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Can I Put an Ad in a Transactional Message?
Question: I am trying to get more out of my transactional messages. Can I put marketing copy or an ad banner in it? And do I have to include the unsubscribe link and the address line like for regular emails?

Answer: You can tag an email marketing message onto transactional emails, such as order or subscription confirmations, shipping notices, product or service updates, billing notices or similar messages. However, you have to be careful not to tip the balance away from the transactional and toward the promotional.

Transactional messages get higher opens and clicks than straight promotional emails do, for the obvious reason that they are triggered by or require a customer action. Also, FTC rules and CAN-SPAM email laws governing promotional email don’t apply to these messages. You don’t have to include the unsubscribe link by law as you do with other commercial messages, although you should still include your address, phone and other contact info in any email you send.

Three best practices for adding a marketing message to your transactional emails:

  1. Feature the transaction, not the promotion, in the subject line. It is also especially important to focus on the transaction in the first two to three sentences of the message, since that might be all that shows up in the preview pane.

  2. Limit the promo copy so that it’s less than half the size of the transactional message, and make sure it’s as relevant to the customer as possible. Also, make sure your transactional message format follows your subscriber’s preference. If the subscriber chose text-format emails, don’t send HTML-format transaction messages, even if you never add promo copy to them.

  3. Place promo copy below the transactional message. The transaction must be the primary purpose of the email. Promotions should be secondary in focus and placement.


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