Opt-in

Topics in overview:

Opt-in is a consent procedure used in permission marketing, where the end user must explicitly confirm his consent - mostly by email, phone or SMS - to receiving marketing emails. Opt-out, which is often legally inadmissible, is the exact opposite.

In the WBS, the sending of newsletter emails is dependent on the consent of the recipient. There are two types of consent. 

On this page:

Legal considerations

(EMS - Opt-in)

Preliminary note: The statements in this chapter are not intended as legal advice and do not constitute evidence of legality.

In German jurisprudence, the general notion is that every email serving the purpose of establishing a business relationship with the recipient is unacceptable, and thus inadmissible. The only exception being emails to which the recipient has given his explicit consent. Even sending a confirmation link by email requires the consent of the recipient. For this reason, it is highly recommended that you already request this consent in your forms before sending the email containing the confirmation link.

The double opt-in procedure, which requires the consent of the recipient for full implementation, is the only opt-in procedure that is in compliance with German law. All other means of establishing contact with a potential customer for marketing purposes are considered illegal and put the email sender in Germany at risk of being effectively sued by the recipient. 

Find out what legal regulations apply for your region and, to be on the safe side, include a suitable opt-in question in all your forms to obtain the explicit approval of the email recipient, which allows you to send him further emails. 

Admin

(EMS - Opt-in)

There are situations in which newsletter registration is not done via an online form in the browser. In these cases, it is also possible to manually set up a newsletter subscription for the contact. What is important here is that you can always provide proof that the email recipient has explicitly consented to receiving emails. Ideally, this proof should be in the form of a written statement, which is kept in your archive. 

a) Go to the CRM and click the desired contact for editing purposes.

b) Click the Newsletter tab.

c) Click +Add newsletter. 

The subsequent procedure is described in detail under Contact management: Detail pages - click here to go to the Detail pages in the Newsletter section. 

No opt-in

(EMS - Opt-in)

In practice, it rarely occurs that no opt-in is agreed upon for the repeated sending of emails. This method is sometimes used by dubious service providers for the sending of marketing emails for products and services via anonymous servers, and is generally referred to as SPAM.

This does not apply to individual notifications on important topics, which do not require consent. These notifications are not sent in the form of a newsletter, but as normal email circulars.

Single opt-in

(EMS - Opt-in)

Single opt-in is a single-step consent procedure, which means that the website user provides his consent to receiving further emails without confirming this in a second step. The risk of this procedure is that a third party may provide consent for an email address which is not his, without notifying the email recipient. Thus, the recipient will only be able to unsubscribe after receiving the first email of the newsletter to which he was subscribed without his prior knowledge.

In German jurisprudence, only the two-step consent procedure (double opt-in) is permissible. It is recommended to always use the double opt-in procedure for obtaining consent for the repeated sending of emails.

Double opt-in

(EMS - Opt-in)

Double opt-in is a two-step consent procedure. In the first step, consent is provided. In the second step, consent is confirmed.

The first step of the double opt-in consent procedure consists of the potential recipient providing his consent, via the newsletter registration form, to receiving newsletter emails. This must, however, still be confirmed in a second step. Thus, the interested party will first send the form with the affirmative answer before, possibly, being shown an immediate confirmation in the browser.

This confirmation should indicate that the interested party will now be sent an email to the given email address, and that this email contains a confirmation link that must be clicked to confirm the newsletter subscription. Pointing out that this is done for the benefit of his own security will significantly increase his willingness to confirm the subscription.

 
One of the outstanding features of the WBS is the possibility to enter a different confirmation link text for each newsletter subscription:

a) Start the EMS module, select the gray Newsletter tab, and create a new newsletter or edit an existing newsletter.

b) Enter the confirmation link text for the current newsletter that you would like to use for the double opt-in procedure.