About Compliance for Email Marketing

At Mailchimp, we think of email marketing as any type of message you send to subscribed contacts via email. It's important that these email campaigns comply with our Terms of Use and other anti-spam requirements.

To keep our delivery ecosystem working efficiently, we monitor bounce, unsubscribe and abuse rates and issue warnings to accounts when they exceed industry standards. Most often though, you can avoid high rates or warnings by carefully considering your audience settings, your subscribed contacts, and your content.

In this article, you'll find resources that will keep you on the right track.

Get permission

Your contacts must give consent to receive email marketing from you. Permission is serious, but it's not too complicated. We have all the information you need to make sure your campaign meets permission standards.

Audience Collection

These best practices can help you avoid: high bounces, high abuse complaints

When you build your audience, use Mailchimp signup forms to make sure your contacts want to receive your emails. If you need to collect subscribed contacts offline, we can help make sure your processes meet our standards.

Opt-in Methods for Offline Subscribers
Requirements and Best Practices for Audiences

Ongoing Maintenance

These best practices can help you avoid: high abuse complaints, high bounces

Contacts that haven't heard from you in a while might not remember that they signed up to receive your content. If your audience become stale, reconfirm addresses and unsubscribe inactive subscribers to avoid spam complaints.

You'll also want to provide a simple way for your contacts to unsubscribe. (It's also required by law.) Unsubscribes can look bad, but they're actually good for the health of your audience.

The Unsubscribe Merge Tag
About Inactive and Stale Addresses

Use relevant content

These best practices can help you avoid: high unsubscribes, high abuse complaints

It's best to be clear about what kind of information your subscribers will receive from you. If the content of your email campaign isn't relevant, your subscribers may mark it as spam.

To reduce the risk of spam reports, target your audiences with segments and give your contacts choices for the kinds of emails they want to receive. If your company changes, or you introduce a new service, allow your contacts to reconfirm or opt out of the new information.

About Prohibited Content
About Affiliate Links in Mailchimp
About Subscriber Engagement