IAB issues new email best practices

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has issued their latest "Email Data Management Best Practices"; the new best practices are intended to help online marketers get the most from their email campaigns by helping them ensure privacy, security, improve the permissions process and improve deliverability.

by Kristina Knight

Among the recommendations are only sending commercial messages to consumers who have opted-in to the list, providing a global unsubscribe mechanism and authenticating emails by registering the domain from which the emails are sent.

Another key is not to transfer a user's opt-in preference to another company without their consent.

Although these recommendations should already be in effect, some email marketers are still behind the curve when it comes to following email marketing best practices. Whether from lack of knowledge about the best practices or simple laziness, it is unclear. But, it has been proven that following best practices such as these will increase the deliverability of emails and give consumers on email lists another layer of security when seeing your return address.

"…If adopted, these best practices will protect consumers by ensuring that consent is informed and retractable, and will help responsible email marketers and their service providers improve the overall quality and performance of email marketing campaigns," said Randall Rothenberg, IAB President and CEO.