Do your unsubscribe buttons comply with email
law?
There's a method of using graphics as your email
message's unsubscribe mechanism the may not be
in compliance with federal email law.
According to some email experts, sending emails
using graphic buttons or other images as unsubscribe
links instead of text links may violate the federal
CAN-SPAM Act, which requires direct marketing
email messages to include a valid unsubscribe
or "opt-out" mechanism. An example of this is
shown below:
Here's the problem: If the unsubscribe link
is an image, it may not appear to a recipient
who has their images blocked by their email client.
It would then appear like this:
As a result, the image doesn't render and thus
does not clearly indicate the method for recipients
to remove themselves from your email list. This
may inadvertently put you in violation of CAN-SPAM.
One way to continue using graphics as your unsubscribe
link and comply with CAN-SPAM is to use an "alt"
attribute in the image tag. This allows you to
assign alternate text to the image, so if the
image is blocked, the placeholder will contain
text which shows up in the message. The code for
an image with alt text appears as follows:
<img src="http://www.domain.com/imagefolder/unsubimage.gif"
alt="Click Here to Unsubscribe">
The resulting email message will appear like
this:
The unsubscribe mechanism remains apparent.
As long as the image contains a working hyperlink
to your unsubscribe page, clicks on the text will
direct your subscribers to the appropriate page
where unsubscribe requests are managed.
Some consumer email clients block images by
default until users give permission for them to
render. Protect yourself from charges of not having
a clear unsubscribe mechanism by ensuring your
links are readable, even if your images are interrupted.
-- Arial Software
Return
to Articles |
