Collecting email addresses

One of the primary ways to collect email addresses is from website visitors, and it’s actually a pretty good way to collect addresses. One of the more popular, and effective, techniques is through a pop-up window, asking for an address. Users need to provide an address or click a “no thanks” link or close the window. I’ve noticed, though, that many companies drop something passive aggressive in their “no thanks” button. “No, thanks, I don’t want to save money.” “I don’t need workout advice.”

Of course, I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Many people have commented on this phenomenon. I’ve heard it called confirmshaming and the Nielsen Norman Group called them manipulinks. Someone even started a tumblr for screenshots of the ways companies try to manipulate visitors into handing over their email address.

In deliverability terms, I don’t think this is a great strategy. Manipulating users into giving you an email address is never a good thing for finding enthusiastic engaged users. I’ve written before about how some opt-in schemes are closer to taking permission asking for it. Confirm shaming is not exactly taking permission, but it is senders attempting to get an email address from a user who might not otherwise be inclined to share personal information.

Interestingly enough, there is some small amount of research showing that these techniques, despite showing an increase in address acquisition, may drive down brand reputation.

Although manipulinks may in fact cause people to pause, consider, and even convert in higher numbers, there’s a hidden tradeoff involved.  This approach will negatively impact your user’s experience in ways that aren’t as easily quantified with A/B testing. The short-term gains seen by increased micro conversions will come at the expense of disrespecting users, which will likely result in long term losses. Are a few more newsletter signups worth lower NPS scores? Or a negative brand perception? Or a loss of credibility and users’ trust?
[…] When companies use dirty tactics like this and then see conversion increases, it probably has less to do with “clever” manipulink text than with the fact that they’re straight up lying to their users. And that’s not just a needy pattern, it’s a dark pattern. Stop Shaming Your Users for Micro Conversions

The article didn’t discuss deliverability related to collecting addresses through manipulinks. I’m not sure anyone has. But if these links contribute to a negative user experience on the website, it’s likely the negative feelings transfer to the emails. Even if the emails themselves are great and don’t continue the negative user experience, how engaged are these users? Do companies using manipulinks to collect email addresses see any difference in deliverability from companies that don’t?

Major webmail providers focus on user experience. We know address collection processes are and important factor in reaching the inbox. Starting off an email relationship by shaming could hurt inboxing. Anyone have data?
Edit: Brian points out that Google is already watching who is doing full overlays and downgrading sites based on the overlays.

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Incentivizing incites fraud

There are few address acquisition processes that make me cringe as badly as incentivized point of sale collection. Companies have tried many different ways to incentivize address collection at the point of sale. Some offer the benefit to the shopper, like offering discounts if they supply an email address. Some offer the benefits to the employee. Some offer punishments to the employee if they don’t collect addresses from a certain percentage of customers.
All of these types of incentive programs are problematic for email collection.
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On the shopper side, if they want mail from a retailer, they’ll give an address simply because they want that mail.  In fact, asking for an address without offering any incentive is way more likely to get their real address. If they don’t want mail but there is a financial incentive, they’re likely to give a made up address. Sometimes it will be deliverable, but belong to another person. Sometimes it will be undeliverable. And sometimes it will be a spamtrap. One of my delivery colleagues occasionally shares addresses she’s found in customer lists over on her FB page. It’s mostly fun stuff like “dont@wantyourmail.com” and “notonyour@life.com” and many addresses consisting of NSFW type words.
On the employee side there can also be abuses. Retailers have tried to tie employee evaluations, raises and promotions to the number of email addresses collected. Other retailers will actively demote or fire employees who don’t collect a certain number of addresses. In either case, the progression is the same. Employees know that most customers don’t want the mail, and they feel bad asking. But they’re expected to ask, so they do. But they don’t push, so they don’t get enough addresses. Eventually, to protect their jobs, they start putting in addresses they make up.
Either way, incentivizing point of sale collection of information leads to fraud. In a case I read about in the NY Times, it can lead to fraud much more serious than a little spam. In fact, Wells Fargo employees committed bank fraud because of the incentives related to selling additional banking products at the teller.

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Poor delivery at Gmail but no where else

I’ve mentioned before that I can often tell what ISP is making filter changes by what my calls are about. The last few weeks it’s been Gmail where folks are struggling to get to the inbox. One of the things most clients and potential clients have mentioned is that they’re not having any problems at the other major ISPs.

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Growing your list carefully

Karl Murray wrote a great set of recommendations for growing an email marketing list. I really can’t think of anything I would have said differently. Touching customers and getting contact information from them is great, but there are situations where this gets bad addresses. Too many bad addresses can impact delivery.
So how do you grow your list without falling into a delivery trap? The specific recommendations, as always, depend on your specific situation. But knowing how bad addresses get onto your list will allow you to implement mitigation strategies that actually work.

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