Yes, in the sense that matters legally: consent isn’t the only lawful basis available for the processing that gets someone onto a marketing list in the first place. See lawful processing for the full list of bases, legitimate interests is usually the one doing the work here. But that’s not actually the rule that decides whether a business is in trouble. The real rule is this: once anyone objects to marketing specifically, an exercise of their right to object, a business has to stop immediately, with no exceptions. Direct marketing covers the full legal detail. This article is about what that means for the channels a Botswana business actually uses.

Email marketing

A customer who bought something from you before can often be marketed to on a legitimate interests basis, without a separate opt-in. What the Act does require is that you tell them clearly, at first contact, that they have the right to object to that marketing. Section 48(5) makes that disclosure a condition of relying on this route at all. An email footer with a working, visible unsubscribe link, present from the very first marketing email you send, is the practical way most businesses meet it.

WhatsApp broadcast lists and business messaging

The same objection rule applies here as with email: tell people about their right to object, and honour it when they use it. What changes is the stakes. WhatsApp is more personal and more immediate than an inbox, so an unwanted marketing message lands worse, and a slow or half-honoured unsubscribe request feels worse too. If someone replies “stop” or asks to be removed from a broadcast list, that request needs to be actioned fast, and permanently, not just muted until the next campaign goes out to the same list anyway.

SMS marketing

Same principle again. Whichever channel a business uses, the objection right works the same way. There’s no separate, lighter rule for SMS just because a message is short and cheap to send, and no separate, stricter one either. One rule, applied consistently, across every channel a business uses to reach the same people.

“We didn’t get explicit consent before messaging this person” is not automatically a violation, the way it might be treated under a marketing-specific opt-in law elsewhere. Botswana’s Act doesn’t have a dedicated opt-in marketing regime sitting alongside its general lawful bases. What it does have is section 48(4), and that section gives no room to override an objection to direct marketing once one has been made. “We kept messaging someone after they told us to stop” is a violation, full stop, regardless of what basis you were relying on to message them in the first place.

That’s the actual line a business needs to manage: getting someone onto a list without their explicit sign-off is often fine. Ignoring their objection once they’ve made one is not.

Getting someone onto a list without their explicit sign-off is often fine. Ignoring their objection once they’ve made one is not.

A practical checklist

  • Tell people about their right to object to marketing the first time you contact them, not buried three campaigns in.
  • Make opting out genuinely easy and permanent: one click, one reply, done, not a form that routes to a queue nobody checks.
  • Keep a record that objections were honoured. This ties into the accountability principle under the Act (see principles), and it’s also the difference between “we fixed it” and “we can prove we fixed it” if a complaint ever reaches the Commission.