even hotmail and aweber get it wrong sometimes
Short and simple – user experience. We all put it on the sideline sometimes when it should be at the front of everything you do – since all your front and backend numbers depend upon it. Do you know that unsubscribe link on hotmail, live, msn that shows up in your messages after you ‘mark as safe’ the user?
It’s controlled by ESPs by adding list unsubscribe xheader attribute. And yes, if used correctly it’s supposed to look good in your FBLs – minimize complaints, aka clicks on the wonderful junk button. But look what happens and tell me 1) how you feel or 2) whether it’s can spam compliant.
STEP 1:
STEP 2:
STEP 3:
So hotmail really tell the user they’ve notified the sender about the removal request, but it’s really in users hands – it requires further action on their part – unsubscribing through newly opened tab with advertisers unsubscribe page. Is it a 2 or 3 step process, is it confusing and if so is it can-spam compliant?
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One Response to “even hotmail and aweber get it wrong sometimes”
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August 11th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
The first screenshot got my jaw to drop. They put such a great tool like the unsubscribe link in their system and then discourage people from using it!
The process of unsubscribing with the list-unsubscribe header may have two options:
1) the user will be redirected to a website, where the unsubscription can be completed
2) a special email notification will be sent to the ESP to process the request
The way the list-unsubscribe will work depends on the ESP and an implementation they choose. In this case Hotmail supports the web unsubscribe, but behaves like it was using the second option and confuses the user.
Gmail has also recently introduced such a feature and I hope it will be implemented better.