When you consider some of the statistics on email marketing, it’s no wonder email is the primary acquisition channel for around 81% of small and medium-sized businesses. 

For starters, over half the world’s population uses email—more than four billion people. We send and receive over 333 billion emails daily, and nearly half of consumers would welcome emails from their favorite brands. 

Email is another channel that lends itself well to personalized, conversational marketing that produces an impressive ROI of $36 for every dollar spent. Plus, building an email list is arguably a more robust long-term investment than relying on the rented real estate of social media platforms and their ever-changing algorithms.

Much like SMS, email is regulated by some regional legislation, but email delivery is ultimately controlled by the recipient mailbox providers. It’s not as closely regulated by the government compared to telephony. 

Ultimately, mailbox providers define sender requirements and determine what email gets filtered as SPAM or bounced from the inbox altogether. Sending emails to people who don’t want them destroys trust as well as your business reputation, and there are stringent regulations for email marketing covering every part of the process.

In fact, Gmail and Yahoo! have recently rolled out new requirements for bulk email senders. This means you have to be careful with everything from opting-in to your list to user authentication requirements. You also need to provide every opportunity to opt-out, while storing and managing consumer data securely. 

Be sure to familiarize yourself with the following top tips and legislations. After all,fines for email marketing practices characterized as spam can reach six figures or more in the U.S., and there are even greater implications in Europe. For instance, Italian telecoms operator TIM was handed down a $31.5 million GDPR fine in 2020. Remember, few regulators will entertain ignorance of the rules as a valid excuse for non-compliance.