Here is a conversation we have more often than you would think. A client buys a consumer list, loads it into their email platform, and discovers they are not allowed to send to it. The data was real. The targeting was fine. They simply had no right to email those people.
What the law asks for
Australia’s Spam Act requires consent before you send a commercial electronic message. That covers email and SMS. Consent can be express, where someone actively agreed, or inferred in narrow circumstances such as an existing business relationship.
Telephone contact runs on a separate system. The Do Not Call Register exists so people can opt out of unsolicited marketing calls, and lists must be screened against it before anyone picks up the phone.
None of this is obscure. What catches people out is the gap between having data and being allowed to use it in a particular channel.
Where the gap comes from
A lot of consumer data in this market has been compiled, scraped, licensed on from somewhere else, or assembled from sources that never contemplated email marketing. It might be accurate. The names might be right and the addresses current. But if nobody ever agreed to hear from a third party by email, that file is not an email list. It is a file.
Suppliers are not always upfront about this, partly because the question is rarely asked directly. The buyer asks how many records and how much per record. Nobody asks where the consent came from.
Three questions worth asking
Where did the consent come from? Not “is this data compliant” — every supplier says yes. Ask how it was collected, and what the person was told at the time.
Who holds it? If your supplier licensed the data from someone else, who is actually responsible if a complaint lands? A chain of three parties is a chain with three places to break.
What happens when someone opts out? If a person unsubscribes from your campaign, does that flow back? Or will they be on the next file you buy, annoyed to hear from you again?
A supplier who gets uncomfortable at the first question has told you what you need to know.
Why we go on about this
Every record we hold is fully consented, and we own that consent. We did not buy it from someone who bought it from someone else.
That matters for the obvious reason — you are not exposed on a file we supplied — but it also matters for a less obvious one. Because the consent is ours, we can send on your behalf. The email goes out from our systems. So does the SMS. We are not handing you a file and hoping you have somewhere lawful to put it.
Most data suppliers cannot do that, and it is not because they lack the technology. It is because they do not hold the permission.
Compliance is not the pitch
Nobody buys data because it is compliant. They buy it because they want a campaign that works, and compliance is the floor, not the ceiling.
The practical value of consented data is that it opens channels. You can email. You can text. You can screen against the Do Not Call Register and then phone. You can do all three to the same audience in sequence, which is where response rates actually come from.
A file you cannot legally email is not a cheaper version of that. It is a different product with most of the useful parts removed.
What to do with this
If you have data sitting unused because nobody is quite sure whether you can send to it, that is worth resolving. It is either usable and you should be using it, or it is not and you should stop paying to store it.
And if you are about to buy, ask the three questions above before you ask about price. The answers will tell you more about what you are getting than the rate card will.
Not sure what you are allowed to do with the data you already hold? We can look at it with you. Get in touch.
This article describes how we operate and is general information, not legal advice. For obligations specific to your business, seek your own advice.
