be simple

All laws within the EU and UK already require you to give subscribers the opportunity to unsubscribe from your emails. Every email marketing camping you send out must already include an unsubscribe option so there are not a lot of changes you will have to make to keep GDPR compliant.

To ensure you’re opt-out process is GDRP compliant make sure that is doesn’t require additional information beyond an email address, doesn’t ask the subscriber to log in or go to more than one page and that it does not cost them any money to opt out.

We also recommend you consult independent advice on GDPR to ensure you are compliant in other areas of your business. The ICO has published great resources online https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/

We must strongly advise that it is your responsibility as a business to ensure your website will be compliant. We will, of course, implement any necessary changes as a result of compliance.

If you have any questions about the GDPR and how it is going to affect your email marketing, please feel free to contact us.