Following up without breaking Canada's rules: CASL, privacy and honest pricing

The short version

Before you send a promotional email or text, make sure you can answer yes to four questions:

1. Did this person agree to hear from us, and can we prove how and when?
2. Does the message clearly say who it's from?
3. Does it include a working way to unsubscribe?
4. Are the prices and claims in it accurate and complete?

If you serve customers in Quebec or Nunavut, add a fifth: is it in the language the law requires?

Anti-spam: CASL

Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation applies to commercial electronic messages, which include emails and texts that promote your business. As the CRTC's CASL guidance explains, a sender needs the recipient's consent, either express or a qualifying form of implied consent. Each message must identify the sender and include an unsubscribe mechanism that works. The burden of proving consent is on you, and the CRTC is the enforcement body.

What this means for your funnel

• Capture consent at the moment of contact. When someone calls, texts or emails, ask whether they'd like to receive follow-up offers, and record the answer with the date and channel.
• Keep a consent log. A column in your CRM or job software is enough: date, channel, wording used, and who recorded it.
• Separate service messages from promotions. Confirming an appointment or sending a quote someone asked for is part of serving them. A seasonal promotion sent later is marketing and needs consent.
• Honour unsubscribes everywhere. If someone opts out by email, make sure they also stop receiving texts from the same list.
• Don't import old lists blindly. A spreadsheet of past customers without consent records is a risk, not an asset.

Our lead handling and follow-up service builds the consent capture into the first reply, so it doesn't depend on staff remembering.

Privacy: PIPEDA and provincial laws

Your funnel collects personal information: names, phone numbers, emails, addresses, purchase history. According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, PIPEDA is the federal private-sector privacy law for information handled in commercial activity, and it applies across most of Canada and to data that crosses borders. Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec have their own private-sector privacy laws that are considered substantially similar and apply within those provinces.

Practical habits

• Collect only what you use. If you never use a customer's birth date, don't ask for it.
• Say why you collect it. A short line in your first reply ("we'll use your number to arrange your quote") goes a long way.
• Control access. Limit who on your team can export customer lists.
• Check your tools. Know where your CRM, call tracking and analytics store data, and who can see it.
• Recorded calls need notice. If you record calls for training or tracking, tell callers.

Honest pricing and claims: the Competition Act

Follow-up messages often contain offers, prices and claims, and those are advertising. The Competition Bureau enforces rules against false or misleading representations. The data we checked notes two points worth knowing:

• Drip pricing is prohibited: advertising a price that leaves out mandatory fixed fees, which are added later. If a fee can't be avoided, include it in the advertised price.
• Environmental claims must be backed up. The Competition Bureau's guidance on environmental claims was finalised in June 2025. Amendments that received Royal Assent on 2026-03-26 changed one of the specific requirements, but the general rules on misleading advertising still apply, and the Bureau has said it will update its guidance.

For conversion work, this matters directly. Showing a price can lift your enquiry rate, as our low-traffic testing guide discusses, but the price you show must be honest and complete.

Language rules in Quebec and Nunavut

Two jurisdictions have language requirements that reach commercial advertising.

Quebec. Since Bill 96 amended the Charter of the French Language, French has to dominate both public signs and commercial ads, and Quebec-facing websites and social accounts need French content. A further change took effect on 2025-06-01: a name or trademark in another language shown on the outside of your premises now needs French wording beside it. The OQLF is the body to consult. For your funnel, that means French versions of landing pages, follow-up messages and ads for Quebec audiences, not just a translated home page.

Nunavut. Under the Inuit Language Protection Act, a business's signs, posters and ads must carry Inuktut with at least equal prominence, and customers must be able to get service in Inuktut. The Languages Commissioner of Nunavut oversees it. If you advertise to Nunavut customers, plan for Inuktut content and service from the start.

Our Quebec page and territories page cover these in more regional context.

A compliant follow-up sequence, step by step

Here is a template sequence for a service business, written with placeholders:

1. Within minutes of an enquiry: an acknowledgement from [Business name] saying who will reply and when. Service message; no promotion.
2. Same business day: a personal reply or call, with the quote or next step. At the end, ask: "Would you like us to send you occasional offers by text or email?" Record the answer.
3. Three business days after a quote: a personal check-in about the quote. Still service, because they asked for it.
4. Later promotions: only to people who said yes, with [Business name] clearly identified and an unsubscribe line in every message.
5. Annual review: check your consent log, remove people who opted out, and confirm your records are complete.

Common mistakes

• Treating "they bought from us once" as permanent permission for any promotion.
• Running text promotions from a staff member's personal phone, with no unsubscribe or record.
• Advertising "from" prices that leave out a fee every customer pays.
• Translating only the home page for Quebec while ads and follow-up stay in English.
• Assuming a software vendor handles compliance for you.

Where to go from here

Use this guide as a planning checklist, and confirm details with the regulators linked above or a lawyer. Then put a value on follow-up with our funnel math guide, and see how we build it on the follow-up service page.