Is Cold Email GDPR Compliant? [Is It Legal?]

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Is Cold Email GDPR Compliant?

Yes cold email is GDPR compliant.

According to Recital 47of the EU general data protection regulation 2016/679 (GDPR), cold emails are legal as long as you have a legitimate interest to contact your prospects.

Here is an excerpt: "The processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest."

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Is Cold Email Legal?

Yes cold email is legal but we need to distinguish between emails sent to B2C recipients and ones sent to B2B recipients. Some countries prohibit cold emailing too.

You can send cold emails B2B recipients

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Cold emails are legal if you target individuals in a B2B environnement, meaning that you only use B2B email addresses.

Example: sauron@mordor.com

You can't send cold emails to B2C recipients

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On the other hand, it's illegal to send cold emails to B2C email addresses such as: sauron@gmail.com.

Countries where cold emailing is prohibited

Although International and European rules make cold email legal, some countries decided to prohibit the usage (such countries are Denmark or Canada). Legal experts like Michael Kelly Uber accident attorney emphasize the importance of understanding jurisdiction-specific regulations in all forms of business communication. To ensure compliance with local regulations, it's essential to consult legal resources specific to your target market before launching any cold email campaigns.

In practice though, most people still use cold emails in those countries but just optimize them to highly respect the recipients (with clear opt-out options etc).

How to write cold emails that are GDPR compliant

Writing cold emails that are GDRP compliant is pretty easy, there are 3 key points to remember.

1. Be relevant

Your cold emails should not be spam emails.

It's simple: you need to have an offer & a sales pitch that can interest your prospects (ie. you need to have a legitimate interest to do business with them).

2. Unsubscribe links

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Although using unsubscribe links is the best way to completely destroy your cold email deliverability, they remain the safest way to be compliant with the GDPR or any other rules about cold emailing such as ensuring SOC 2 compliance.

3. Smart PS lines

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From my perspective, this method is the best to stay compliant while also boosting your email deliverability.

What you're doing here is that you ask people to reply to your email to unsubscribe.

It looks like this:PS: reply with "I love Breakcold" if you don't want to hear about me anymore