Get an email address, by any means possible

Neil has a post up about the “opt-in” form that we were all confronted with when logging into the hotel wifi at M3AAWG last week.  They aren’t the only hotel asking for email addresses, I’ve seen other folks comment about how they were required to provide an email address AND opt-in to receive email offers before they were allowed onto the hotel network. Mind you, they’re paying the outrageous fees for hotel internet and still being told they must provide an email address.
The addresses given by people who wouldn’t opt-in willingly aren’t going to be worth anything. These are not people who want your mail, they’re only giving you an address because they’re being forced to do so.
I know it is so tempting for marketers to use any methods to get an email address from customers. I recently was dealing with a very poorly delivering list that looked purchased. There were clear typos, invalid domains, non-existent domains, the whole nine yards. Over 20% of the mail was bouncing and what did get delivered wasn’t going to the inbox. I was working through the problem with the ESP before they went to talk to the customer. To my eye, the list looked purchased. Most times lists just don’t look that bad when they are actually opt-in lists. The ESP insisted that the addresses were being collected at their brick and mortar stores at point of sale. I asked if the company was incentivizing address collection, but the ESP didn’t know.
Eventually, we discovered that the retailer in question had set performance indicators such that associates were expected to collect email addresses from 90% of their customers. No wonder the lists looked purchased. I have no doubt that the pressure to give an email address caused some customers to just make up random addresses on the fly. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some associates, after failing to meet the 90% goal, would just enter random addresses in “on behalf of” the customer.
Email is a great way to stay in touch with customers. It is an extremely cost effective and profitable way to market. The caveat is that customers have to want that mail. Coercing a customer to give you an address doesn’t make your marketing better. It just makes your delivery harder. That lowers your overall revenue and decreases profits.
Quantity is not the be all and end all of marketing. This company? They have a great email marketing program, but their address collection is so bad hardly anyone gets to see the mail in the inbox, even the people who would be happy to receive the mail.
For email delivery quality trumps quantity every time.

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Where did you get my address?

Both Steve and I are trying to get answers from Amazon, Target and Epsilon about how Target acquired our Amazon specific email addresses. Target phone reps told us the mail we got was a phish, Epsilon is refusing to acknowledge Target is a customer and Amazon has promised us “they’re looking into it.”
Meanwhile, an address of mine was transferred from one customer of an ESP to another customer of the same ESP. At first I was told I must have signed up for the mail; as proof I was provided with the data I supposedly signed up. When I explained no that wasn’t true, the abuse desk told me they had discovered there was a mistake and that “These two clients use the same 3rd party ESP and they had mixed the files.” I’m not actually sure who “they” refers to, but as long as they’ve untangled the files I am not going to argue. The sad part is that it took an escalation to Return Path (the IP sending the mail is certified) to get anyone to actually respond to my report of an address given to Company A being mailed by Company B.
On the flip side, mail showed up today that actually had a link for “how was I added?”
Atari_Optout
When you click on the link it shows exactly where the address came from and when it was added to the list.
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It would be great if more companies provided this information to their recipients. I think it would probably decrease spam reports and make consumers feel more comfortable about how companies are collecting and using information.

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What Mark Said

Mark Brownlow skewers the arguments from opt-out proponents. A definite must read.

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Everybody wins!

There was a recent question on a mailing list during a discussion of spam and delivery problems. A number of folks who work in delivery were discussing how a bad address got on a list. Someone who works on the spam blocking end of things asked why do you care how a bad address got onto a mailing list?
For recipients, they usually don’t care. They just want the unsolicited mail to stop. It’s a position I have no problem with; I want the unsolicited mail to stop, too. But understanding why a particular sender is sending mail to addresses that never asked for it can be an important step in making it stop. Not by the receivers and the spam filters, they’ll just block the bad sender and move on. Or if they’re an ISP or ESP they’ll just throw the sender off for AUP violations and let the sender be somebody else’s problem.
In the broader context, though, this only changes the source of the spam. It doesn’t help the victim; the bad sender can always find another host and they will continue to mail people who never asked for that mail. And, in fairness to these senders, often they are mailing lists of mixed sources. Some of the addresses didn’t opt-in, and don’t want the mail, but a lot of addresses on their list did opt-in and do want their mail. Fixing their problem means they can mail people who want their mail. The sender is happy, the recipients are happy and the receivers are happy; everybody wins!
Everybody winning is something I can get fully behind.

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