[GDPR] Re-Permission Campaign
After reading about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will be coming into effect soon, I was interested in a re-permission campaign where subscribers would have to confirm their permission based on a new set of terms. For example, now that Sendy collects country, IP, referrer, etc. and that parental permission is required for those under 16 years of age, this information should be fully disclosed to subscribers. I think that subscribers should also know that their information is retained even if they unsubscribe, and the purpose for this. I've changed the subscription emails to reflect this new information, but this doesn't help anyone who subscribed previously.
I can think of a few approaches, but I would be interested in hearing from others if they have any ideas:
- scrap the old list by sending out one last campaign telling subscribers they need to subscribe to the new list. The problem with this is all the bounced, complained, unsubscribed, etc. emails will not be on the new list potentially causing problems.
- send out a campaign with the new terms and an unsubscribe link. This really isn't compliant.
- send out a campaign with a re-subscribe link (does this exist?) then manually edit the database to unsubscribe everyone. Again a problem exists that some people will be quick on the draw and hit the re-subscribe link before the campaign is sent and the database can be changed.
- maybe there is already a way built into Sendy?
Any more ideas?
Comments
If you scrap your old list and send out one last campaign, you won't be sending to bounced, complaints, or unsubscribes if you export your "Active" subscribers for that list and import them into a new one... thus not containing those who shouldn't be emailed. If you export "All", then yes... you may run into those aforementioned issues.
You could send out a campaign with the new terms and unsubscribe link, but this will result in an unusually high unsubscribe rate... thus possibly hurting your sender reputation and quite possibly getting an email from Amazon SES Enforcement notifying you that you're account is now on probation.
I haven't read through the GDPR in depth, but what I think would be OK is if you simply sent out an update of terms type of email with a normal unsubscribe link within. The terms will simply outline what data is being collected and that they have the ability to opt-out.
Yes, in the newest release of Sendy, there are now resubscribe tags.
GDRP requires positive OPT-IN, rather than OPT-OUT, so I don't think that approach would suffice. The onus is on the sender to prove that specific permission has been obtained, so simply relying on users opting out of an email by unsubscribing won't hold up, if of course any non-compliance was ever challenged.
The only way I can see to do it, whilst following GDPR to the letter would be to run a re-engagement campaign on the current list, stating the changes to terms and how the data will be used in accordance with GDPR, and then have a link within, something like "I wish to continue receiving these emails", and then when GDPR comes into effect, only those subscribers which followed that link can be emailed.
Yes, you'll likely have a much smaller list, but then at least those you're emailing actually want to receive the emails. Just because someone hasn't unsubscribed in the past, doesn't mean they either read or act on the email - as can be seen by open & click rates. It's far better to have a smaller, active list than a large, inactive list.
I've have received many of these types over the last couple of months.
I ended up doing the following:
Now hopefully no one changes the rules again. Maybe the next thing is we'll all have to verify user's identity with passports, lol.
How many people in percent subscribed to the new list?
Sendy 3.0.7 is now released with lots of GDPR features.
One of them is sending of re-permission campaigns:
Screenshot:
See the change log at → https://sendy.co/get-updated