Email Best Practices 2004 Award Recipients

During the first six months of 2004, Arial Software secretly audited the email subscription practices of 1,057 prominent organizations (including many Fortune 500 and popular Internet firms) by subscribing to their email newsletters. Arial Software researchers then tracked the actual email practices and behaviors of each organization, noting subscription handling, privacy protection practices, spamming behavior, unsubscribe handling, and other characteristics. Out of 1,057 organizations we subscribed to, only 65 did everything right.

Those Organizations Are:

Looking at this list, it’s easy to see that most of these are big-name corporations that can presumably afford to handle their email campaigns in a professional manner. In other words, they have the budgets to buy and configure professional email marketing systems. Most people would expect Amazon.com and TigerDirect.com, for example, to be on this list. And they are.And yet smaller companies like DavidsCookies.com also made the list. If Auntie’s Beads and David’s Cookies can get fully compliant, why can’t companies like Adidas, Coca-Cola and Circuit City?

For more information please contact our media department or call 1-520-615-1954, ext. 15.

Apply for the 2005 Email Best Practices Award

Should your company be listed here? Do you meet the following guidelines for email marketing professionalism? (See below.) If so, contact us at 1-520-615-1954 ext. 15 for details on how to participate.

Guidelines

• You must have a working subscription form on your website
• You must use a double opt-in confirmed email subscription process
• You must send at least one email to subscribers
• Your outbound emails must contain an obvious unsubscribe link that works
• Once a reader unsubscribes, you must stop sending email to that reader within 10 days
• You must not share, rent or sell email addresses with third parties
• Your organization name must be clearly identified in each outbound email
• The content of the emails you send must be relevant to your organization and consistent with the reasonable expectation of a typical subscriber
  

What You Will Receive

If your company meets the Email Best Practices guidelines, in addition to being listed on the award recipient webpage you will receive both a print quality and web-based downloadable award logo from Arial Software. The web-based logo can be used anywhere on your website or newsletter (including next to your email subscription form). This professionally-designed logo verifys your company's accomplishment by linking back to the awards page listing your company alongside the other best practices recipients.

Past Email Best Practices Award recipients have used their accomplishment to let new subscribers and current customers know their email marketing meets all the requirements of an email best practices program. Click here for an example of how 2004 recipient BeachBody.com uses their award in their monthly newsletter.

2004 CAN-SPAM
Compliance Audit