Consent
17 Aug – 13 Sep · vs previous period: 20 Jul – 16 Aug
Where every permission came from, what each send cost in permissions, and who the shop holds records for and may never write to. Given and withdrawn are counted separately and never netted into one line — the net figure is a sentence, not a chart.
Where permission stands
18,598 people have given the shop permission to write to them by e-mail, and 4,521 by SMS. In this period (17 Aug – 13 Sep) the list gained 812 permissions and lost 37, a net +775. The other 36,802 records the shop holds are people it may not write to at all; they are at the foot of this page, with the reason for each.
Given, and taken back
Given is the day somebody ticked a box, from the list's own dates. Withdrawn is what each send cost, dated to the send. The two are separate quantities; there is no third line adding them up.
Permission arrives on every day the shop takes an order and leaves on the days it sends something. That is not an argument against sending — it is the argument for the frequency cap, and for knowing what each send costs before it is approved rather than after.
Where the permissions came from
Four routes on to the list. Whether the address was confirmed before anything was sent to it is a column, because it is the difference between a list and a collection of addresses.
| Route | How it was asked | Confirmed | Holding permission | Ever withdrawn | Withdrew this period |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Checkout tick box | Unticked by default on the web store's last step, beside the order button. | No | 11,903 | 4633.7% | 150.12% |
| Newsletter form | The form in the site footer. A confirmation mail goes out and nothing is sent until the link in it is clicked. | Yes | 4,841 | 3596.9% | 170.35% |
| Card in the box | A card in every parcel with a code on it, typed in by the person themselves. The only route by which a marketplace buyer ever becomes somebody the shop may write to. | Yes | 1,119 | 645.4% | 20.14% |
| Subscription sign-up | Part of setting up a subscription, and separate from the service mail a subscriber gets either way. | No | 1,022 | 323.0% | 40.37% |
Checkout tick box holds 11,903 of the permissions, more than the other three together. Over the life of the list, newsletter form has lost the largest share of the people it brought in (6.9 per cent) — and it is a confirmed route, which is worth knowing before anybody concludes that confirming an address keeps people: the ones who confirm are also the ones who read what arrives and act on it. In this period the highest rate is subscription sign-up at 0.37 per cent, most of it from one send — “Still grinding?”. A withdrawal rate over a single period says more about what was sent than about how the permission was asked for.
Why people leave
Asked on the unsubscribe page, where answering is optional. Counted over the whole life of the list: one month of withdrawals is too few to cut five ways.
Too many messages
The reason the frequency cap exists.
31234%Not what I expected
20222%Not buying coffee here any more
17419%I never signed up
Every one of these is traced back to its source. Nine of the last ten came from the checkout tick box on a shared household account.
10111%No reason given
12914%
The last movements on the record
Every entry keeps the channel, the route and the moment. A permission that cannot be shown to the person who gave it is not a permission.
| Who | Channel | What happened | Route | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| m***@gmail.com | Gave permission | Checkout tick box | Mon 14 Sep, 09:58 | |
| +90 5** *** ** 41 | SMS | Gave permission | Checkout tick box | Mon 14 Sep, 09:41 |
| a***@outlook.com | Took it backToo many messages | Unsubscribe link | Mon 14 Sep, 08:12 | |
| s***@gmail.com | Confirmed it | Newsletter form | Sun 13 Sep, 21:30 | |
| b***@yahoo.com | BouncedMailbox does not exist; removed from every future send | E-mail provider | Sun 13 Sep, 09:02 | |
| k***@gmail.com | Gave permissionTrendyol buyer, typed the code in themselves | Card in the box | Sat 12 Sep, 16:44 | |
| d***@icloud.com | Took it backI never signed up | Unsubscribe link | Sat 12 Sep, 10:07 | |
| +90 5** *** ** 08 | SMS | Took it back | Replied STOP | Fri 11 Sep, 19:22 |
| e***@gmail.com | Gave permission | Subscription sign-up | Fri 11 Sep, 14:15 | |
| t***@hotmail.com | Took it backNot buying coffee here any more | Unsubscribe link | Fri 11 Sep, 09:31 |
The rules this department holds itself to
Not settings. None of these is a switch anybody in the shop can turn off.
The record is the permission
Every entry holds the channel, the moment, the source and the wording that was on screen at the time. A permission that cannot be shown to the person who gave it is not a permission.
Unsubscribing takes one click and works immediately
No confirmation page, no login, no preference wizard asked before the word 'unsubscribe' is honoured. Anything queued to that person is pulled out of the queue in the same second.
A marketplace address is never used for marketing
The relay address a marketplace hands the seller exists for order matters. It is held for that, it is never written to with an offer, and the reach ladder shows it dropping out of every single send.
Service mail is not marketing, and is not sent as marketing
An order confirmation, a dispatch note and a subscription heads-up go to people who have not given marketing permission — and they carry nothing to buy. The moment one of them carries an offer it becomes marketing and needs the permission.
Permission is asked for again, never assumed
Somebody who never ticked the box stays out of every send until they tick it. The list does not grow by widening the definition of consent.
Held, and never written to
Two thirds of the list. These four groups and the 18,598 people who can be written to are the whole of it — nothing is hidden in a rounding.
36,802
Marketplace relay addresses
33,400
Three fifths of the records on the list arrived through a marketplace, which hands the seller a masked address for order matters. Marketing to it is against the platform's rules. A card in the parcel is the only route out of this, and it is how the smallest source on the table above was built.
Never ticked the box
2,197
Bought on the web store and did not give permission. They can be asked again at the next order; until then they are in every segment and in no send.
Took permission back
918
Unsubscribed. They stay on the list so that nothing ever adds them back, and the record keeps the day and the route.
Address bounced hard
287
The mailbox does not exist. Permission is beside the point: sending to dead addresses is how a sending domain loses its reputation, and with it the mail that people do want.
Sample data. Permissions are counted off the list; withdrawals are counted off what each send produced and dated to the send. The send record begins in August, so a longer period widens the left-hand line and not the right-hand one.