Managing email subscriptions shouldn’t feel like a chore, yet for many users, the process of unsubscribing from unwanted emails is unnecessarily tedious. It starts with searching for the unsubscribe button in the email and ends with choosing the reason for unsubscribing, maybe even filling up an entire form in some cases, and then clicking on the CTA on a distant landing page. But it doesn’t just affect the recipients.
Most of the time, the mark as spam button is just staring at the face of the recipients and it just seems easier to mark your email as spam than to take the trouble of going through the entire process of unsubscribing. This not only makes you lose an email from your email list but also hurts your reputation, even if you’re not acting as a spammer.
RFC 8058, titled Signaling One-Click Functionality for List Email Headers, addresses this issue by introducing a standardized approach for simplifying the unsubscribe process. In this article, we’ll learn more about RFC 8058, how it works and how it’s implemented.
What is RFC 8058?
RFC 8058, also known as "Signaling One-Click Functionality for List Email Headers," is a standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that makes unsubscribing from mailing lists easier.
This standard defines a mechanism that includes a header in the emails that enables one-click unsubscriptions. When a user wants to opt out of an email list, they can click the "Unsubscribe" button in email clients that support this feature.
Why does RFC 8058 compliance matter?
RFC 8058 aims to improve the user experience for the recipients and reduce false spam reports. It offers significant benefits:
- Protects sender reputation: Following RFC 8058 shows email clients that you’re a trustworthy sender who respects user preferences. This protects the sender's reputation from false spam complaints against you and maintains your email deliverability.
- Improves user experience: It makes it easy for recipients to unsubscribe from mailing lists, reducing frustration and making it easy to manage their inboxes. This builds trust and shows your audience that you value their choices.
- Reduces spam complaints: Adopting RFC 8058 helps reduce spam complaints as users are more likely just to unsubscribe using one-click to report you as spam. This decreases the overall spam complaints that ESPs receive.
- Meets legal requirements: Laws like the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR require simple unsubscribe options. Compliance helps avoid legal issues and fines.
- Reduces manual effort: It not only makes it easy for the recipients to unsubscribe but also reduces the manual effort required on the sender’s end by automating the process.
How to implement RFC 8058
To enable one-click unsubscriptions, you must include a List-Unsubscribe header field and a List-Unsubscribe-Post header field in the email. It may also contain other URIs, such as MAILTO. However, the List-Unsubscribe header must contain all the information to identify the recipient and the list from which the recipient needs to be removed.
Let’s take a look at some examples of implementation and discuss how each of them works.
1. Simple implementation
When a recipient clicks the unsubscribe link, a POST request is sent to your server, automatically removing them from your mailing list. The opaque identifier in the URL ensures that the recipient’s email address stays private.
Header in the email:
List-Unsubscribe: <https://example.com/unsubscribe/opaquepart>
List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click
Resulting POST request:
POST /unsubscribe/opaquepart HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 26
List-Unsubscribe=One-Click
In Gmail, this is the popup that shows up when you click on the unsubscribe button.
2. Complex implementation
Here, when a recipient clicks the unsubscribe link, an email is generated that gets sent to the specified address (e.g., unsubscribemeplease@example.com). Your system must then manually process the request by removing the recipient from your list.
Header in the email:
List-Unsubscribe:
<mailto:listrequest@example.com?subject=unsubscribe>,
<https://example.com/unsubscribe.html?opaque=123456789>
List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click
Resulting POST request:
POST /unsubscribe.html?opaque=123456789 HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 26
List-Unsubscribe=One-Click
In Gmail, this is the popup that shows up when you click on the unsubscribe button.
Note: If your current list-unsubscribe link requires a secondary action within a preference center, you will need to remove all secondary click-action processes to make sure this works for you.
Bulk email sender guidelines by Google and Yahoo
The implementation of a one-click unsubscribe button is also a part of big email providers like Google and Yahoo's bulk sender guidelines. It also contains some other best practices that must be followed to maintain email deliverability. Here's a breakdown of their new requirements and what you can do to meet the standards for delivering emails effectively and maintaining a good sender reputation.
- Authenticate your emails using DKIM, SPF and DMARC
- Reduce spam rate and keep spam complaint rate under 0.3%
- Allow recipients to unsubscribe with one click and process unsubscribe requests within 2 days
- Comply with RFC 5322 standard
- Have a PTR record
- Encrypt your emails using TLS encryption
Conclusion
To sum up, RFC 8058 helps make the unsubscribe process easier and more user-friendly. By adding the list-unsubscribe headers, email senders can offer a quick, one-click option for unsubscribing. This not only helps users opt out without hassle but also keeps your sender reputation strong and your emails out of the spam folder.
With big email providers like Gmail and Yahoo supporting this, following RFC 8058 guidelines is a smart choice for anyone looking to improve their email marketing and user experience. For more information, you can refer to the complete doc of RFC 8058.
