Email and SMS marketing in Australia: the Spam Act made simple

Email and SMS are still the highest return channels a business owns, and in Australia they come with a law that is enforced. The good news is that the Spam Act is simple once you know the three rules.

The three rules

1. Consent

You need permission to send commercial messages. Express consent is someone ticking a box or telling you yes. Inferred consent covers existing customers and business relationships where the message is relevant to what they bought or enquired about. Buying a list is not consent.

2. Identify yourself

Every message must clearly say who sent it and how to contact you. For SMS that means your business name in the message.

3. A working unsubscribe

Every commercial email and SMS needs a way to opt out that works, is free or low cost, and is honoured within five business days. Reply STOP for SMS, a link for email.

What about cold email to businesses?

Business to business cold email is generally permitted where the message is relevant to the recipient's role, you identify yourself and you include a working opt out. Cold messages to consumers are far more restricted. Keep cold outreach to businesses, keep it relevant and keep the volume sensible.

Campaigns that sell and comply

• Welcome sequence after someone enquires or buys: three to five messages that build trust and answer common questions.
• Reminders and confirmations for appointments. These are transactional and expected.
• Reactivation of past customers who went quiet: a friendly check in and an offer, sent to people with inferred consent.
• Seasonal campaigns for launches, offers and busy periods, to your opted in list.

Building it properly

Consent capture on every form, the sender name on every message, unsubscribe handled automatically and a suppression list that is respected everywhere. This is configured once in your CRM and then it just works. It is standard in every BizFlo platform build and every email campaign we run.