The simple rule
Only send marketing emails to people who should reasonably expect to hear from your company.
You should be able to answer these questions for every contact:
Where did this email address come from?
Why would this person expect my email?
Is the address still current?
Does the person have a way to unsubscribe?
When you cannot answer those questions, do not send to the contact.
Why these rules matter
Email providers give every sender a reputation.
Your reputation can improve when:
Your contacts are valid
People expect your emails
Recipients open and interact with your content
Few messages bounce
Few people report the messages as spam
Your reputation can fall when:
You send to invalid addresses
You send to people who do not know your company
You use purchased or scraped lists
People report your messages as spam
Your emails repeatedly bounce
Your sender information is misleading
A damaged reputation can cause your messages to be blocked or sent to spam. It can also lead to your GlassHive account being suspended.
See Why Is My GlassHive Account Suspended? for the current suspension and reinstatement process.
Use permission-based contact lists
Permission-based contacts are people who:
Filled out your company’s form
Asked to receive your newsletter
Requested information from your company
Are active customers receiving relevant communication
Had a real business conversation with your team and expect follow-up
Registered for your event and agreed to related communication
Having someone’s address is not the same as having permission to send marketing.
Do not use purchased, rented, or scraped lists
Do not send marketing campaigns to lists that were:
Purchased from a list vendor
Rented from another company
Scraped from websites
Copied from public directories
Taken from social media
Shared by a partner without clear permission
Collected by an unknown third party
A seller may call a list “clean,” “verified,” or “opted in.” That does not mean the recipients gave permission to hear from your company.
These lists often contain old addresses, invalid addresses, people who will report the email as spam, and spam traps.
Do not send spam
Spam is unwanted email sent without verifiable permission.
Spam does not have to be a campaign sent to thousands of people. One unwanted commercial email can still be spam.
Do not send to contacts who:
Never asked to hear from your company
Have unsubscribed
Have hard bounced
Asked your company to stop contacting them
Were added from a purchased or scraped source
Would not recognize your company or understand why you emailed them
GlassHive’s Terms of Service prohibit unsolicited or unwanted bulk email.
Be honest about the sender and subject
Your email should clearly show:
Your real company name
A real sender name
A real business email address
A subject line that matches the message
A clear explanation of why the person is receiving it
Do not use misleading information such as:
“RE: Our meeting” when there was no meeting
“Invoice attached” for a sales message
A fake employee name
A fake company name
A subject line designed to look like an internal email
A different company’s name or branding
Use a company domain
Use a real company domain for marketing.
Preferred:
marketing@yourcompany.com
Avoid free personal addresses such as:
yourcompany@gmail.com
yourcompany@yahoo.com
yourcompany@hotmail.com
A company domain gives you more control over authentication and reputation.
Authenticate your domain
Set up DKIM before sending campaigns.
DKIM helps prove that GlassHive is authorized to send email for your domain. DMARC is also recommended.
Authentication does not guarantee inbox placement, but missing or incorrect authentication can cause messages to be rejected or filtered.
See Setting Up Your DKIM.
Keep your lists accurate
GlassHive does not scrub your contacts before upload.
Before using a list:
Validate the addresses
Remove invalid contacts
Remove old contacts
Correct confirmed typing mistakes
Review where the contacts came from
Remove contacts who no longer expect your marketing
See Uploading a List.
Honor unsubscribes
Per the CAN-SPAM Act every marketing email must give the recipient a clear way to unsubscribe.
When a person unsubscribes:
Do not add them back to another marketing list
Do not upload them again to work around the unsubscribe
Do not email them from another campaign tool
Do not ask a different employee to market to them
GlassHive will not send campaigns to contacts who have unsubscribed or hard bounced.
Do not work around an account suspension
Do not try to avoid a suspension by:
Creating duplicate contacts
Uploading the same list under a new name
Switching to another domain
Creating another account
Sending the same contacts through another platform
Breaking a large list into smaller sends
Hiding where the contacts came from
Fix the list and contact-acquisition process instead.
Do not send harmful, illegal, or deceptive content
Do not use GlassHive for content that:
Breaks the law
Promotes scams
Misleads recipients
Includes phishing or malware
Harasses or threatens people
Pretends to be another company or person
Violates another person’s copyright or trademark
Promotes prohibited goods or services
Contains false or unsupported medical claims
Do not upload highly sensitive information
Do not place information such as the following into marketing lists or campaign content:
Passwords
Security credentials
Social Security numbers
Payment-card numbers
Bank-account details
Protected medical information
Other data that your company is not permitted to store in a marketing system
What may happen when these rules are not followed?
Depending on the issue, GlassHive may:
Suspend the account
Require an account-wide contact cleanup
Ask for information about the list source
Require domain authentication
Escalate repeated incidents
Restrict or terminate access under the Terms of Service
The best protection is to send wanted email to clean, permission-based lists.
Before every campaign
Confirm that:
The recipients know your company
The recipients expect the message
The list has been checked recently
You are not using purchased or scraped data
Your domain is authenticated
The subject line is honest
The unsubscribe option is present
Your recent bounce rate is below 2%
You reviewed recent bounce and spam results