Should I treat emails with exclusive membership benefits as transactional or promotional?
Summary
What email marketers say12Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Reddit highlights the importance of always honouring unsubscribe requests so customers don't mark your emails as spam.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor says that whether an email is transactional or promotional depends on its primary purpose, which affects compliance with laws like CAN-SPAM. Exclusive benefit announcements are likely promotional.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests to mark an email as promotional when promoting perks or benefits for a paying member.
Email marketer from HubSpot clarifies that promotional emails require explicit consent. If the email's primary purpose is to announce benefits, it needs to adhere to promotional email guidelines, even if triggered by a purchase.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that debating whether an email is transactional or not is less important than recipient satisfaction, therefore treat it as promotional and honor unsubscribes.
Email marketer from Oracle Marketing Consulting Blog asserts that emails highlighting membership benefits and rewards are promotional, regardless of whether they're triggered by a purchase or subscription.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign states that while triggered by a membership, if the email’s main goal is to highlight exclusive deals and offers it should be considered promotional. This affects consent and unsubscribe practices.
Marketer from Email Geeks emphasizes the importance of providing an unsubscribe option and suggests contacting customers who unsubscribe from paid services to understand their reasons and potentially retain them.
Email marketer from Litmus says that, if you are in any doubt treat as promotional as it is more important to keep your audience engaged.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that it's critical to classify emails as transactional or marketing for CAN-SPAM compliance. Emails about membership benefits fall into the marketing category if the primary purpose is to advertise or promote a product or service.
Email marketer from Stack Overflow recommends separating membership emails into at least two lists: transactional emails for logins, password resets, etc., and a marketing list for deals and benefits to allow subscribers to opt out of marketing content without impacting transactional communication.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests making it clear in the email that it's the exclusive source of offers and consider alternatives for those who unsubscribe, as forcing a channel can have diminishing returns with paying customers.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks recommends having developers provide an alternative way to access the content other than email.
Expert from Email Geeks recommends creating a separate subscription for monthly benefits and highlights that relying solely on email may indicate a lack of development resources, which isn't always the best business decision.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that emails whose primary purpose is to entice recipients to use membership benefits are promotional and require unsubscribe links. Even if the user paid for a membership, they should be able to control whether they receive promotional messages.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Amazon SES specifies that marketing emails contain advertisements or solicitations, and benefit announcements likely fit this description. Transactional emails facilitate a transaction or update an existing transaction.
Documentation from SparkPost outlines that marketing emails include promotions and announcements, whereas transactional emails facilitate an agreed upon transaction or provide updates to an ongoing transaction. The primary purpose of the email determines its classification.
Documentation from Mailchimp explains that the difference between email types affects legal requirements. If the email primarily communicates benefits or promotions, even for members, it should be treated as marketing.
Documentation from SendGrid details that transactional emails facilitate an agreed-upon transaction, while marketing emails promote a product or service. Emails exclusively detailing membership perks are more aligned with marketing, even if related to a paid membership.