To use BoltMail you must comply with the New Zealand Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act, the Privacy Act and all other applicable laws.
To comply with New Zealand law please ensure that you follow the four steps below:
- Consent
You must have the consent of all your subscribers before sending them an email. There are three types of consent:
a. Express consent
Express consent is a direct indication from the intended recipient that they consent to receiving electronic messages from the sender. Express consent can be gained in a number of ways, such as completing a paper form, ticking a box on a website, entering their details into a subscribe form, a phone or in-person discussion.
BoltMail can help you to obtain express consent, every list you add to BoltMail contains a form for your customers to subscribe. You will find code to embed this form in your own website and a URL you could direct subscribers to from Lists > Lists, click the name of the list, click on Forms.
b. Inferred consent
Inferred consent is when the person you wish to contact has not directly instructed you to send them a message, but due to the conduct and business relationship of the person concerned, there is a reasonable expectation that messages will be sent.
Inferred consent tends to take place when an address-holder provides their electronic address during the process of purchasing goods and services with the general expectation that there will be follow-up communication. Please note however, if someone has been on your existing database and has not ‘unsubscribed’, it does not mean that consent can be inferred. If you are not confident that the existing relationship is strong enough to infer consent, you should obtain express consent. Inferred consent is limited in its application.
For example, a regular customer known to purchase the latest brand of a particular bike often visits the same store for various bike goods and services. In the past the customer has provided their email address relevant to a delivery of an item. The store owner notices the latest version of their favourite bike has been announced and decides to send the customer an email about this with an offer for their latest services.
c. Deemed consent
However, if a publication includes a statement that the person does not want to receive unsolicited commercial electronic messages at that address, consent cannot be deemed. The message must also be relevant to the business, role, functions, or duties of the person in a business or official capacity.
Deemed consent is when someone conspicuously publishes their electronic address (e.g. on a website, brochure or magazine) in a business or official capacity.
For more information on what qualifies as consent please refer to:
https://www.dia.govt.nz/Spam-Information-for-Businesses - Include accurate contact information
All email must include accurate sender information that identifies the person who authorised the sending of the message and how that person may be contacted. Most companies will put this information in the footer of their emails.
BoltMail can help you to include this information in your emails. Each list you create in BoltMail requires you to enter the ownership details for the list (BoltMail does not assume that you are the owner for every list since you might be an agency sending emails on your client's behalf). You can then display these details in your emails using the following merge tags: [LIST_FROM_NAME], [LIST_FROM_EMAIL], [COMPANY_NAME], [COMPANY_PHONE], [COMPANY_EMAIL], [COMPANY_FULL_ADDRESS] (you could of course just type this information into your emails but using the merge tags can save you time and allow you to use the same email template across multiple lists that might all have different ownership details) - Include a functional unsubscribe link
All email must include a functional "unsubscribe facility".
BoltMail makes this easy, you can simply type the [UNSUBSCRIBE_LINK] merge tag into the bottom of your email. When the email is sent this will be replaced with a functional unsubscribe link allowing your subscribers to unsubscribe automatically. For more options and information click here.
Note that when someone unsubscribes they are only unsubscribed from the list that email campaign was sent to, they are not automatically unsubscribed from all of your other lists. The reason for this is that we do not assume that all of your lists are owned by the same company, you might be an agency managing lists for your clients, or you might own multiple businesses. However you can configure your lists so that when someone unsubscribes they are also unsubscribed from other lists of your choosing. To do this, when creating a new list or when editing the settings for an existing list, see the "Subscriber actions" section, here you can simply tick the other lists they should be unsubscribed from.
We are aware that some people like to upload a new list for every email campaign they send, this is dangerous behaviour since it may result in sending to subscribers who have unsubscribed from previous lists. It is better to update your existing list rather than create a new list each time. But if you are managing your lists outside of BoltMail, such as in a spreadsheet or other third party system, then you will need to remove unsubscribers from your external list. For help with this please see: Managing your lists outside of BoltMail
- You must not use "Address-harvesting software"
New Zealand law prohibits the use of address harvesting software. This is software that scrapes websites or other publications for email addresses to add to a database.
Beware of purchasing lists from third party providers, many of these lists have been built using address harvesters, just because you have been told that the subscribers on that list have consented to receive marketing emails does not mean that they really have. If there are complaints and the department of internal affairs decides to investigate, it could be you that gets into trouble for sending the email rather than the company that sold you the list. It is your responsibility to ensure that all subscribers on that list have consented.
If you have purchased a list, or are not confident that you have the consent of your subscribers, you can reconfirm them, please see: Reconfirming your subscribers
For further information and advice please refer to the department of internal affairs anit-spam website: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Spam-Information-for-Businesses
