In compliance with best practices for email marketing, Cactus Connect only supports permission-based marketing practices. Our import policy is designed to prevent our system, and ultimately, our clients from being affiliated with UCE (unsolicited commercial email) otherwise known as spam.

New imported contacts must have directly requested the information you intend to send them. We DO NOT allow the use of purchased, leased, or rented email lists. All contacts imported into your account must have accompanying proof of a prior business relationship, or confirmed opt-in.

Imports are limited to 35% of your maximum database limit per day. A couple quick facts about email marketing legislation:

1. UCE (unsolicited commercial email) accounts for more than 45% of all email received. Due to a public backlash against these unsolicited marketing messages, some of which have been identified as a threat either to computer security or identity theft, the United States Government drafted the CAN-SPAM act in 2003.
2. CAN-SPAM (or Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) was put into place in January 2004 to set requirements in place for sending commercial emails, established penalties for "spammers", and allowed consumers the right to ask emailers to stop sending them messages.

The CAN-SPAM Act has 5 main provisions that all marketers and systems built for this purpose must follow:

• False and misleading header information is banned - This means that an email's From, To, and routing information must be accurate and identify the sender.
• Deceptive subject lines are prohibited - The subject line may not be deceptively written with the intention of coercing the receiving party to open the email under false pretenses.
• Opt-out methods must be provided - A response mechanism must be provided for the receiver to opt-out of any future commercial messages from the sender. In addition, opt-out requests must be processed for at least 30 days after the initial commercial email was sent, and senders have 10 business days after an opt-out request to stop sending messages to that address. Messages cannot be sent to the opt-out request or on behalf of the sender by any other entity.
• Commercial email must be identified as an advertisement and it must include the sender's valid physical postal address - The receiver must be clearly informed that the message is an advertisement or solicitation, he must be told he can opt-out of future mailings, and a valid physical postal address must be included in the message.
• Receivers must be warned of sexually explicit material - For any message that contains sexually explicit material, the warning "SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT" must be contained in the subject line.

Our system and import policy has been created with these legislative changes in mind to protect both the integrity of the system itself and all of our valuable clients using it. Due to this, all imported contacts will receive an Opt-in Confirmation Message before being added to your contact list. This message contains a link that uses a unique closed-loop method that will track the confirmation, including the time, date, and IP address of the confirmation. Imported clients will be available to you once the opt-in is confirmed. Here are some tips that will help improve your opt-in rate:

• Use your existing email broadcast system to send a message to your existing client-base, informing them of the change, and what steps they will be required to take in order to continue receiving your messages. This ensures that your actively-engaged readers will know that they will be receiving an opt-in message from the new system, and that they must click the opt-in link to continue receiving information.
• Cactus Connect comes with a system built around AutoResponder Campaigns which have the ability to easily track the import progress. It is recommended that you create a specific AutoResponder Campaign to track each import.
• While you may have worked diligently to build up your list of clients, keep in mind that anyone who chooses not to continue receiving messages from you likely wasn’t an actively-engaged reader. What you’re actually doing is cleaning your list by removing anyone that probably identified your messages as a spam and had them filtered out anyway. The customers that choose to continue receiving your messages are the most valuable on your list, and the ones that will provide the most return for your efforts.

Confirmed opt-in contacts that already exist in your client database will not be subject to a second confirmation if they are re-imported.

NOTE: If you have not set up your opt-in preferences, the system will send a default opt-in message to all your imported contacts. We strongly urge you to create a custom confirmation message for delivery to your contacts. Always remember to use contact information that your clients are going to recognize, and a clear and concise subject which includes your branding to maximize your response. Opt-in preferences can be found under the custom forms tab.