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nattarbox t1_izjjvoi wrote

Reply to comment by Menacing_Anus42 in When did it become okay to email you if you perform a transaction? by BF1shY

Square (and probably other POS systems) keeps a profile and attempts to associate all of your cards with them, which is shared across all merchants who use their system. If you opt in for one business (usually by asking for an email receipt), you're in for all of them.

As a customer who hates unsolicited email, it is supremely annoying.

As someone who helps with marketing for a small business, it's absolutely a super valuable tool. Seen very low unsubscribe rates too, so most customers seem to find it valuable as well.

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fetamorphasis t1_izjqd9k wrote

>As a customer who hates unsolicited email, it is supremely annoying.

Unless something has changed with both Square's product and the relevant email marketing laws, you are automatically opted in for transactional emails (receipts) but you are not opted in for marketing emails unless you specifically opt-in at each merchant. If a merchant is emailing you marketing material without the opt-in, they're likely breaking the law.

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nattarbox t1_izjt98e wrote

Square won't show the email if you're not opted in. But it is possible to download the email list, so merchants might be grabbing it and then emailing through other tools, or re-uploading to Square as new customers.

I think they made a change so opting in is across their network, rather than per merchant.

Opting out of one also opted out of all at one point (I never get these), but they might have changed that too, wouldn't surprise me. I've definitely seen an increase in customers who are opted in.

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SheeEttin t1_izkk4ao wrote

The low unsubscribe rate is probably because it just goes to the spam folder.

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nattarbox t1_izkphbg wrote

There is definitely a lot of that. If you mark one Square merchant as spam the rest get marked as well. Had a bunch of people trying to resubscribe through our website that were already on our list, and they were all going to spam when we reached out.

We try to do a good job of sending infrequently and only with important updates, so I think that helps a lot too.

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Billh491 t1_izks9xa wrote

would using Apple pay cut the tie of the profile to cards as I think the "card" apple pay gives is a one time use.

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nattarbox t1_izl5ryo wrote

Nope. It's not one time use, but it does hide your card number, which is useful for security (I think all tap to pay transactions do this).

Square will still be able to associate it with your profile if you opt into email/sms receipt like any physical card.

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