Spam is any email you send to someone who hasn't given you their direct permission to contact them on the topic of the email

But that's not enough. Permission is a fuzzy word open to interpretation. Let's get into some specific scenarios so it's clear what does and doesn't constitute permission

1. An email newsletter subscribe form on your web site.
2. An opt-in checkbox on a form. This checkbox must not be checked by default, the person completing the form must willingly select the checkbox to indicate they want to hear from you.
3. If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it was explained to them that they would be contacted by email AND they ticked a box indicating they would like to be contacted.
4. Customers who have purchased from you within the last 2 years.
5. If someone gives you their business card and you have explained to them that you will be in touch by email, you can contact them. If they dropped their business card in a fishbowl at a trade show, there must be a sign indicating they will be contacted by email.

1. You do not have explicit, provable permission to contact in relation to the topic of the email you're sending.
2. You bought, loaned, rented or in any way acquired from a third party, no matter what they claim about quality or permission. You need to obtain permission yourself.
3. You haven't contacted via email in the last 2 years. Permission doesn't age well and these people have either changed email address or won't remember giving their permission in the first place.
4. You scraped or copy and pasted from the web. Just because people publish their email address doesn't mean they want to hear from you.

Sure, some of these people might have given you their email address, but what's missing is your permission to email them commercial messages. Blasting promotional emails to any of these people won't be effective and will more than likely see your email marked as spam by many of your recipients.

1. A single-click unsubscribe link that instantly removes the subscriber from your list. Once they unsubscribe, you can never email them again.
2. The name and physical address of the sender. If you're sending an email for your client, you'll need to include your client's details instead.

1. Until your account has been approved by a member of our team, every email you send will need to be approved.

2. Our software is directly integrated into the spam reporting systems for some of the biggest ISP's like Hotmail and AOL. If you don't have permission and someone marks your campaign as spam, we'll know about it the moment that button is pressed. If you receive a complaint rate greater than 0.25% of all recipients (that's 25 complaints for every 10,000 recipients) your account will be terminated. This is a generous figure that takes into account false spam reports.

3. Our team verifies all large lists imported into our software. Until we've given it the all clear, you can't send to it.
4. We monitor blacklists and our abuse accounts all day every day. We can pinpoint who is causing us delivery problems or attracting complaints very easily.

If we do discover that you're emailing people without their permission, we will terminate your account with us immediately.

In the end, it's really common sense. Take off your marketing hat and put yourself in your recipient's shoes. If they don't recognize who you are or aren't interested in what you're sending, they'll think you're a spammer. It's that simple.

XcellMail E-Mail Marketing Plans & Pricing