The email footer: what the rules require, and what's worth adding

What UK and US rules ask the footer to carry

In the UK, PECR says you can't disguise who's sending, and you have to give people a valid contact address so they can opt out. Mailing customers under the soft opt-in? Then every email has to offer a simple way out. The ICO's guide to electronic mail marketing sets it out in plain English.

Sending to the US adds more. The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide asks for your valid physical postal address in every message, a clear way to opt out, and opt-outs honoured within ten business days.

Then there's Gmail. Google's sender guidelines ask bulk senders for one-click unsubscribe and a clearly visible unsubscribe link in the message body. None of this is legal advice. These are the published rules, and they're short enough to read over a coffee.

Put the unsubscribe link in plain sight, with a preferences link beside it

We get it, nobody wants to make leaving easy. But someone who can't find the unsubscribe link doesn't stay. They press the spam button, and a complaint does far more harm to your sending than one lost subscriber.

So put the link where people can see it, and put a preferences link next to it. Klaviyo has a manage preferences page built for this, where people choose what they hear about. Some of the people heading for the exit only wanted less.

What else earns a line at the bottom of a shop's email

• A reply address somebody actually reads, not a noreply
• Links to delivery, returns and your help pages
• One line on why they're getting it, like signing up at checkout
• Your full business name and address, written out once
• Social links, kept small, if you actually post

Then stop. A wall of grey legal text in tiny type helps nobody, and the bits that matter get lost in it. Klaviyo will add a basic unsubscribe link if it can't find one in your email, but that's a safety net, not a footer.