Legitimate Interest Assessment template

Why you need one

A work email address with a person's name in it is personal data under the GDPR and the UK GDPR. To email that person without their consent, you rely on your legitimate interest in direct marketing. The law asks you to write down why that interest is fair to the person before you rely on it. That written check is a legitimate interest assessment, or LIA.

Sellvance checks for a confirmed LIA, and a link to your privacy notice, on campaigns that email recipients in the EU, EEA or UK, and flags the campaign when either is missing. You do not need one for a contact whose consent record you hold.

What the template covers

The template follows the three tests regulators expect, then lists the safeguards.

1. Purpose test

What your interest is: offering your product to businesses that are likely to need it. The template fills in what you sell from your workspace description, and states that the interest is yours, lawful and specific to this offer.

2. Necessity test

Why email to these people is needed for that purpose. It describes who you contact, from your campaign's segment when you pick one, and confirms that you use only what a relevant email needs: name, job title, company, work email address and public company information.

3. Balancing test

Whether the person's interests override yours. It covers what a professional can reasonably expect at work, the low impact of a few emails that are easy to stop, where the data came from, and that you contact businesses, not consumers.

4. Safeguards

• One-click opt-out on every email, with your name and postal address. Opting out is permanent, and replies such as “stop” count too.
• At most five emails per person in a sequence, and none after the person replies or opts out.
• Suppression. Opt-outs, bounces and complaints go on a do-not-contact list that every campaign checks before each email.
• Country rules. Countries that need prior consent for business email are left out unless you hold consent.
• Minimal data. Only the fields listed above, kept no longer than needed.
• A privacy notice, linked from the footer of each email once you add it, which tells the person where you got their data and how to object.

Each safeguard is something the platform enforces, as described in our Sending Standards. The assessment doesn't claim anything Sellvance doesn't do.

How to generate yours

1. In your workspace, open Settings → EEA/UK outreach (go there; you'll be asked to log in).
2. The page shows a draft assessment pre-filled from your workspace, your sender details and, if you choose one, a campaign and its segment.
3. Read it and edit anything that doesn't match how you work. You know your offer and your audience better than the template does.
4. Tick “I have reviewed and confirm this assessment” and save. We record when you confirmed it and who did. If you change the text later without ticking again, the confirmation is removed.
5. Add the link to your privacy notice on the same page. The page also gives you a draft notice to publish on your own site.

The same steps are available through the API, under /api/v1/workspaces/<workspace>/compliance/: get the draft from lia/draft/ and confirm it with lia/confirm/.

Not legal advice

The template is a starting point, not legal advice. You are the controller of the data you use for outreach, so the assessment is yours: review it, change it where your situation differs, and ask your own lawyer if you are unsure. See also our Data Processing Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy.