Article
How to Unsubscribe - Word to the Wise
wordtothewise.com
Quoted on this wiki
Every place a page here uses this source, in the order the words come in it.
Requiring the user provide their email address “US CAN-SPAM law does allow the unsubscribe link to go to a web page with a text entry box, where the recipient is required to enter their email address and click a button to be unsubscribed.” But it’s 2023. Don’t do that. It’s user-hostile – requiring the user to do more work. It’s not robust – if a user typos their email address or enters the wrong email address then either they’ll have to deal with an error message or, worse, their attempt to unsubscribe will silently fail.
the List-Unsubscribe header contains only one https link “the email is DKIM signed” the DKIM signature covers the List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers
In DKIM signing
You should have a second link in the List-Unsubscribe header, a mailto:, pointing at an unsubscribe-by-mail server, to support in-app unsubscribe at providers who don’t support RFC 8058. That included iOS and Microsoft the last time I checked, but that may be out of date. “All your mail should be DKIM signed.” Check that the unsubscription channels work. Sign up a few email addresses for your list. Check that you can unsubscribe via the link in the body. Check to see if, e.g., gmail offers an unsubscription option that it works. If you want to go further you can check that the mailto: link in the List-Unsubscribe header works just by sending an email to it, and you can use curl to check List-Unsubscribe-Post:
They can stop the mail either by unsubscribing from it, or by marking it as spam. We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe. “Also in most jurisdictions you’re legally required to offer a functional, easy to use unsubscription channel.” Reply to unsubscribe
They can stop the mail either by unsubscribing from it, or by marking it as spam. We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe. “There are a few different ways to accept unsubscription requests, and most legitimate bulk mail should offer several of them.” Reply to unsubscribe
Mailbox providers and mail client developers like the List-Unsubscribe header. They like the non-interactiveness of the mailto: variant, as it means their user doesn’t need to leave their mail client. But they don’t like the asynchronous nature of email – you don’t know the unsubscribe has actually happened, what do you do if the mail you sent is later bounced, how do you display that to the user? “So RFC 8058 adds a bag on the side to the List-Unsubscribe header to provide synchronous, non-interactive unsubscription over https in a way that is resistant to bot clicks and other issues.” It adds an additional header – List-Unsubscribe-Post – that changes the semantics of the List-Unsubscribe header a little.
So unless you want to look like a bad B2B spammer, don’t advertise replying as a method of unsubscribing. It looks tacky and untrustworthy, people don’t trust it and will just report it as spam, and content filters will pay attention too. And handling unsubscribes that way is more expensive than a self-service approach. And definitely don’t have it as the sole way to unsubscribe. “But if you accept replies then give your customer support folks who handle them the power to unsubscribe someone when asked.” Click Here To Unsubscribe
Eventually our subscribers won’t want our email in their inbox any more. “We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe.” Also in most jurisdictions you’re legally required to offer a functional, easy to use unsubscription channel. So, how to do that? There are a few different ways to accept unsubscription requests, and most legitimate bulk mail should offer several of them.
Reply to unsubscribe “The recipient replies to the email, the person handling replies removes them from the list. This is a problematic way of handling unsubscription requests.” On the one hand, sending mail that recipients can’t reply to, or where replies are bounced, responded to automatically or silently discarded is fairly recipient-hostile. It’s better if those replies go to a customer support team, and when they do you want to empower the customer support staff to remove recipients from the list. Using this for unsubscription is expensive and kludgy and not quite as reliable or robust as you might like. And you can’t just ignore those unsubscription requests and require your customer retention folks have a conversation with the recipient before you unsubscribe them – both because that breaks the law in many jurisidictions and because ain’t nobody got time for that, they’ll just hit the “This is Spam” button and move on.
The recipient replies to the email, the person handling replies removes them from the list. This is a problematic way of handling unsubscription requests. “And you can’t just ignore those unsubscription requests and require your customer retention folks have a conversation with the recipient before you unsubscribe them – both because that breaks the law in many jurisidictions and because ain’t nobody got time for that, they’ll just hit the “This is Spam” button and move on.” On the other hand spammers – especially B2B spammers who’ve fallen for “growth hacker” snake oil – love it. They think that forcing a recipient to reply to unsubscribe will count as “engagement” and improve the delivery of the rest of their spam. And that encouraging recipients to reply will open a channel for them to pitch whatever their crappy service is.
They can stop the mail either by unsubscribing from it, or by marking it as spam. We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe. “There are a few different ways to accept unsubscription requests, and most legitimate bulk mail should offer several of them.” Reply to unsubscribe
They can stop the mail either by unsubscribing from it, or by marking it as spam. We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe. “Also in most jurisdictions you’re legally required to offer a functional, easy to use unsubscription channel.” Reply to unsubscribe
The recipient replies to the email, the person handling replies removes them from the list. This is a problematic way of handling unsubscription requests. “It’s better if those replies go to a customer support team, and when they do you want to empower the customer support staff to remove recipients from the list.” On the other hand spammers – especially B2B spammers who’ve fallen for “growth hacker” snake oil – love it. They think that forcing a recipient to reply to unsubscribe will count as “engagement” and improve the delivery of the rest of their spam. And that encouraging recipients to reply will open a channel for them to pitch whatever their crappy service is.
Reply to unsubscribe “The recipient replies to the email, the person handling replies removes them from the list. This is a problematic way of handling unsubscription requests.” On the one hand, sending mail that recipients can’t reply to, or where replies are bounced, responded to automatically or silently discarded is fairly recipient-hostile. It’s better if those replies go to a customer support team, and when they do you want to empower the customer support staff to remove recipients from the list. Using this for unsubscription is expensive and kludgy and not quite as reliable or robust as you might like. And you can’t just ignore those unsubscription requests and require your customer retention folks have a conversation with the recipient before you unsubscribe them – both because that breaks the law in many jurisidictions and because ain’t nobody got time for that, they’ll just hit the “This is Spam” button and move on.
The recipient replies to the email, the person handling replies removes them from the list. This is a problematic way of handling unsubscription requests. “On the one hand, sending mail that recipients can’t reply to, or where replies are bounced, responded to automatically or silently discarded is fairly recipient-hostile.” On the other hand spammers – especially B2B spammers who’ve fallen for “growth hacker” snake oil – love it. They think that forcing a recipient to reply to unsubscribe will count as “engagement” and improve the delivery of the rest of their spam. And that encouraging recipients to reply will open a channel for them to pitch whatever their crappy service is.
Eventually our subscribers won’t want our email in their inbox any more. “They can stop the mail either by unsubscribing from it, or by marking it as spam.” Also in most jurisdictions you’re legally required to offer a functional, easy to use unsubscription channel. So, how to do that? There are a few different ways to accept unsubscription requests, and most legitimate bulk mail should offer several of them.
Eventually our subscribers won’t want our email in their inbox any more. “We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe.” Also in most jurisdictions you’re legally required to offer a functional, easy to use unsubscription channel. So, how to do that? There are a few different ways to accept unsubscription requests, and most legitimate bulk mail should offer several of them.
Eventually our subscribers won’t want our email in their inbox any more. “We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe.” Also in most jurisdictions you’re legally required to offer a functional, easy to use unsubscription channel. So, how to do that? There are a few different ways to accept unsubscription requests, and most legitimate bulk mail should offer several of them.
And there’s no way to be sure that the email address they give you is their email address. Someone malicious may give you someone else’s email address. Sure, you could send that email address an email asking them to confirm they want to unsubscribe, but that would violate CAN-SPAM – and if you’re going to spend effort to do something like that, why not just do it right to begin with. “You should always know from the moment a recipient clicks their email address (and in more complex setups, which list they want to unsubscribe from).” Your first idea might be to include the users email address in the link – “https://example.esp/[email protected]”. That provides the information you need, but you should use an opaque cookie instead. That will give you the same information, but avoid leaking their email address to log files, third party vendors and so on.
You should have a webserver that serves an unsubscription landing page for a recipient, identifying the recipient via an opaque cookie in the URL. That same webserver should handle POST requests to unsubscribe RFC 8058 style at the same URL. “You should include an unsubscribe link in the body of your message, at the bottom of the mail where people expect to find it, pointing at that landing page.” You should have List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers2and while you’re going that, add a List-ID header too. The List-Unsubscribe header should have one, and only one, https link in it pointing at your unsubscription webserver. Your List-Unsubscribe-Post header should contain the “List-Unsubscribe=One-Click” shibboleth.
Reply to unsubscribe “The recipient replies to the email, the person handling replies removes them from the list. This is a problematic way of handling unsubscription requests.” On the one hand, sending mail that recipients can’t reply to, or where replies are bounced, responded to automatically or silently discarded is fairly recipient-hostile. It’s better if those replies go to a customer support team, and when they do you want to empower the customer support staff to remove recipients from the list. Using this for unsubscription is expensive and kludgy and not quite as reliable or robust as you might like. And you can’t just ignore those unsubscription requests and require your customer retention folks have a conversation with the recipient before you unsubscribe them – both because that breaks the law in many jurisidictions and because ain’t nobody got time for that, they’ll just hit the “This is Spam” button and move on.
“Reply with Unsub.” “So unless you want to look like a bad B2B spammer, don’t advertise replying as a method of unsubscribing.” But if you accept replies then give your customer support folks who handle them the power to unsubscribe someone when asked.
They can stop the mail either by unsubscribing from it, or by marking it as spam. We’d far rather they do the first so we should make it as easy as possible for them to unsubscribe. “Also in most jurisdictions you’re legally required to offer a functional, easy to use unsubscription channel.” Reply to unsubscribe