A comprehensive guide to email marketing privacy policies
More than four billion people use email every day.* As an owned media channel, email gives marketers an exceptional amount of control over both their messaging and reach. This makes it one of the best marketing channels your team can use to promote your brand and products.
Although email can bring your business an exceptional return on investment, it also comes with compliance challenges. With more and more focus on data privacy and consent from both regulators and customers, you need to have an effective email marketing privacy policy in place.
Below, we explore why you need a privacy policy for email marketing, what it should contain, and how you should implement it, depending on where your business or customers are located.
Do you need a privacy policy for your email marketing?
To be compliant, you need to ensure that every step of your email marketing strategy, from how you collect email addresses and maintain your mailing lists to how you secure subscriber data, is carried out in line with all relevant data privacy laws.
This is why your email marketing privacy policy is essential. Local and international regulations require businesses to be transparent about their data collection and handling practices. Plus, to use major email service providers (like Mailchimp), you need to have an email privacy policy in place.
Your email marketing privacy policy can be a standalone document or a section within your business’s broader privacy policy. Either way, it must specifically address how subscribers’ data is handled, stored, and protected, and provide details about consent management and opt-out procedures.
Why should your email marketing campaigns be mentioned in your privacy policy?
By including a section about email marketing campaigns in your privacy notice, you keep your subscribers informed about how their data is collected, stored, and used. This transparency helps you achieve compliance and build trust with your customers.
Customer trust and brand reputation
Customers are acutely aware of data privacy risks. Nearly one-third of consumers are distrustful of handing their email addresses over to businesses because of data privacy concerns. At the same time, consumers also demand more transparency around how their information is handled.
This means that a single data privacy misstep can break customer trust and damage your business’s reputation. Data portability rights increase the risk. It’s easier than ever for customers to take their business and data elsewhere — often to a competitor.
Legal compliance and fine prevention
If you don’t cover email marketing in your privacy policy, you could damage your business’s ability to earn revenue.
Noncompliance with data privacy regulations can result in costly fines and legal action. In addition to these direct financial penalties, you may be ordered to pause or shut down certain business operations and even delete customer data. You could also lose access to your email marketing service and the excellent return on investment that this channel offers.
What’s more, all of these outcomes would likely diminish customer trust and have a negative effect on your brand reputation.
Regulations governing email marketing practices
| Relevant data privacy laws | Region | How it impacts your email marketing | Penalty for noncompliance |
|---|---|---|---|
| GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) | – European Union – Applies to businesses operating in or with customers in the EU | – A detailed privacy notice is a necessity – Users must give explicit consent to receive email marketing – Users must be able to easily access their data and withdraw consent | – Up to EUR 20 million or four percent of annual global turnover, whichever is higher |
| CalOPPA (California Online Privacy Protection Act) | – California, US – Applies to all businesses that collect information from California residents | – Businesses must display a clear privacy policy that discloses how data is collected – Users must be informed of how they can request to change or delete their data – Data sharing practices with third parties must be disclosed | – USD 2,500 per violation |
| CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) | – US – Applies to all businesses that send commercial emails to US residents | – Subject lines and information in emails must be truthful and clear – Physical business address must be included – Information about how to opt out must be included | – Up to USD 51,744 per email sent |
| CASL (Canada Anti-Spam Law) | – Canada – Applies to businesses that send commercial emails to Canadian residents | – Express or implied consent must be obtained before an email is sent – Unsubscribe mechanisms must be clear and functional – Sender’s contact information must be included | – Up to CAD 1 million per violation by individuals – Up to CAD 10 million per violation by companies |
| ePrivacy Directive | – EU – Applies to businesses operating in or targeting customers in the EU | – Subscribers must provide explicit, unambiguous consent when opting in – Data must be secured to maintain confidentiality – Withdrawal of consent must be simple | – Up to EUR 10 million or two percent of annual global turnover – Alternatively, penalties can be aligned with GDPR fines |
| CCPA (California Consumer Protection Act) | – California, US – Applies to all businesses collecting personal data from California residents | – Email marketers must provide a clear privacy notice including information about how data is collected and used – Users must be offered an easily accessible opt-out for the sale of their personal data – Mechanisms for requesting data deletion must be provided | – Up to USD 2,500 per unintentional violation – Up to USD 7,500 per intentional violation |
| PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) | – Canada – Applies to businesses that collect, use, or disclose the personal information of Canadian residents in the course of commercial activities | – Express consent must be given for email marketing – Privacy policy must address email marketing and disclose data collection practices – Businesses must provide an easily accessible opt-out mechanism | – Up to CAD 100,000 per violation |
Personal data collection and the email marketing process
Email marketing compliance isn’t only about the messages you send, it’s also about what you’re doing with the customer data you collect. Here are some ways that you might use personal data in your email marketing efforts that should definitely be mentioned in your privacy policy:
- Collecting email addresses
- Segmenting customers based on demographics, preferences, or behaviors
- Tracking email engagement (e.g. opens and clicks)
- Personalizing email content
- Retargeting based on previous interactions
Using a third party for marketing emails
Third-party email marketing tools like Mailchimp or Constant Contact are great for designing engaging emails. They’re also helpful for managing subscriber lists and ensuring that you’re compliant with the privacy laws that apply in the locations where your recipients are based.
Although third-party email marketing tools often provide standardized privacy policies, you can’t rely solely on these. This is because data controllers (the person or entity that decides how and why data is processed) are fully responsible for the handling of your subscribers’ data — even when it’s in the hands of an authorized third party.
As the data controller, you need to outline how your subscribers’ personal data will be handled in your own privacy policy. You need to include details of any data processing agreements (DPOs) that may be in place, such as how data will be stored or managed by an email marketing service provider; the roles and responsibilities of each party that can access the data; and the security measures that have been put in place to protect that data.
What needs to be in the email marketing clause of your privacy policy?
Regardless of the size, type, or location of your business, there are specific provisions that you need to include in your privacy policy.
An unsubscribe link (opt out)
Your privacy policy must clearly state that subscribers can opt out of receiving marketing emails at any time. It’s important to outline the process for unsubscribing as well as how long it will take your marketing team to honor these requests.
The opt-out provision should also note an easy way for subscribers to contact your business directly if they have any questions about your data privacy practices or want to update their details.
What happens to customer data after they unsubscribe
Once a user unsubscribes, they must no longer receive marketing emails. However, you may still need to keep some data on file for legal compliance or record-keeping purposes.
Your privacy policy should clarify exactly how their data will be handled after they’ve opted out, including the period for which it will be stored on your systems, as well as how they can request for their data to be deleted.
Information about how consent is collected, stored and revoked
Users need to give explicit, informed consent before you can send them marketing emails. To obtain this consent, you need a section in your email marketing privacy policy that outlines how consent is collected and stored, as well as how it can be revoked.
This is a critical component of data privacy compliance and building customer trust. Fortunately, this is made easy with a robust consent management platform like Usercentrics.
What personal data you collect
Your privacy policy should clearly state what types of personal data your company collects, how that data is gathered, and how it is used. This increases transparency and helps customers to better understand how their data supports your email marketing efforts. Here are examples of data that could be collected:
- Personal data: Email address, name, age
- Demographic data: Location, gender, income bracket
- Web behavior: Pages visited, time spent
- Cookie data: Preference tracking
- Buyer activity: Purchase history and transaction details
- Engagement data: Email opens, clicks
If possible, you should also provide brief examples of how this information will be used, such as using behavioral data to optimize email template formats to improve engagement.
Whether your emails are tracked
You need to let your subscribers know that your marketing emails are being tracked. While emails themselves don’t contain cookies, tracking can occur when readers click on links and land on web pages that do have cookies that monitor their behavior.
This section of your email marketing privacy policy should clearly outline how engagement (e.g. opens, clicks, or conversions) is tracked and whether cookies or other tools are used when users interact with linked content.
Email marketing privacy policy examples
An email marketing privacy policy is an essential document for data privacy compliance, but it can be time-consuming to create. Fortunately, there are already plenty of businesses that have created email privacy policies that you can use as a jumping-off point.
Tesco
Rather than having a distinct email marketing privacy policy, Tesco has incorporated the details about its email marketing-related data collection, processing, and storage into its general “Privacy and cookies policy.”
The privacy policy outlines the types of data that it might collect about users (“What does Tesco know about me?”), how and why it uses this personal data (“Why do you need to know this about me?” and “Why are you allowed to use my data in this way?”), whether it shares this information with third parties (“How does Tesco look after my data?”), and how long it will hold this information for (“Do you keep my data forever?”).
The retailer expressly tells users how they can request access to their data, how they can modify their information, as well as how they can request deletion or transfer of their data (“What rights do I have (including subject access)?”).
Booking.com
As the most recently identified gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Booking.com has to reach a set of additional obligations for data transparency and user consent. This is in addition to those requirements set by the various data privacy laws in the countries where it operates and where its subscribers are located.
The online travel agency requires users to provide, at minimum, their name and email address to make a booking. It also notes that, due to the nature of its business, users must agree to receive communications related to their bookings.
For example, Booking.com might send emails, push notifications or communicate with users who have booked trips using a chatbot, mail, phone, or text. Plus, the privacy policy highlights that Booking.com will also process any communications that users send to the platform.
Another important factor here is the details around how Booking.com collects, stores, and uses customer data, as well as how it passes this information on to third parties (e.g. hotels) and how those third parties are entitled to use that information.
Ensure compliance with a comprehensive email marketing privacy policy
To ensure your email marketing is compliant with international data regulations, you need a comprehensive email marketing privacy policy that outlines exactly what customer data is used for, and how it is collected, managed and stored.
On top of that, your policy needs to include clear details for unsubscribing and opting out of the sale of personal data, and information about any email tracking or cookie information on included links.
Usercentrics has a privacy policy generator that will help you maintain compliance. With automatically updated web policies, as well as a robust solution for consent management, try Usercentrics to help solve your marketing compliance needs. Start free.
*Number of e-mail users worldwide from 2017 to 2026, Statista