In the EU, the UK, the US and Canada, you may send marketing email to people who have bought from you, under conditions that differ from place to place. In all four, opting out has to be easy, and you stop emailing people once they do. The exact rules depend on where you and your customers are, and choosing which rule you rely on is your call as the sender. This is a summary to orient you, not legal advice.
The main rules #
- In the EU and the UK, a rule known as the soft opt-in lets you email your own customers about your own similar products. It asks that they had a simple way to say no when they gave you their address, and that every email gives them that choice again. Each country applies it in its own way.
- In the US, CAN-SPAM doesn’t ask for permission before you email. It asks, among other things, for accurate sender details and subject lines, your postal address in each email, and an unsubscribe that you honor promptly.
- In Canada, CASL counts a purchase as permission, called implied consent, for two years after the customer’s latest purchase. After that, you need their express consent.
The same rules decide whether you may remind a shopper who typed their email into your checkout and left without ordering. Depending on the country, a started checkout can count as a soft opt-in for this kind of reminder. Those rules also ask that saying no is easy, so every reminder Tendlio sends carries an unsubscribe link. Which rule applies to you depends on where you sell, so check your own.
What you need to do #
- Check which rule applies where you sell, and where your customers are.
- Mention email in your privacy policy.
- If your rule asks that shoppers can say no when they give you their address, give them that choice at your checkout. Tendlio doesn’t add a checkbox or a notice there.
- Fill in your store address under WooCommerce → Settings → General. Tendlio prints it in the footer of every email.
What Tendlio does #
- Nothing goes to your customers until you switch sending to Live, under Settings → Email sending. Test emails go only to the test addresses you choose.
- Every email Tendlio sends to a customer has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Gmail and Apple Mail can also show their own Unsubscribe button, because each email carries the one-click unsubscribe header those apps look for.
- Opt-outs are checked again at the moment of sending, so someone who just unsubscribed is skipped even if an email was already queued.
- The footer carries your store name and the postal address from your WooCommerce settings. Until you fill in the address, Tendlio won’t start a campaign or send an email to one customer with Send to this customer, and the Email sending page warns you. Other emails, such as cart reminders, go out without the address line.
- The customers Tendlio emails are people who ordered from you, and shoppers who started a checkout or filled a cart while logged in.
What your customers see when they unsubscribe #
The unsubscribe link opens your store’s Email preferences page. It lists the five kinds of email Tendlio can send, under the names your customers see: Cart & checkout reminders, Review requests, Offers & announcements (your campaigns), Welcome emails, and Come-back nudges (your second-order emails). The customer unticks the kinds they don’t want and clicks Save preferences, or clicks Unsubscribe from all emails.
Opening the page changes nothing on its own. Email security scanners can open links before the customer sees the email, so only a choice the customer saves counts. The Unsubscribe button in Gmail or Apple Mail works differently: it unsubscribes the customer from that kind of email right away.
An unsubscribe covers the emails Tendlio sends. Your store’s order and account emails come from WooCommerce, and an unsubscribe in Tendlio doesn’t stop them.
Confirming before your first campaign #
Tendlio asks you once, on the Campaigns page, to confirm that you may email your customers. The box is called Before your first campaign, and it has one checkbox: I have a lawful basis to email these customers, and my privacy policy mentions email. Tick it and click Confirm. After that, the box doesn’t come back.
Until you confirm, no campaign can start, and an email you send with Send to this customer waits in the queue. Cart reminders, welcome emails, second-order nudges and review requests don’t wait for this confirmation. You switch each of them on separately.
Additional resources #
- How to recover abandoned checkouts and carts: the reminder emails, and how they can follow your cookie banner.
- How to set up email sending and switch it to Live: the sending method and the switch to Live.
- How sending works: waiting emails, the daily limit and email analytics
- How to send a campaign to your customers
- Your data and privacy
Frequently asked questions #
Do I need a consent checkbox at checkout? #
It depends on the rule where you sell. Under soft opt-in rules such as the UK's, shoppers need a simple way to say no when they give you their address, and a checkbox is one way to give them that. Tendlio doesn't add one. This isn't legal advice.
If a customer unsubscribes, do they still get order emails? #
Yes. Order and account emails come from WooCommerce, and an unsubscribe in Tendlio only covers the emails Tendlio sends.
A customer opened the unsubscribe link but still gets emails. Why? #
Opening the page changes nothing on its own. The customer has to untick the emails they don't want and click Save preferences, or click Unsubscribe from all emails.