Marketers who send e-mails using “click here” buttons instead of text for opt-out links risk breaking federal law, said email expert Jay Schwedelson during a presentation at the Direct Marketing Days New York Conference last week.

The federal Can Spam Act requires marketing emails to include an opt-out mechanism and a return address.

However, images are blocked by default in 59% of consumer email and 69% of work email. As a result, if the opt-out link is presented as a graphic, it won’t appear to many users.

“When an image comes up broken and [as a result] there’s no ability for someone to remove themselves, and there’s no physical address of the sender, the marketer is no longer in compliance with Can Spam,” said Schwedelson, corporate vice president for list firm Worldata.

So, make sure to always add a textual subscribe link at the bottom of your emails. And, as Ben suggests: also include the full URL of your unsubscribe link, just in case your clickable hyperlink doesn't work.

Source: directmag.com