This week, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) slapped Quebec company Compu-Finder with a $1.1 million fine for violating the Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL). As a quick refresher, CASL went into effect this past July and states that recipients of emails and push notifications need to have provided “explicit or implied” consent to communicate with them. Certain types of messages, such as those related to previous transactions or a user account, are exempt. According to the CRTC, Compu-Finder sent unsolicited messages to email addresses it obtained from “scouring websites,” prompting consumers to send complaints to the Spam Reporting Centre.

While this was the first case of a CASL violation and the steepness of the fine may surprise some, such penalties can be avoided with a few precautions. Back in June, Appboy’s coverage of CASL coincided with updates to our dashboard that made it simple for customers to send push notifications and emails to opted-in users only. Since then, Appboy has tracked explicit opt-ins to push and emails, and allowed you to target messages at only users who have opted in to each channel. By communicating exclusively with those who wish to receive your messages, you are also increasing campaign engagement rates and decreasing the likelihood that your emails will flagged as spam.

In addition, CASL mandates that all messages must have an “unsubscribe mechanism.” All emails sent through Appboy automatically include a message footer containing an unsubscribe link, although if you’d like to customize the footer’s language, you’re able to suppress our default version and insert your own. You can also create a custom unsubscribe landing page from Appboy’s dashboard. By including a brief exit survey on this page, you’ll be able to gain insight on why people are unsubscribing and improve your email strategy.

Next week, Appboy is rolling out a couple new features that will provide even more ways to effectively manage your campaigns and user subscription statuses while remaining CASL compliant. Stay tuned for the announcement on our blog!