A few years ago, I got into an email marketing scandal, spent a lot of money on unfair fines, was booed by customers, and my reputation plummeted. It turned out that because I didn't understand GDPR CAN-SPAM email marketing law, I thought I had a list in hand and could send it right away. After that, I plowed through international regulations and Vietnamese laws to find the standard formula. For those who are learning Email marketing guide for beginners, this is a crucial lesson you must understand before starting. Now everything is on track, so I share with you everything to avoid falling into that same trap, but also turn email into an effective money-making machine.
The Penalty Hanging Over Your Head: What Does Not Comply With Email Marketing Laws Lose and Gain?
Ignoring legal regulations not only exposes you to millions of dollars in fines, but also completely destroys your brand reputation. On the contrary, following the rules helps increase the inbox rate and build a loyal customer base.
The most "painful" fines you can encounter (GDPR, CAN-SPAM and Vietnam)
Current fines for violating email marketing laws are designed to knock down businesses that intentionally violate them, with numbers that startle anyone.
In the European Union, GDPR fines can be up to EUR 20 million or 4% of total global turnover of the previous financial year, whichever is greater. Meanwhile, in the United States, the CAN-SPAM law (latest update in 2026) allows the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to fine up to about 53,088 USD for each email sent incorrectly. Let's do a simple calculation: if you send a campaign of 1,000 spam emails, the theoretical penalty exceeds $53 million!
In Vietnam, legal risks are not small and are increasingly tightening. According to Decree 15/2020/ND-CP email marketing, the act of sending illegal commercial emails is subject to a fine of from 10 to 100 million VND. More seriously, with Decree 13/2023/ND-CP protecting personal data and the latest draft Law in 2026, leaking customer personal data can be fined up to 5% of total revenue in Vietnam. Avoiding email marketing penalties is no longer a choice, but a vital task for every business.
It's not just about money: Loss of brand reputation, 100% email spam, and loss of customer trust
Fines are sometimes not the scariest thing, but the turning away of consumers and internet service providers (ISPs).
When you continuously send spam, your brand reputation in the eyes of email filters (like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) will hit rock bottom. As a result, your domain name and IP address are blacklisted. At that time, 100% of sent emails, including important transactional emails such as order confirmations, will fall straight into the spam box. Anti-spam is a top priority for these platforms, and they use AI to evaluate your reputation every second. Worse yet, customers will judge your business as unprofessional, annoying, and an invasion of privacy. Once trust is lost, convincing them to open their wallet to buy goods is impossible.
Doing it by the rules: Soaring email open rates, more loyal customers, and sustainable revenue
Legal compliance is not a barrier, but a great filter to help you retain customers who are truly interested in your products and services.
When users voluntarily give you permission to send emails, open rate (open rate) and click rate (CTR) will skyrocket. This is the core foundation of an effective email marketing campaign. At Pham Hai, I find that customers who strictly follow the rules often have ROI (return on capital) many times higher than those who buy floating lists. In particular, when you combine this clean data source with an automatic lead nurturing email campaign drip system, the process of converting strangers into loyal customers will happen naturally, bringing extremely sustainable revenue growth.
Quick Look at the 3 "Most Powerful" Email Marketing Laws Today
Three sets of laws shape global email marketing including Europe's GDPR with strict opt-in requirements, America's CAN-SPAM with opt-out, and Vietnam's legal system which combines both of these elements.
GDPR (Europe): Most difficult, requires "explicit consent"
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is known as the "strongest wall" protecting the rights of data subjects in the world today.
GDPR compliance in email marketing requires you to obtain "explicit consent" from the recipient before sending any promotional emails. You should absolutely not use pre-ticked boxes or assume that the customer not saying anything means they agree. All data collected must have an extremely clear and transparent purpose. Furthermore, users have the "right to be forgotten" – that is, they can request that you delete all of their personal data on the system at any time, and you must do so immediately.
CAN-SPAM (USA): Easier, allows email to be sent first but must have a visible "opt-out" button
If GDPR is a strictly defensive play from the start, the US CAN-SPAM Act is more about allowing action first but strict liability afterward.
The biggest difference between GDPR and CAN-SPAM is that CAN-SPAM operates under the Opt-out mechanism. That is, you are allowed to send commercial email to users in the US without them having to give prior consent (opt-in). However, CAN-SPAM compliance guidelines for businesses are extremely strict on format: emails must not use misleading subject lines (false clickbait), are required to have the physical address of the sending business, and most importantly, must have a smoothly functioning, easily visible opt-out/unsubscribe button.
Vietnamese Law: Combining both, paying special attention to Decree 15/2020/ND-CP and Decree 13/2023/ND-CP on personal data protection
Email marketing laws in Vietnam today are a delicate mix, requiring businesses to pay special attention to both the stage of requesting permission to send emails and the stage of internal information security.
According to the regulations on advertising emails in Decree 15/2020/ND-CP, you are required to have the recipient's prior consent to send commercial messages (this mechanism is quite similar to GDPR). Most recently, the strict supervision of the Ministry of Public Security through Decree 13/2023/ND-CP has raised security standards to a new level. Not only do you need consent, but you also have the responsibility to prove that your storage system is secure and resistant to cyber attacks to protect the integrity of your customers' personal data. Any leak will result in rigorous inspections.
A Practical Guide to Complying with Email Marketing Laws From A-Z for Vietnamese Businesses
To be fully compliant, businesses need to take four steps: ask for valid user permission, be transparent about sender information, provide quick opt-out rights, and absolutely secure customer data.
Step 1: Ask for Permission (Get Consent) So That It's "Correct"
The core of every legitimate and successful campaign lies in how you collect email addresses from day one.
The most accurate way to get consent in email marketing today is to use the Double Opt-in mechanism. When users fill out an email form on the website, the system will automatically send a confirmation email asking them to click on the link for final consent. If you are looking for a way to Build an email list from scratch for free, apply this method immediately. It not only helps you comply with international laws but also helps filter out junk emails and typo emails right from the delivery cycle, keeping your list always "clean" and high quality.
Step 2: What must be included in the email content? (Sender information, advertising label, reason for receiving email)
Email content is not simply a tool to close a sale, it is also a transparent legal commitment between you and the reader.
A practical, time-saving email marketing compliance solution is to create a standard template for the entire company. In that template, you must set up a footer clearly stating the company's legal name and physical headquarters address (this is a mandatory requirement according to CAN-SPAM). According to Vietnamese law, advertising email subject lines must usually be labeled [QC] or [Advertisement] at the beginning of the line. Additionally, a small but extremely effective tip is to add a short explanation line at the end of the email: "You received this email because you signed up to receive newsletters/documents on our website." This helps customers remember why they are on the list, minimizing the rate of spam reports.
Step 3: Right to Refuse (Opt-out) - Give customers an easy and quick way out
Never try to hide the Unsubscribe button by making the font size super small or using a font color that blends into the background color.
Transparency in opt-in and opt-out in email campaigns is a measure of a brand's professionalism. The opt-out button must appear clearly and easily (especially on the phone interface) at the end of each email. When a customer clicks, the system must recognize and process that request immediately. According to CAN-SPAM law, you have up to 10 working days to remove them from the list, but at Pham Hai, I always advise partners to install an automatic removal system immediately (zero-delay). Holding on to someone who no longer wants to listen to you only brings legal risks, not revenue.
Step 4: Secure customer data according to Decree 13/2023/ND-CP - Must do now!
Collecting a quality email list is difficult, keeping it safe from hackers and data thieves is ten thousand times more difficult.
In the spirit of Decree 13, you must develop a public, easy-to-understand Privacy Policy on your website, clearly explaining what data you collect, what it is used for, and committing not to sell it to third parties. Information security today is no longer an empty promise on paper but a mandatory legal obligation. Make sure your email sending platform (ESP) has high data encryption standards, and strictly limits internal access permissions to avoid employees arbitrarily downloading and taking customer lists elsewhere.
Tips to Help Emails "Avoid" Spam Boxes, Increase Open Rate
In addition to complying with the law, you need to regularly clean your lists, personalize content, and set up technical authentication (SPF, DKIM) to ensure emails always go straight to your inbox.
Clean up your email list: Say goodbye to people who are no longer interested
Keeping people who never open emails on the list for a long time only damages the sender reputation of the sending domain.
How to keep emails from going into spam? The core answer lies in strict and ruthless email list management. Every 3-6 months, use a tool to filter out cold subscribers and send them a final re-engagement campaign. If they still ignore it, feel free to remove them from the list. A list with few recipients but an open rate of up to 30-40% is always much better than mass sending to tens of thousands of "ghosts" who never interact.
Personalization and customer segmentation: Don't send one email to everyone
Sending content that is not related to the recipient's needs is the number 1 reason why customers get upset and click the "Report Spam" button.
Instead of batch and blast, apply the Email segmentation strategy to group your audience based on purchasing history, age, geographic location or personal interests. Email personalization does not stop at calling the customer's name correctly in the subject line, but combines with email automation (Marketing Automation) to send the right message, to the right person, at the right time when they need it most. Customers will feel understood, respected, and of course, spam filters from Google or Microsoft also favor emails with such deep interaction.
Technical: Verify domain names (SPF, DKIM) and choose a reputable email service provider
In the end, no matter how good your content is, how well you comply with the law, and if your technical foundation is weak, your email will still go to the junk folder.
| Protocol | Main function | Realistic benefits |
|---|---|---|
| SPF | Determine which IP list is allowed to send email on behalf of your domain. | Prevent hackers from spoofing sender addresses to commit fraud. |
| DKIM | Attach a hidden encrypted digital signature to the subject line of each outgoing email. | Make sure email content is not modified by thieves mid-transmission. |
| DMARC | Instruct the receiving server what to do (reject, send to spam) if the email has SPF/DKIM failure. | Comprehensive protection of reputation and business domain name. |
You must ask the IT team to fully configure these 3 records on the domain name's DNS management system. At the same time, you should only spend money on platforms that provide world-class email services with a clear commitment to complying with GDPR and international laws to ensure the rate of emails reaching the inbox is always at the highest level.
In short, complying with GDPR CAN-SPAM email marketing laws is not an administrative burden, but actually a smart business strategy. It forces us to do marketing more kindly, respect customers more, and send truly valuable content. When you put user privacy and experience first, they will not only be happy to open your emails, but will also trust you and be willing to spend money on purchases. That is the most sustainable and effective path to development that we have concluded after many years of actual fighting.
Are you experiencing any difficulties or legal problems with your business's email campaigns? Please leave a comment below, I will directly answer and share my experience with you!
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