Discussion about the General Data Processing Regulation (GDPR) is all around, and since it directly affects how the email marketing process would function, we too have made a section in our TOS highlighting a few measures to take for GDPR compliance.
GDPR will get effective on Monday 25, 2018 and it is going to affect the data collected before GDPR effective date. As this new regulation will apply to a large portion of email recipients belonging to EU regions, it is the right time for email marketers, marketing agencies, and brands to get prepared for the new provisions.
In this new set of upcoming articles regarding GDPR, I would try to discuss the scope of GDPR and how Mumara can offer you a GDPR-compliant email marketing solution.
Consent!
A large part of the GDPR portion that deals with email marketing emphasizes how to get consent. In this article, let’s discuss how Mumara covers this new phenomenon of consent being “Freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous”.
The Double Opt-in Subscription
If we unfold some of the GDPR provisions, we would learn that the underlying emphasis remains on acquiring the contact’s personal information for further processing, with his/her consent.

And it should be affirmative, and no soft or passive opt-in would be accepted under GDPR. The best way to align with these GDPR new provisions is to always rely on a double opt-in process of collecting contacts’ personal information.
Mumara (Both Mumara Campaigns & Mumara Classic) has made it easy to add only a double opt-in contact to your list. Make use of the web forms function to create a sign-up form with desired fields for the contact to fill in with the required personal information.
These sign-ups that you create using the built-in web form function would involve an automatically sent confirmation email to the contacts that leave their personal information. An email with a confirmation link would confirm the validity and the consent of the subscriber.
Even if it is just an email field that is required for a subscription, providing an active way to opt in would keep you covered for GDPR compliance.
Unambiguous Authorization
Mumara has this default behavior to differentiate between the status of the contacts that confirm their emails as a result of receiving the confirmation email, and the ones that failed to perform the confirmation action.
The status of the latter contacts would remain unconfirmed in your lists. This gives you the ability to separate these out by applying a simple filter and then resending their confirmation email to have the authorization.
If some of the contacts are old with ambiguous permission or have a status as unconfirmed, you can resort to acquiring fresh consent by getting these contacts filtered and sending the request for fresh permission.
This all looks the old way though, but transparent and best practices never get old. You have provided a way to ensure that the consent is freely given and informed in addition to having proof of a system that stores the consent.
Easy Opt-Out
Consent that you have acquired once isn’t for a lifetime. GDPR insists on a way to be constantly available for the contacts to request the removal of their personal information. And upon receiving a request for removal, you will promptly respond and the bare minimum is you don’t send these contacts an email again.

Every email that you create and send from Mumara would help you easily add an unsubscribe link with just one click, like in the following image you can see one example.
Mumara swiftly records the opt-out action performed by any recipient, and not only notifies the sender but also updates such contact’s status as unsubscribe with an immediate effect.
The default behavior of Mumara omits contacts with unsubscribe status while sending the campaigns. This however can be more effectively handled if you want to separate out and move such contacts from the lists.
These specific and more articles that may follow soon are intended to discuss GDPR by keeping an everyday and common perspective of email marketing in mind. This is certainly not an expert legal counsel.
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