Where can I mail a purchased list?

We’ve had a lot of comments over the last few weeks regarding our post on ESPs that don’t allow purchased lists. Most of them were companies adding their addresses to the list. But one comment needs a little more discussion, I think.

Here’s the problem though, when your employer has purchased a list and INSISTS on using that list for lead generation.
I have explained ad nauseum why this is a bad idea. They look at me blankly and move on with scheduling our emails. They expect me to find a provider that will allow purchased lists. Where do I turn?
All I can find is articles on NOT using them. Well, I have no say in the matter and my job depends on doing this. What about us stuck in that place? Doug Marshall

It’s a tough situation to be in when your job depends on doing something that is generally viewed as a bad idea. Most of the ESPs that will let you send to purchased lists will have poorer deliverability than those ESPs that require opt-in. Most purchased lists have very poor deliverability.
I’ve regularly had companies come looking for help because their purchased lists were widely blocked. One of them was earlier this year. Their purchased list was only seeing about a 40% acceptance rate and about a 15% inbox rate. They wanted to know if I could help them resolve the blocks. There wasn’t anything we could do.
If you’re in the situation where the choice is send to the list or get fired then you have some hard decisions to make. Is this your line in the sand? My experience is some management folks refuse to believe that purchased lists are a bad idea. They’re going to mail those lists because they paid good money for them! and their vendor would not lie to them! Sometimes the only thing you can do as an employee is do what you’re told or walk away. Those aren’t easy decisions.
In terms of how you can negotiate this pathway without giving up your job, there are some things I can think for you to do. Depending on your relationship with your ESP, you can call your account rep and ask them about the ESPs policy for purchased lists. I know many ESPs deal with this question regularly. They may help you convince your management this is a bad idea.
If you’re uncomfortable involving your provider, you can document your findings about how bad an idea this is. You can reference my blog, and the other statements you’ve found that say purchased lists are bad. Even if you are ignored, you have documented this is a bad idea. If there is poor delivery and fallout, then you’ll have the documentation that says this is how purchased lists work.
Another possibility, depending on the size of the purchased list, is to actually contact each lead individually. Introduce your company, what you have and invite them to join your newsletter program. If they respond, great, you have a new contact. If they don’t, well, they’re a poor lead for you.
Good luck!

Related Posts

Purchased Lists and ESPs

After some thought, I’ve decided to remove a few ESPs from this list based on personal experience with them allowing customers to send to purchased lists. If your company has disappeared and you want to come back, you’ll need to actually stop the spam coming from your network. Every company that’s been removed has received a complaint from me specifically mentioning the address was purchased and allowed that same customer to continue spamming the same address. Deal with your spam and we can talk about reinstatement. 

Read More

Are you still thinking of purchasing a mailing list?

Last week there was an article published by btobonline promoting the services of a company called Netprospex. Netprospex, as you can probably gather from their company name, is all about the buying and selling of mailing lists. They will sell anyone a list of prospects.
The overall theme of the article is that there is nothing wrong with spam and that if a sender follows a few simple rules spamming will drive business to new heights. Understandably, there are a few people who disagree with the article and the value of the Netprospex lists.
I’ve stayed out of the discussion, mostly because it’s pretty clear to me that article was published solely to promote the Netprospex business, and their point of view is that they make more money when they can convince people to purchase lists from them. Dog bites man isn’t a very compelling news story. Data selling company wants you to buy data from them isn’t either.
They are right, there is nothing illegal about spam. Any sender can purchase a list and then send mail to the addresses on that list and as long as that sender meets the rock bottom standards set out in CAN SPAM. As long as your mail has an opt-out link, a physical postal address and unforged headers that mail is legal. The only other obligation on the sender is to honor any unsubscribe requests within ten days. So, yes, it is legal to send spam.
But legal action isn’t the only consequence of spamming. Today I received the following in an email from a colleague.

Read More

Opt-in vs. opt-out

Jeanne has a great post up at ClickZ comparing the performance of mail to an opt-in list to performance of mail to an opt-out list.
The article looks at opens, clicks and click through rates over 7 quarters (Q1 – Q4 2010; Q1 – Q3 2011) covering 330 million emails. I strongly suggest anyone interested go read the whole article.
The short version, though, is that the opt-in lists had more opens and more clicks than the opt-out lists. In some quarters it was double the number of opens and clicks.
This data is a strong indication that opt-in lists perform much better than even the best opt-out lists.

Read More