With the new Canadian Anti-Spam Law, a lot of people are wondering what to do.

Well, the bottom line is, you better do something to get your current contacts to give you an Express Consent.

There are probably many ways to do this, but I will share with you the way I chose and why. This is in no way an official CASL web site. I will show you what I did and how I did it, but please visit the official CRTC web site for the correct information on what needs to be included in your consent request.

First of all, I didn’t want the user to have to type anything (re-type email, etc…) since I wouldn’t do it myself. Then I didn’t want a “double opt-in”. I wanted it to be simple and easy to manage. So here is what I did.

1. Choose the list you want to get “Express Consent” from.

2. For that list, create a group. To do this, click on “Groups”.

Then, click on “Create Group”.

Then select “As checkboxes”, fill in “Group title” and “Group names” and click “Save”.

3. The next step is to setup an “Update profile form” for that list. To do this, click on “Signup forms”.

Then click on “General forms”.

Make sure “Signup form” is selected.

Add a header image (this is actually recommended by CASL).

To do this, click on “change”.

Choose your image and click on “Select”.

Click “Save & Insert Image”

Now you need to decide on the fields that will appear on your form. You can decide to have certain fields hidden or show them all. This is done on the “Build it” tab (don’t forget to click on “Save Field” when you make changes). You can then customize the color of your form in the “Design it” tab (no example shown below). Also notice that the group you created now shows at the bottom of the form.

Then select “Update profile form”.

Make sure you add the required data so that your customers know what they are supposed to do and it is clear enough. The goal is to confirm their consent, not confuse them!

4. The following step is to create a Campaign that links to your new “Update profile form”. To do this, in the Campaigns menu, click on “Create Campaign”.

Then select the type of campaign you want, and click on “Select”.

Then choose who you want to send it to and click on “Next”.

Now fill in the Campaign Info. Make sure you give it a meaningful “Name” and “Email subject”. When you’re done, click on “Next”.

Now, select what kind of template you want and click on “Select”.

Now it’s time to design your campaign. There are specific things that your letter to your customer must include in order to comply with the new Law. Please refer to the official CRTC web site for a list of the things you need to include.

Now this is where your Update form gets linked. In my letter, both the button and top-right text are linked to your Update form.

One more thing you HAVE to do is remove the “View this email in your browser” link. If they look at it in their bowser, the link you the form won’t work.

You are done, you just need to send it now! Here is my completed Campaign!

I hope this helps. Please don’t hesitate you leave your comments and share this post.