Writing on UK telephone-marketing compliance.
Practical, founder-written pieces on TPS, CTPS, PECR, ICO enforcement, and how to keep a CRM clean without slowing your sales team down.
Showing all 42 articles
Are bought leads and prebooked appointments safe to call? TPS rules for lead buyers
What PECR requires before you call a bought lead or prebooked appointment on the TPS or CTPS, why consent given to a lead generator rarely covers your call, and a checklist for lead buyers.
Go-to-market strategy template: a B2B outbound plan for the UK and Australia, with a free spreadsheet
A one-sheet-per-section go-to-market template for B2B outbound, shown filled in for a made-up UK seller: ideal customer, list, legal calling in the UK and Australia, sequence, dead number checks, 90 days and weekly metrics.
The Australian Do Not Call Register: a guide for businesses
A business guide to Australia's Do Not Call Register, with section numbers from the Act and the Industry Standard: eligible numbers, mobiles, washing, exceptions, checking a number and penalties in dollars.
What time can you cold call in the UK? Calling hours, Sundays and bank holidays
What UK law does and does not say about when you can cold call, including Sundays, evenings and bank holidays, with the Ofcom and consumer law tests that weigh timing and a comparison with Australia's fixed hours.
Do you have to tell people you are recording a sales call? UK call recording rules
UK call recording rules for sales teams from the legislation: IPA 2016 sections 3, 44 and 46, the 2018 business monitoring regulations, UK GDPR articles 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 21, what to say at the start of the call, AI transcription, retention and FCA SYSC 10A.
Cold calling statistics 2026: connect rates, success rates and the UK registers
Connect, conversation and meeting rates from the largest UK-run dataset, buyer survey results, Ofcom call volumes, the TPS and CTPS register sizes and ICO complaint and enforcement counts, each with its source, sample and date.
Cold calling scripts and rules of thumb for the UK and Australia
Two cold calling script templates, UK and Australia, whose first lines carry the identification each country requires, with prepared lines for gatekeepers, voicemail, objections and opt-outs, then the 3-3-3 rule, the 80/20 rule and cold vs warm calls, labelled as sales folklore where they are.
Recruitment cold calling in the UK: calling clients and candidates within PECR
How PECR, UK GDPR and the 2003 Conduct Regulations apply to a recruiter's business development calls and candidate calls, with the sole-trader hirer, the speculative CV and a desk checklist.
Real estate cold calling in Australia: the Do Not Call Register and calling rules for agents
The Do Not Call Register, the Telemarketing Industry Standard and the Spam Act applied to appraisal, listing and property management calls, with appraisal requests, consent wording, interstate landlords, offshore virtual assistants and the Victorian conduct rules for agents.
Cold calling software: diallers, data, CRM and where TPS screening fits
What each kind of cold calling tool does, what it costs at published October 2026 prices, which dialler settings carry legal rules, and why the register check runs on the CRM record before a number reaches the dialler.
How to cold call in the UK: a 12-step guide from list to meeting
A practical guide to UK cold calling in the order a calling day runs: targeting, list building, number checks, consent and suppression, timing, opener, call structure, objections, logging, follow-up and the metrics that show what to fix.
Go to market strategy UK: a 9-step B2B plan with a 90-day timeline
A practical UK go-to-market plan for B2B companies launching or scaling outbound sales, including overseas entrants: ideal customer and market sizing from official data, sterling pricing and VAT, channel mix, data sourcing, consent and suppression, sequence design, procurement, metrics and a 90-day plan.
How to cold call in Australia: a 12-step guide for sales teams
A practical guide to cold calling in Australia for local teams and UK callers: list building, the register wash, calling hours and time zones, caller ID, the opener, objections, follow-up and the numbers to track.
Go to market strategy Australia: a 10-step B2B outbound plan
A practical go-to-market plan for B2B companies entering Australia or planning outbound there: customer profile, market sizing from ABS data, A$ pricing and GST, channel mix, data sourcing, consent, suppression, calling hours, sales process, metrics and a 90-day plan.
Does the TPS cover mobile numbers? Yes, and here is how it works
The TPS covers mobiles as well as landlines: how to register your own mobile free, and what a registered mobile means for businesses making marketing calls, texts and B2B calls.
How much does TPS screening cost? Licence, bureau, API and CRM options in pounds
Every route to TPS and CTPS screening priced in pounds from published October 2026 prices, with a year's cost at 10,000, 100,000 and 1,000,000 numbers screened every 28 days.
What the Data Use and Access Act 2025 changed for cold calling and PECR
What sections 109 to 116 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 changed in PECR for sales calls, from the wider definition of a call to the £17.5 million fine ceiling, and the TPS and CTPS rules that stayed exactly as they were.
UK TPS vs US Do Not Call vs Australia's DNCR: how the three registers compare
A side-by-side comparison of the UK, US and Australian do-not-call registers, with what changes for teams that call more than one country.
TPS and CTPS suppression explained: screening, suppression lists and your own opt-outs
Screening is the TPS and CTPS lookup; suppression is acting on it. Your own opt-out list beats consent and the registers, with no 28-day grace.
Is AI cold calling legal in the UK? AI voice agents and auto-diallers under PECR
Where AI voice agents and auto-diallers sit under PECR: regulation 19 consent for recorded or pre-generated messages, regulation 21 screening for live agents on a dialler, Ofcom's silent-call policy, and the conservative reading for conversational AI.
The TPS register in numbers: how many UK numbers are on the TPS and CTPS
Live TPS and CTPS register sizes from the daily files, with who keeps the registers, how numbers get on and off, and what a 13.5 million number register means for a calling list.
Sole traders and partnerships: TPS or CTPS? Who counts as a business under PECR
Who counts as an individual and who counts as a corporate subscriber under PECR regulation 2, how to tell which a small-business prospect is, and why the register follows the phone line rather than the firm.
Bulk TPS check: how to screen thousands of numbers against the TPS and CTPS
Portal upload, API batch or CRM-native screening for a list of thousands of numbers: the cost of each at three volumes, why the clean has a 28-day shelf life, how to prepare the file, and the columns an auditor will ask for.
TPS and CTPS compliance checklist for call centres: 12 items, in dialling order
Twelve operational checks for an outbound floor, ordered before the list is loaded, while agents dial, and after the call, with the script line for the agent who hears I am on the TPS.
TPS compliance for agencies: managing TPS and CTPS screening for several clients
An agency dialling for five clients runs five compliance programmes. Who carries the obligation, how to keep consent, opt-outs and data separate per client, what the royalty costs each one, and what the contract should say.
HLR lookups explained: how mobile number checks work, and which results to trust
How an HLR lookup works, what it returns, how telemarketers use it to find dead numbers, which answers to trust, the pitfalls, and how the TPSClear dead number check uses it in HubSpot and the API.
The 28-day TPS rule explained: what it requires and where it comes from
The two 28-day rules behind TPS screening: the DMA data-freshness standard that sets your minimum cadence, and the enforceability grace period that protects honest screeners.
TPS screening in Zapier: screen a number before every call
A worked Zapier setup for teams whose CRM has no native TPS app: trigger, screen, write-back, plus the opt-out suppression Zap and a daily re-screen of older records, on prepaid checks from £9.
Are cold calls illegal in the UK? The rules, the bans, the new fines
Cold calling is lawful by default, with hard edges: TPS and CTPS registration, opt-outs, sector bans on pensions and claims calls, and a fine ceiling that jumped from £500k to £17.5m in February 2026.
The TPS royalty fee: 10p per 1,000 records from 1 September 2026
The TPS royalty is confirmed: 10p per 1,000 records from 1 September 2026, capped at £3,300 per client per year. Why cutting screening cadence to dodge it is the worst trade available, and why event-driven screening is the answer.
How to check if a number is on the TPS (or CTPS)
The free TPS checker covers your own number; organisations need licensed register data, and this guide compares the four routes, from licensing the file to continuous CRM-side screening.
Is it illegal to call TPS numbers? The rules, the exceptions, the penalties
Why unsolicited marketing calls to TPS and CTPS numbers breach regulation 21 of PECR, the exceptions that genuinely apply, and what the ICO can do about breaches.
The complete guide to TPS compliance for UK sales teams
Pillar guide to TPS compliance: who it applies to, what PECR really requires, what the ICO actually fines, and how to set up screening that keeps reps moving.
PECR explained: what UK marketing teams actually need to know
PECR in plain English: scope, the rules for calls vs email vs SMS, how it sits next to UK GDPR, and the parts the ICO actually enforces.
What is CTPS? TPS vs CTPS, and why both matter for B2B teams
TPS vs CTPS in one read: what each register covers, why B2B teams calling direct dials need both, and what the ICO has fined for getting it wrong.
How often should you check TPS? The honest answer
How often to re-screen against TPS: what PECR says, what the DMA recommends, what real-time vs 28-day vs quarterly looks like in practice, and the ICO's current bar.
ICO PECR fines: a decade of enforcement in one place
Notable ICO PECR fines for unsolicited live calls, the patterns regulators look for, and what the cases tell us about real risk vs theoretical risk.
TPS register API: what's available and how to use it
TPS isn't a live API; it's a daily file. What that means for vendors, how list cleaners actually work, and what a sensible developer API over TPS/CTPS looks like.
Calling a TPS-registered number: when consent makes it lawful
Specific prior consent is the legal exception for TPS-listed numbers. What counts, what doesn't, how to record it, and how the ICO assesses it after a complaint.
Build vs buy: should you write your own TPS check?
Honest build-vs-buy on TPS screening: licence costs, ingest job, CRM integrations, audit trail, ongoing maintenance. When in-house wins and when it doesn't.
ZoomInfo, Lusha, LeadIQ vs TPSClear: where lookup tools fall short
Where lookup-time scrubbing (ZoomInfo, Lusha, LeadIQ) helps and where it leaves gaps. The case for continuous CRM-side scrubbing as the missing compliance layer.
B2B CTPS rules explained: what corporate sales teams miss
Most B2B teams underweight CTPS. What it covers, why direct-dial outbound to corporates is exposed, and what good B2B PECR practice looks like.
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