Sending responsibly

Suppression, consent, warm-up and the Spam Act.

Delivery is not something you buy. It is something you keep. Every sender on this service shares the reputation of the infrastructure behind it, so the rules below are enforced, not advisory.

Only send to people who expect it

That is the whole of it. Someone who gave you their address to receive a receipt did not ask for your newsletter.

Consent is per purpose. A customer who bought from you has asked for order updates; they have not asked for a weekly promotion unless they said so separately.

What happens automatically

Suppression is protection, not punishment. Continuing to send to an address that already bounced is the fastest way to damage the delivery of your genuine mail.

You will see suppressed sends in your email log with status suppressed. If that number is climbing, your list needs attention.

Australian law

The Spam Act 2003 (Cth) applies to commercial electronic messages with an Australian link. In short, it requires that you have consent, that you identify yourself, and that you offer a working unsubscribe.

The API helps with two of those three:

• senderIdentity appends a compliant sender-identification footer to a marketing send — see Emails.
• One-click unsubscribe is added to marketing mail automatically, and the choice is honoured.

Consent is yours. No software can obtain it for you, and using these features does not make a send lawful if you did not have permission to send it. If you are unsure whether your list has proper consent, get advice before you send to it — the Australian Communications and Media Authority publishes guidance on what counts.

Label your mail honestly

category decides how a message is treated. Marking a newsletter as transactional to avoid the unsubscribe header is a breach of the Acceptable Use Policy, and it backfires: complaints count against your domain, and they do not distinguish between your promotions and your password resets. Mislabelling puts your sign-in codes in the spam folder.

Warm up a new domain

A domain that has never sent email has no reputation. Going from zero to fifty thousand messages in a day looks exactly like a compromised account, because usually it is.

Start small, increase gradually, and watch your bounce and complaint rates as you go. Send your most-wanted mail first — receipts and sign-in codes get opened, and engagement is what builds a good reputation.

When sending can be paused

Repeatedly sending unwanted mail can pause your sending. You will see account_paused on the API and a notice in your workspace.

This is not arbitrary, and it is not a dark pattern to sell you an upgrade: a sender with a high complaint rate degrades delivery for every other customer on the shared infrastructure. Fix the list, and sending resumes.

A short checklist

• Every address on your list gave you permission, and you could show where.
• text is provided alongside html on every send.
• category is honest.
• Bounces and complaints are monitored, not ignored.
• Your unsubscribe works, and you have tested it yourself.
• Your from address can receive replies from a real person.