Mailing Lists: Unsubscribe Doesn’t Mean Forgotten

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation for the EU) is now a few years old. As a global internet-based society, we're still trying to get our heads around the implications of the legislation. As a small business owner, I too have been trying to understand. However, over the past few years, I have noticed a few quirks about the way email mailing lists are handled, identifying some of the hidden traps within the systems. There are things that we need to be aware of from both sides of the equation.

The biggest hidden trap is associated with the right to be forgotten. Under the GDPR, if you want your email (and other contact details) to be removed and deleted from a database, you have that right. However, most people assume that just by unsubscribing to a mailing list that is what you're doing.

WRONG! Unsubscribing from a mailing list does not mean that your details have been deleted from the database. Let's delve into this particular issue based on my personal experience.

A Quick Note About My Mailing Lists

When I first started using email marketing, I used Mailchimp. Back in the day, it was one of the best systems around for free plans. But in 2019, everything changed. GDPR changed the way they were doing things, and they made significant changes to their free plans that made the platform a nightmare to work with.

In 2020, I moved both my list for Black Wolf and my personal blog to MailerLite. The biggest draw card for me was the price: FREE for up to 1000 subscribers, and on MailerLite, the unsubscribed emails don't count in that total. However, on Mailchimp, if you have the same email on two different lists, that counts as 2 contacts on the Mailchimp system. And any contacts who have "unsubscribed" from your lists are also added to this total, as per the changes that came into effect on May 15, 2019.

There were other reasons that I made the change too. And it all came down to functionality and support for the cost.

That being said, the unsubscribe quirk exists in both Mailchimp and MailerLite. I suspect it's present in other systems too.

The Little Unsubscribe Quirk

Let's say that a person has been getting your carefully constructed newsletters (or blog post announcements, if that's how you've been using your list), and they've decided that they don't want to get them anymore. Okay, it hurts that they're rejecting you, but if they really want to go, there is nothing you can do, except comply with their wishes. Hopefully, they've made your life easy and have just hit the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your emails, and life can carry on.

On a side note, if you don't provide an unsubscribe method as part of every email you sent out to your lists, then you're an idiot! If this is you, you're actually breaking the anti-spam laws in countless countries around the world, including CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 in the USA, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 in the UK, the CASL of 2014 in Canada, the Spam Act 2003 in Australia, and the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 in New Zealand. If you are using a reputable company to manage your mailing lists (Mailchimp and MailerLite among them), then an unsubscribe link will be included as part of the main template. Mess with that portion of the templates at your peril.

So, Mr. No-Like-Me has unsubscribed from the mailing lists, meaning that I can no longer send him emails as part of my distribution list, but I still have his email address, and depending on what other information he put in at the time he originally subscribed, I might have his name too. I could be an annoying prat and send him individual emails that aren't part of my list. (Personally, I wouldn't do that, because to be honest, I can't be bothered, but the fact that I still have his email means that I could, if I really wanted to.)

This little unsubscribe-but-remember-me quirk is a function of almost every email distribution list in existence. It's used as an added level of protection for Mr. No-Like-Me, preventing me from adding him to any NEW sections of my mailing list. However, this particular quirk actually has a hidden trap on Mailchimp, MailerLite, and likely other systems too.

If you have unsubscribed from my mailing list, but changed your mind, I can't just flip a switch in the system. Re-subscription through the tools on my website will likely fail, and there is no toggle switch that I can play with on the back end of the system either. My only option is to send you the link to the external subscription form and ask that you resubscribe yourself.

This particular unsubscribe-but-want-to-resubscribe quirk was something that I discovered quite by accident when I brought online the "What Next?" webinar series (which is still floating around on my YouTube channel). There were people who had previously unsubscribed from my mailing list that actually discovered all the subscriber-only downloads available on my site, but couldn't access them, because my site-based subscription tools wouldn't re-add them to the Mailchimp list. Talk about a nightmare.

But the point of all this, even if you unsubscribe from my lists, I still have your details.

(While I'm no longer with Mailchimp, I've also had to rethink how I manage those subscriber-only downloads because of my experiences with what happened back in the day.)

Deletion Requires Back-End Access

Let's say that Mr. No-Like-Me really doesn't like me and wants to be completely removed from my lists, not just unsubscribed, but his email and everything removed and forgotten. Well, I have to be the one to do that, as that level of deletion requires access to the back-end systems. I'm sorry, but only my admin team have that level of access. I'm not going to give it to Mr. No-Like-Me, because who knows what he's going to do with the information on my mailing list.

You will find that this level of deletion is not just a Mailchimp or MailerLite thing. For most mailing lists, you will need to contact the administrators of the mailing list directly to have your name (or account) deleted. There will be the odd system that will have a "Delete My Account" option, but many of them are not that smart.

(Even the Wall Street Journal is not that smart. I had to phone and speak to a real human, between certain hours of the day, to cancel my subscription. Even then, they kept trying to convince me to buy an annual subscription at a discounted rate, when I had phoned to actually cancel my subscription. How stupid is that?)

The Delete from the Database that Isn't Deleted

Within Mailchimp, when GDPR first came on the scene, there are a few added little quirks that appeared.

The first is the warning that crops up when you delete an email address from your list. When I was testing the new "deletion" functionality, I got a warning message that said, even if I deleted a person from my mailing list, their anonymous activity was still being tracked. I'm not sure what little cookies (i.e., packets of data) my emails deposited onto the user's systems for that to happen, but it was enough to flag the potential hidden trap in my memory banks.

Then I noticed something else. When you delete an "unsubscribed" contact, particularly one whom you have sent an email to in the past, upon the so-called deletion, the email address gets changed out for some random string funky looking email, but it is still listed as an "unsubscribed" contact on your "audience" list. With the recent changes to Mailchimp that came in during 2019, this meant that even that deleted email (with their weird string) can potentially count towards the total audience size that Mailchimp charged you for. To get rid of these funky emails, you have to go through the deletion process a second time, at which point they do disappear from your audience totals.

On Mailchimp's free accounts, you are entitled to 2000 contacts, which includes those subscribed, unsubscribed and not confirmed. These practices of Mailchimp will likely bite them in the ass in the future, and at the time they made those changes, the uproar over it was unreal.

(There was a reason why I left Mailchimp in 2020, and that was just one of the reasons.)

The Unsubscribe that Wouldn't Unsubscribe

The systems that are all connected via a third-party provider are much more robust when it comes to the unsubscribe tools, as they track the email that the message was sent to. However, there are some unsubscribe tools that are nightmares of their own. I'm talking in particular about the ones that ask that you send an email back to the list with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.

For the most part, these systems work fine, as they search the database for the email that the "unsubscribe" came from and remove that email, but that in itself is their failing.

In 2017, my personal internet provider discontinued ALL email accounts for private users. I understand their reasoning for doing it, but gah! What a mess!

Between my husband and myself, we had a few email addresses, and suddenly, none of them were working. However, we were given the option to auto-forward anything sent to those emails to a specified email address from another provider. I chose to use my spam email for this purpose, mainly because if it was important that I kept receiving the emails, I would have provided those email lists with a different email anyway, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss anything—just in case.

Well, I missed a few newsletters during the transition (I knew I would). For most missed distribution lists, I was able to change their email addresses to the new one, or unsubscribed from the lists. But there was one that used the system described above.

Every time I tried to unsubscribe (because I was getting duplicates through my different emails), I couldn't. The "unsubscribe" request was coming from an email address that was not on their system, but the email they were sending things to was the discontinued email. I had repeatedly sent messages to the admin for the site, asking to have my email address removed from their mailing list. They just kept sending me the link back to their stupid bot system that was failing because of this discontinued email issue. I was stuck, left with only one option.

GDPR came into play, and I got grumpy with them. They finally deleted the discontinued email.

But the desperate acts I had resorted to shouldn't have happened. The systems should have been more robust and able to cope. Had they been using a system like Mailchimp or MailerLite, then it wouldn't have happened. Mailchimp and MailerLite doesn't track the email address specifically, but rather tracks the email they have sent. All links are coded with IDs linking directly back to a specific user within the database. This is how Mailchimp and MailerLite gathers their statistics about links being clicked and what links they are.

(Don't ask me what system the offending mailing list was using, because I wouldn't have a clue.)

Protecting Yourself and Your Mailing Lists

If you have a mailing list of your own, and here's hoping that as writers and authors you do, there are a few simple measures that you can take to help protect yourself and your mailing list from hidden traps.

1) Use a reputable third-party provider to administer your mailing lists.

This is probably the most important thing you can do, which is why it's listed first. It's vital to your continued online presence.

Don't waste your time with dodgy systems. Don't even attempt to manage it yourself using an Excel spreadsheet and a BCC list in your email editor. No! No! No! And back away from the Google Forms creator now!

I don't care if your email distribution list consists of over a thousand people or less than ten: stick with reputable systems only! Trust me on this one.

I use MailerLite, but I know of many other systems that are highly recommended, such as Mad Mimi, AWeber, Omnisend, SendInBlue, and ConvertKit. I do not have firsthand knowledge of any of these systems, except Mailchimp and MailerLite. And if you read the beginning of this post, you will see some of my frustrations with Mailchimp.

(Note: In 2020, I moved my mailing list to MailerLite.)

Whatever email list provider you choose, do your homework and make informed decisions based on your personal situation.

2) Use the templates provided from your email list provider to build your emails.

These templates will contain everything that you need to include with your emails by law. Don't monkey with the information on those templates. Sure, change the layout, but ensure that everything that is needed gets included.

This will include an unsubscribe link and a physical postage address (not just an email) where you can be contacted. I also include a manage subscription link with mine, as I do have different portions of my mailing list (such as the blogs vs resource announcements).

Be advised that not all countries require that you include a physical postage address on your email communications, but it is a requirement of US law. This is why most email list providers include it as part of their templates. To meet the legal requirements, a PO Box or virtual office address will suffice.

And for those who don't know, a virtual office is just a fake office that comes with a real postal address, and sometimes a forwarded landline number. This is how many businesses that are situated overseas will obtain onshore addresses and phone numbers.

3) On your website, have a contact form (and a contact email).

Give people a method of contacting you that doesn't involve social media. The best way to do this is to use a contact form or a dedicated email.

DO NOT have your contact form connecting into your email list. Anyone who contacts you through your website should be able to do so without the added privilege of being added to your list. If they explicitly state within their communications that they would like to be added to your list, then okay... you can add that person manually. But just because someone sends you an email, doesn't mean that they want to be added to your list.

Whether or not you have a dedicated email posted on your website is up to you. Be advised that if you do have an email address listed, spam bots will get your email, and that address can become the target of scammers or other spam. As long as you are aware of the risks, then it's all good.

FYI, feel free to check out our Contact page for an example.

4) Include a privacy policy somewhere on your website.

Your privacy policy will explain what measures you're taking to protect people's data. It will also explain what you do with people's data. It might be a boring privacy policy, but it's an important page to have to protect your butt!

So, the privacy policy on this website is a snore-fest to read, but if you would like an example of one that you can have fun with (but still covers everything that is required), then head on over to my personal website to take a gander at the privacy policy there.

5) Be open and honest about what you are doing with your mailing list.

This last one is just a reminder to not be secret squirrel with your intentions. You're a writer (and if you're writing, you ARE a writer). The odds are you started that mailing list as a way of getting fans, and hopefully selling books. You will be sending advertisements about your books (or added services) to your mailing list. Don't lie about it. It's why we all have mailing lists in the first place.

As long as you don't abuse the privilege you have been awarded by having someone's email, all should be good.

Email communications have become a way of life in this day and age. New legislation is cropping up left, right, and center to manage various aspects associated with this particular form of communication. Don't be scared of it. It might seem daunting, but trust me, you've got this.