• by Jess Nelson , November 2, 2016

The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) released its third annual Email Marketing & Unsubscribe Audit report on Wednesday, revealing that nearly 6% of retailers are violating anti-spam laws in the United States and Canada by failing to honor unsubscribe requests.

The nonprofit think tank registered to receive the email marketing messages and newsletters of the top 200 global retail brands, determined by revenue, between April and September 2016 to analyze ten key best-practice areas for email marketing, including email authentication and subscriber validation.

The results, compiled in this year’s report, also include input from global industry leaders from Australia, Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

Although the number of retailers immediately honoring unsubscribe requests has increased year-over-year from 83% to 86%, a small fraction of brands are failing to monitor when subscribers opt-out of marketing content. This is in direct violation of anti-spam laws in the United States (CAN-SPAM) and Canada (CASL), which have large fines associated with a lack of compliance.

“As we head into the holidays, it is essential that marketers find the most effective methods to reach their customers while still ensuring users do not experience email fatigue,” states Craig Spiezle, executive director and president of the Online Trust Alliance. “Making the consumer email experience as straightforward as possible, aligning email marketing practices to users’ interests and honoring customer unsubscribe requests is critical to merchants’ online brand reputation and ability to meet regulatory requirements.”

In addition to ignoring unsubscribe requests, some retailers are making the process to opt-out more convoluted and difficult to process. 

The number of brands with “clear and conspicuous” unsubscribe links in their email marketing material dropped sharply from 97% of retailers in 2015 to just 81% of retailers in 2016. Furthermore, preference centers and opt-out choices also decreased in frequency according to the OTA report.

“The user experience is essential to building trust in the email channel and the brands consumers interact with,” states Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing and a sponsor of the 2016 Email Marketing & Unsubscribe Audit. “It is paramount to put the user first by giving them control through the use of preference centers, transparent privacy policies and one-click unsubscribing."

Twelve of the 200 brands studied received perfect scores from OTA for abiding by the nonprofit’s list of best practices and not violating the CAN-SPAM Act or CASL. The online retailers that have optimized their customer service and email marketing practices are Blue Nile, Carter’s, CDW, Evine, HSN, Jomashop, Lands’ End, Sierra Trading Post, Sweetwater, ULTA, Walgreens and Wayfair.

The Online Trust Alliance will be hosting a public online briefing of the research on November 16 alongside Yes Lifecycle Marketing.