Every database has a pile of contacts you're a little scared to email. They opted in years ago, went quiet, and now every send feels like a coin flip between "re-engagement" and a complaint to ACMA.

The instinct is to leave them alone forever. The smarter move is to ask them, once, properly, and keep the receipt.

 

Why This Is Worth Doing

Under the Spam Act 2003, you need three things to send a commercial electronic message in Australia: consent (express or inferred), clear identification of who you are, and a working unsubscribe. Consent is the one that quietly rots. It doesn't expire on paper, but a contact who opted in three years ago and hasn't opened an email since isn't a contact you want to keep betting on. Every send to that group increases your spam complaint rate, and spam complaints are one of the clearest signals mailbox providers use to decide whether your next campaign lands in the inbox or the junk folder.

There's also a real compliance angle, not just a deliverability one. ACMA takes this seriously and the penalties aren't symbolic. A single breach can attract fines into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and repeat or serious breaches have resulted in penalties in the millions. This isn't a rule to quietly ignore.

Running a single, honest re-permission campaign fixes both problems at once. You end up with a segment you're genuinely allowed to email, a timestamped record proving permission if anyone ever asks, and a sender reputation that isn't being dragged down by people who were only ever going to hit "spam."

 

What You Need First

  • A HubSpot Marketing Hub account with list/segment filtering and workflow access.
  • A form you can build to capture the re-confirmation click.
  • Two custom contact properties (built in Step 3 below).
  • Sign-off from whoever handles compliance at your business, if you have one. This blog explains the mechanics; it isn't legal advice, and a quick sanity check from your compliance person before you send is worth the five minutes it takes.

 

A Quick Note on Privacy

You're putting a real person's name and professional details into an AI tool, so a couple of sensible habits.

Stick to public, professional information - their company site, their public LinkedIn, published news. That's the same material anyone could look up, which keeps this firmly in fair territory. Don't paste in private data, notes from back-channel sources, or anything the person wouldn't expect to be public. And if you're on a free or personal AI account, be aware some train on submitted data by default; an enterprise or team account avoids that. For public-profile research this is low-risk, but the habit is worth keeping.

 

How To Set It Up

Step 1: Build the "Gone Quiet" List

Create a list or active segment with three rules:

  • Last email open or click date is more than 12 months ago
  • Marketing contact status is marketable
  • Not already unsubscribed

That's your re-permission audience. Twelve months is a reasonable line for "gone quiet," but if you send infrequently, you may want to extend the window so you're not flagging genuinely engaged contacts who simply haven't seen a recent send.

 

Step 2: Write One Honest Re-Permission Email

Say the quiet part out loud. Something like: "We haven't been in touch in a while. Want to keep hearing from us?" with one clear button: "Yes, keep me in," linking to a short form.

Keep it to a few lines. No guilt-tripping, no five paragraphs justifying why you've been quiet, no dark patterns designed to make the "no" option hard to find. The whole point of this exercise is an honest ask. It's also worth remembering that under the Spam Act, you can't use this email itself to request consent for a different purpose than what you originally had it for - this send is a re-confirmation of existing consent, not a fresh consent grab wrapped in marketing copy.

 

Step 3: Capture Consent as Data, Not a Memory

On the form the button links to, set up two properties on the contact record:

  • Marketing consent (re-confirmed) - a single checkbox or dropdown property
  • Consent date/time - a date/time property, auto-populated on form submission

Also note, somewhere accessible, the exact wording the contact agreed to and the method (this specific re-permission form). ACMA's investigations specifically look for records of how and when consent was obtained, so this isn't paperwork for its own sake. It's the exact evidence you'd need to produce if your sending was ever questioned.

 

Step 4: Workflow the Outcome

Build a workflow off the form submission:

  • Submitted "Yes, keep me in": stamp the consent property and date/time, and keep the contact marketable.
  • No response after two reminder sends, over roughly 30 days: set the contact's marketing status to non-marketing.

That second branch matters as much as the first. The people who don't respond to a direct, honest, low-friction ask are answering you, just not with words. Respecting that silence is what separates a re-permission campaign from another round of nagging.

 

Step 5: Keep the Audit Trail

Store a copy of the re-permission email and the form, along with the date sent and the segment it went to. If a complaint or an ACMA enquiry ever comes in, "here's exactly what we asked, when, and who said yes" is a ten-second answer instead of a scramble through old campaign folders.

 

A Note on Consent and the Spam Act

This isn't legal advice, and the specifics of your situation may differ from what's covered here. But the mechanics of the Spam Act are consistent: you need consent (express or inferred), clear sender identification, and a functioning unsubscribe that works for at least 30 days after you send. A logged, timestamped "yes, I want this" is about the strongest position you can put yourself in. Bank it properly.

One thing worth being precise about: if a contact does unsubscribe or asks to stop, you're required to action that within five business days. Build that expectation into how your team handles inbound opt-outs, not just this campaign.

If you're at all unsure about your copy, your list hygiene, or how this interacts with your broader compliance obligations, get your compliance person or legal counsel to look at it before you send. Five minutes of review beats a five-figure conversation with ACMA.

 

Want Us to Build the Re-Permission Workflow With You?

If you've got a dead list you're too nervous to touch, or you want the workflow, the properties, and the audit trail set up properly the first time, that's exactly the kind of work we do.

Neighbourhood is a Diamond HubSpot Partner. Get in touch and we'll build it with you.

Talk to us about AI for your sales process.

 

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