Email marketing to past customers

Hello! I can certainly help you figure this out.

The short answer is yes, you usually can email marketing offers to past customers, provided you follow a helpful legal exception known as the soft opt-in.

The legal position:

In England and Wales, electronic direct marketing is governed by rules known as the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, alongside broader data protection laws.

Normally, you need a person's explicit consent to send them marketing emails. However, the soft opt-in rule allows you to email previous customers without needing them to actively tick a consent box, as long as you meet four specific conditions.

1. You originally collected their email address in the course of a sale, or while negotiating a sale. Asking for a quote or inputting details before abandoning an online shopping basket can count as negotiating.
2. You are only marketing your own similar products or services.
3. You gave the customer a clear and easy opportunity to refuse or opt out of marketing when you first collected their details.
4. You give them a clear and simple way to unsubscribe in every single marketing email you send them afterwards.

Business versus consumer customers:

These exact rules apply if your past customers are individual consumers, sole traders, or some types of partnerships. If your past customers are corporate bodies, like limited companies, the rules are much more relaxed. You can generally send marketing to corporate email addresses without prior consent, though you must still provide a way to opt out and identify your business clearly.

Practical next steps:

If you are planning to run a new email campaign to your past customers, it is sensible to do a quick health check of your data first to avoid complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office, which regulates data protection here.

1. Check your old forms and checkouts. Before hitting send, make sure your past checkout process actually gave people a chance to opt out of marketing. If you collected their details without offering them that choice at the time, you cannot legally rely on the soft opt-in today.

2. Review your offers. Make sure the marketing offer makes sense based on what they bought before. If a customer bought car parts from you, emailing them about motor oil is perfectly fine, but emailing them to sell holiday insurance is very risky because it is not a similar product or service.

3. Test your unsubscribe link. Make sure every single email has a highly visible, working opt-out link at the bottom.

4. Manage your opt-outs carefully. When someone unsubscribes, move them to a suppression list rather than just completely deleting their record. This ensures you do not accidentally email them again if you import new data in the future.

If you find that your old checkout processes did not give your past customers a chance to opt out when they first bought from you, the safest practical option is not to send them marketing emails. You would need to look at gathering fresh, explicit consent from them before sending those offers.