Like any email marketing software, it's important that you use Instant in a way that protects your brand reputation and is compliant with Australian spam regulations.
1. Only send compliant emails
Australia's Spam Act 2003 and the Spam Regulations outline your responsibilities as an email sender in Australia.
When sending an email, ensure that it clearly identifies you as the sender and contains your contact information.
- Don’t use false or misleading header information: Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
- Don’t use deceptive subject lines: The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
- Tell recipients where you’re located: Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This should be your company's registered address.
- Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you: Your email must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you.
- Honour opt-out requests promptly: Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honour a recipient’s opt-out request within 5 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honouring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list.
2. Only send emails to engaged shoppers
In Australia, you may only send marketing emails to consumers who've engaged with your brand in some way.
This means that you cannot email someone who has never visited your website, purchased from you, subscribed to a newsletter, or similarly engaged with your business.
Instant Audiences will never provide you with the email address of someone who has not previously engaged with your brand.
3. Keep your privacy policy and terms up to date
When implementing any new website analytics product, businesses should update their privacy policies to keep their customers informed.
When implementing Instant merchants must update their privacy policies. The following clause is our standard recommendation:
We use Instant to help us understand how our customers use our site, and use this information to retarget for marketing purposes. You can read more about how Instant uses your Personal Information here: https://www.instant.one/privacy-policy. You can opt-out by contacting help@instant.one
Merchants should also obtain legal advice specific to their businesses.
4. Consider brand reputation when sending emails
From product pricing and visual identity to product manufacturing quality and marketing strategies, everything you do as a business impacts your brand.
Australians react relatively well to email marketing tactics. In 2020, Australia had the second highest click-to-open rate in the world for marketing emails.
Shopper engagement marketing is incredibly common in online retail. Even the most premium brands utilise cart abandonment marketing, discounts for returning shoppers, and other strategies to maximise customer lifetime value.
Merchants can use insights from Instant Audiences to trigger a variety of email marketing campaigns from their email marketing software. While most choose to configure each of our recommended marketing flows, some innovate and create additional flows, while others only implement a subset of our recommended flows. We encourage brands to find what is right for them, balancing business growth and brand reputation.