Consent, deliverability and automation
Grow a list people actually agreed to join, get your emails into the inbox rather than spam, and send useful automated messages in Arabic and English.
Where email fits
Social reach and ad costs change with each platform update. An email marketing list belongs to your business in Dubai, and a well run programme keeps paying back through welcome messages, order updates and timely offers. It also carries legal obligations and technical requirements that most failed email programmes skipped.
Sign up forms, preference centres and a consent record you can produce when someone asks how you got their address.
Domain authentication, list hygiene and complaint monitoring, so the emails you pay to design are actually seen.
Flows triggered by what customers do, which usually matter more than the monthly newsletter.
Consent and the law
Federal Decree Law No. 45 of 2021 Concerning the Protection of Personal Data came into force on 2 January 2022. Article 4 prohibits processing personal data without the owner’s consent, with listed exceptions such as performing a contract the person is party to. For email marketing in Dubai, an email address linked to a named person is personal data under the law’s definition.
The law defines consent as specific, clear and unambiguous, given through a clear positive statement or action. Article 6 then adds three conditions: the business must be able to prove the consent, the request must be clear, simple and easily accessible, and it must include the right to withdraw easily. Withdrawal is possible at any time. Article 17 gives people the right to object to processing for direct marketing, including profiling related to it.
The law does not apply to everyone. Article 2 excludes, among others, companies in free zones that have their own personal data protection legislation, and the UAE Government portal points to the separate law in DIFC. Check which regime covers your licence with your legal adviser; this page is practical guidance, not legal advice.
Proof of consent
If you rely on consent, you need to be able to prove it. These fields live in your email platform or CRM against each contact.
| Field | Example | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Date and time of consent | Timestamp from the form submission | Shows when permission was given |
| Source | Website footer form, checkout, event tablet | Shows how the address was collected |
| Wording shown | Saved copy of the checkbox text and version | Shows what the person agreed to |
| Language | Arabic or English | Sends in the right language and proves the form was understandable |
| Topics chosen | Offers, events, newsletter | Stops you emailing about things they did not ask for |
| Withdrawal date | Unsubscribe or objection timestamp | Keeps suppressed contacts suppressed after list imports |
Deliverability basics
Google’s guidelines for email marketing in Dubai set out requirements for anyone sending to Gmail accounts, with stricter rules for bulk senders who send more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail.
| Record | What it does | Gmail guideline |
|---|---|---|
| SPF | Lists the servers allowed to send mail for your domain | All senders need SPF or DKIM; bulk senders need both |
| DKIM | Signs each message so the receiver can confirm it was not altered and came from your domain | As above |
| DMARC | Tells receivers what to do when SPF or DKIM fails and sends you reports | Required for bulk senders; Google says the policy can be set to none |
| Alignment | The domain in the From address matches the SPF or DKIM domain | Required for bulk senders’ direct email |
| Unsubscribe | One click unsubscribe in the message header plus a visible link | Required for bulk marketing and subscribed messages |
Google also asks senders to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and to avoid ever reaching 0.30% or higher. A common problem we see in email marketing for Dubai businesses is a platform sending on a shared domain while the company’s own domain has no DMARC record at all.
Programmes worth building
Two to four emails after sign up that explain what you offer, set expectations for frequency and ask for language and topic preferences.
For ecommerce stores, reminders when a signed up customer leaves products behind, without pushing discounts by default.
Care instructions, a review request and a relevant next product, spaced to fit how long the item is actually used.
A final check with subscribers who have not engaged for a long period, followed by removal of those who do not respond.
Bilingual email
Good email marketing for Dubai subscribers stores each one’s preferred language and sends one version, rather than stacking both languages in one long email. Arabic templates need right to left direction set in the HTML, mirrored layouts, Arabic web safe font fallbacks and testing in the mail apps your audience uses, because email clients handle direction less consistently than browsers.
For measurement, clicks, orders and form completions tell you more than opens, which are an unreliable signal because mail apps load images in different ways. We connect email links to your analytics through our web analytics setup and send clicks to pages built for the offer, often through landing page design.
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A bought list is a poor foundation: you cannot show that those people agreed to hear from you, and complaint rates on such lists tend to damage your sending domain. Exhibition contacts are different if the form or badge scan clearly explained that marketing emails would follow, so keep a record of that wording.
We work in the platform that fits your stack, whether that is a dedicated email tool, your ecommerce platform's built in email or your CRM. We recommend the account sits in your company's name so the list and history remain yours.
Strategy, setup, automation and reporting sit here. Subject lines, body copy and sequences are written by our email copywriting team, and the two are usually scoped together in one proposal.
You receive a fixed written quote, scoped to your brief: list size, number of automated flows, languages and how many campaigns you plan to send each month. The proposal usually arrives within 45 minutes during business hours.
We cannot promise inbox placement, because mailbox providers decide it. What we can do is fix authentication, clean the list, set a sensible sending pattern and watch complaint data, which removes the most common causes of spam filtering.
Sources
Fixed price, in writing
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In business hours you will have it within 45 minutes. Check your inbox for the confirmation.
