Seven Tips to Improve Your Email Program’s Usability

Design a standard box (in HTML) or copy block (in text) that includes all important subscription data: the email address used to subscribe, your company name and contact data, instructions on how to change preferences, an unsub link (separate from the reader-preference page), a link to your privacy policy or an abbreviated statement of it and any other relevant information.

Label each action clearly and separately: "Change your address/Update your preferences here;" "unsubscribe here."

Place this information in the same location in all messages, whatever the format. Near the end works best. Wherever you put it, do it the same way in all messages.

Dedicate a Web page to reader preference changes. Don't confuse its purpose with other goals or actions.

Allow readers to change their preferences by checking and unchecking boxes. List their new preferences on a separate page before they navigate away from it, but don't ask them to take yet another step to confirm them.

Make the unsub link stand out; label it clearly and don't surround it with extra copy or make it hard to find.

Move to a one or two-click unsubscribe process.