[nyx]

Maybe a little off-topic, but I always wonder if the folks who work on stuff like this ever consider that they might be the bad guys.

Like, sure, maybe the people you're trying to send email to are already customers, or they're otherwise really interested in hearing what you have to say, and maybe that's what they all tell themselves. But "tips for disguising your unsolicited commercial email as legitimate communication so you can succeed in shoving it into people's inboxes" feels like it'd take a lot of reality distortion to not feel guilty about.

Am I just naive? A Hacker News sheep living on grass while the wolves feast on red meat? Is there such a thing as being a conscientious objector for spamfucking people with trashy ads and sales pitches?

[ismaelyws]

Most of my customers work really hard and spend a lot of time and money to acquire opt-in leads only to see their efforts go to waste. There are many legitimate reasons for making sure an email makes it to the inbox. Without even mentioning transactional emails. Not sure where you got the idea that I’m providing "tips for disguising your unsolicited commercial email as legitimate communication so you can succeed in shoving it into people's inboxes".

[lionkor]

It comes down to "nobody likes ads", and marketing emails are just ads.

[unstatusthequo]

This. On the topic of checklists, how about compliance with not emailing me! Deliverability is one thing, but what if I truly hate being interrupted with goddam ads in my Inbox?

See, get a lot of unsolicited shitmail at work that gets through spam filters. So yay for your delivery checklist, enabling interruptions and annoyance.

Here comes the fun part. About half don’t comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. So, what do now is make my own, which is a reply with this:

“The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets the rules for commercial email and establishes requirements for commercial messages, including the right for recipients to stop receiving emails[1][2][3][4][5][6]. The Act applies to any commercial electronic message to U.S. recipients, including transactional and marketing messages[4][5]. To comply with the Act, commercial emails must provide recipients with a clear and obvious mechanism to opt-out of receiving further emails, and they cannot include misleading subject lines or inaccurate information in the header fields[4][6]. Additionally, commercial emails must include a physical mailing address in the body of the email, and an address where unsubscribe requests can be physically mailed[4]. Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $43,792, so non-compliance can be costly[4].

Citations: [1] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act... [2] https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam [3] https://www.mirabelsmarketingmanager.com/blog/how-to-comply-... [4] https://www.practicalecommerce.com/quick-refresher-of-u-s-ca... [5] https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/practica... [6] https://www.unsubcentral.com/2023/04/26/can-spam-compliance-...

If they email me even once more, I now send them a bill for the minutes I was interrupted at my attorney hourly rate. If they reply they aren’t paying, then comes the violation penalty threat.

Yeah, that’s how much I don’t want your ad in my inbox.

[zamalek]

It's good to see that the spam button can hurt reputation. I'm going to be far more liberal with it.

[ismaelyws]

Yes it can hurt reputation and torpedo open rates if a sender receives consistent spam complaints over a sustained period of time. I’ve seen it happen in real time with a client who claimed their leads were warm/opt-in when in fact they were not all. Open rates went from 38-40% to under 7% within a few hours. So the spam button is effective, that’s why it’s important to only email warm/opt-in contacts for bulk email, send engaging content and make it easy to unsubscribe.