Hello, solid mailers. Would you be kind to help me with some piece of information. I am an average affiliate marketer, actually experienced, doing it for years. But I'm just starting my way in emailing. So, I have almost everything set up to begin, from the technical side I'm about to push the "Start" button. Just one big thing stays unclear to me, I couldn't find the answer anywhere. Look, I am a simple single working affiliate, partnering mostly with CPA networks and some advertisers, I'm not a company etc. What should I put into the emails as "sender postal address and company name"? Will it be enough if I put there the advertiser's data? Or should they be obligatory my own? If the second is right, the hard thinking begins. If it's the case - do you all have the companies, LLC's, P.O. boxes and putting all this there? I am as a simple affiliate have nothing except my own name and private address, and the last thing that I would want to do would be exposing them to the whole universe. Also, in this case if I even would manage everything with that stuff - LLC (oh god, please tell me it's not needed), PO box... Assuming I'm from Europe - it will be reflected in each email and when US people will see it, the only thing that will come in their heads will be "someone from somewhere in Europe tells me what I should choose/buy/use here in my native land. WTF?!" I want to believe that everything is not so rigorous as it seems to be, but I just don't know and begging for your help. So every explanation will be appreciated, thank you in advance.
If you're based in Europe you will need to follow European laws. I don't know what they are, you're best bet would be to consult with a lawyer in Europe.
First off if doesn't just matter where you are. It also matters where you send to. If I'm a US affiliate sending to EU addresses I need to follow both CAN-SPAM and EU law. If I'm in the EU sending to the US I need to follow both laws as well. I can't really help you with EU stuff, but for CAN-SPAM you need to include the advertisers information as well as your own. I would recommend setting up an LLC (or what ever it is in the EU) and getting a PO Box. It's perfectly legal per CAN-SPAM to use a PO Box. If you need a US lawyer let me know and I can help you out. He's not cheap, but he's good. He's my current counsel and he can even help you make sure your creatives are compliant not only with CAN-SPAM but various other states laws as well. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.
Thank you, gentlemen. Actually, the european situation is not a problem from the legal side. As I always work and going to work further only for US audience, and my local emailing laws are almost identhical to those in the USA. I've searched for and I found some offers to choose from: the PO boxes and mail forwarding services especially for non-USA-residents. So I will be able to have "a physical postal address" in USA. There are different options though, and in order to choose the right package it's good to know what I currently don't - how often this address will be in use really? So would you be kind to tell me: 1. Does anybody really sends the letters to this address? How often? And who are these senders, the authorities or someone like that, or ...just usually nobody? Do these boxes receive junk mail, and is there a need to choose the box with the option like "sort out junk mail online"? 2. About LLC vs. my/your own real name. Is it really true, that ALL of you have your companies, and there are no simple alone-working persons here, who just has to put his name there? Is there no third choice at all? Either LLC or my family name, or get out? Or maybe in real life there are compromises? How bad will be the consequences if I at least in the beginning phase of my emailing career, will put only the advertiser's data there? I feel myself not ready to establish LLC now, just right from the start. I don't feel myself big enough so far. 3. And what about telephone number? Is it also unavoidable to put my own one there? Please help.
If it seems to you there are too many questions and you feel too lazy to answer, any single short advise will be helpful, please.
Spend the $150 and set up your own LLC. In most states, you can do it online w/in minutes. The personal asset protection that it offers should be enough of a reason. Also, why wouldn't you want to use your own company info? There are still people who occassionally respond via postal mail that they want to be removed. Don't you want the opportunity to remove every person from your list that doesn't want to hear from you? I highly doubt the affiliate network or campaign owner is going to forward such requests on to you.
Get an online US po box at earthclassmail.com and use that as your opt out address. The mail is scanned in and you view it online. Also, I don't know the technicalities but trying to serve a lawsuit on someone in Europe is going to be really hard if it came down to it.
Earthclassmail is pretty good. Here are some alternatives: mailboxforwarding.com myadminmail.com zumbox.com myuspostbox.com
Thank you, men, very helpful. I am researching these and other sites. And what is really critical for the right choice - how much letters can approximately come, how much of them need to be scanned, how much can be thrown away, the choice depends on it. Real examples are: Service 1 -$10/month - unlimited mails, I can control online what is junk what not, but each scan - $10 Service 2 - $15/month - only 50 mails/month, they decide what is junk, and 5 free scans included etcetera If I only would know, how much mails to await. How much per month, or how much per million emails sent. That information would be interesting for all beginners, I think. Concerning LLC - now I understand why don't you understand my worries : ) Only $150, no way! As far as know, in my country it would be something like several thousands. Each year. But I think I will use mail forwarding service along with my name. Who cares about some nutter seeking to kill some J. Daansen, he won't be able to fire my house, only the post office : )
Hi Daansen, I'm not a lawyer, but I am experienced with contracts and setting up small businesses. What Shannon says above is true, 150 dollars sounds about right for most states, but keep in mind that is simply the state filing fee to set up the LLC, and while most of us set up the rest ourselves, there is slightly more to it. Accounting wise you need a tax id number, which is free to get from our IRS, I don't know how they handle an owner from outside the US, but I always filled out an online form on the irs website and got it myself for free. You just should be aware that there is more to it than simply filing an LLC and the purpose of setting it up as a company and not under your own name is to shield you from liability, i.e. law suits, some types of debts and some tax advantages. I will not speak about any specifics on the topic as I do know enough to take care of my own business, I wouldn't want to accidentally give you any bad or inaccurate advice. An LLC will also make you look far more professional to other americans you work with, while there are plenty of respectable individuals working on their own, a corporate identity makes you more creditible in my opinion. So to sum up the business side of things, you may spend more than 150 dollars after paying a lawyer or accountant, but it is still inexpensive when you consider that you are not personally liable for most problems that happen (as long as they are legal), but in my opinion you MUST have a corporate identity set up to sheild you from law suits and protect your own personal credit. As for your questions about how much mail you will receive, I think most people here have avoided the answer because there really is no way to know, even if you are only looking for an approximate number. It is true that most people who want to unsubscribe are not going to take the time to send you a letter, the average person you are emailing is not who you should be concerned with. They will click the unsub link and pray you really stop mailing them, maybe report you as spam out of laziness and be done with it. The people who will send you mail however, are (most importantly) legal authorities and the people who all of us mailers hate the most, "anti's" who are people obsessed with stopping bulk emailers. They spend their lives trying to mess with us, get us in trouble and destroy our email reputations. Some anti's will sign up for your mailing just to report it as spam, or to send you in to spam traps and worse. This is why you have to keep an eye on your real mail, in case they are testing you to see if you do what you are required by law to do. So you may send 10 million emails a day and not get any paper mail, but you never know when something will come by paper mail that needs immediate attention, so just keep this in mind. Hope my info helps answer some of the "why" we do this stuff, the "what" to do question is based on your own choices of what is best for your business. Paul
Thank you, Paul. It helps. I've decided what should I do for now and further. One last question appears. I don't want to open the separate thread for it, and it is in conjunction with the 'company name' issue. What is allowed to be in "From: name" field? CAN-SPAM says it "should not be misleading", and it must accurately identify the person who initiated sending, right? But how it looks in real life? What can be put there? May I randomize there different email aliases of my domain, or different somewhat relevant words (like 'weekly', 'monthly'), or simply random words (like 'pretty', 'smoothy'..), or even random names. Or again "it must only be your name or your company's name"? I can't believe it. Anyone, please?
Well, first I would say you might be confusing the types of from names in the email, there are 2 types, and some people use different words to describe them but the basics are the "from address", which is the email address that comes from you like [email protected] and then there is the "friendly from" which is the printed name its coming from. I've thought about every option you gave so far, and other ideas based on keywords set for the offer being mailed (which is far better than the random words btw). Can Spam is intended (in my opinion) to not allow trickery and sadly if we are too clear about the words we used, we get blocked immediately because its so easy to identify as a commercial message. I would stay away from anything random, that is clearly being tricky. If asked by law officals why the words "pretty flower bunny" was used in the from name for an offer about life insurance or a free gift card, you would have a hard time explaining that away. The friendly from is more like a subject line, its evaluated and scored by the spam filters with the same kind of logic, where the email address from, domain name, ip address and header information is more of what is considered to be the "sender". Different from names on the same domain name and ip address have different reputations, and it never works in your favor. If any email address from a certain ip and / or domain is considered a bulk or spam sender, no other address will be any better, so the general idea is to have 1 from address per ip address (opinion). This makes you not look tricky or misleading, and you can mix up your friendly froms but keep them, like subject lines, relevant to the actual email being sent.
Thanks again. What I meant was "friendly from name". But if it was true, then all emails from all the ISP's would be "considered as spam", as they all go from the same domain and IP, just with different aliases. Thousands different email addresses from, say, *.hostgator.com , *.anyotherhosting.com etc. would be considered as spam? I mean millions of users, using the emails on the same provider domain. Besides that, I've read such thing: here http://blog.deliverability.com/2011/01/a-new-years-resolution-monitor-your-from-name-reputation.html
Interesting. Have you found any more specifics on this? IE: what from names are more likely to be bulked than others?
