I couldn't have said it better myself, Notr..... honestly. I have been on the HOSTING end of this and the only complaints we would get that came directly to us were those people who didn't honor the removes and remove them and instead keep hammering them with it.

Mailings are VERY profitable, if it is done right and with as much respect as you can do it with. If someone who opted-in wants to opt-out, then respect that. Those who don't mind it won't complain and you can weed out the ones that don't want it. I don't mind a little spam sometimes, it's part of it, same as junk mail in my mailbox out in the yard.... but when I ask to be removed from a list and am not taken off, I get REALLY nasty about it and could frankly give two shits who the person is that is spamming me...... if they don't respect my wishes then I show them no respect.

Bottom line is that it is VERY profitable...... but do it reasonably like Notr says here. Abuse it and lose it I always say. ;)

Hello chris!
i dont think i can say to much in this thread. because i have never been involved to this.. but my friend does some kind of "spamming" and he tells me all the time that its getting more bad every day!

so i guess it will be less and less money in this. Yes.

Greetings Tobbe.
See ya all more in a few weeks.!!!
very busy!

So i sat here and i read all the posts...hmmmmmm!

Here is my 2 cents worth. I have been involved and am actively involved in dealing with email lists. Anyone that says profitability has gone down is VERY wrong.

The big problem has been mentioned several times here. Active remove lists. the people that purely sapm have not a clue how to manage an email list. You must remove people that want to be removed and NEVER mail them again. We as internet users think that spam is worthless casue we never would buy anything that is being advertised, but when one of my campaigns makes $11k in one day, i can't say that it is not performing. ::-|

single opt-in double-opt in, triple opt-in..all this means is that the surfer agreed to see YOUR stuff. They will still complain, not as much as a list that you buy on those get rich quick programs on the net ( 60 Million email addys for a $1 :D :D ) but they will complain.
I think it is not fair to say that we as email marketers can not send mail.

As mentioned here before, Junk mail in the mail box at my house gets more crap that I never asked for than anywhere else. Why is it fair for those people to advertise and not for email guys??? i'll tell you why!

Cause the government doesn't make any money off emails. SO they are going to want to step in. Believe me when i say this, spamcop is a good thing. It is in place to show the government that the internet can police itself and it does not need a government helping hand.

In closing, as an email marketer, remember to remove people that don't want to see the crap you are selling, and remember that you can make more money off surfers in a small list that opens compared to using all the resources necessary to mail say 20Million emails that are going to bounce and cpmplain, not to mention the amount of bandwidth that's necessary o mail a list like that.

And that's all i got to say about that .

well my take on this is have your own email remote box. This seems to work soo much better than just buying some emails that will get you in trouble. Not only that,but we only associate with ethnic sites so anyone who sees an email from us it is in our niche area. I think site reputation and surfer comfort has a lot to do with it also

Spam .... Mmmmmmmmm !!!!

<bgsound src="http://www.paulspics.com/misc/spam.wav">

Do you really think that the government cares whether or not the internet is able to police itself? I don't. If it makes money, and there is a way to tax it, then the government will do that. But I'm a bit off topic.

While I agree that email marketing isn't necessarily wrong if executed properly, it irks me to get spam complaints from clean lists due to the reasons some people outlined above. The poor practices of some are ruining the above-board practices of many others.

here is something to chew on:
http://www.computerworld.com/governm...,76821,00.html

::-| ::-| ::-| ::-| ::-|

spam is spam no matter how ya look at it, no matter what form it takes it's still spam. I don't send out mailers, not even to the members of my resource site, who when signing up, opt-in to receive one. It's just not worth the hassle to me or worth the risk should someone choose to forward me to spamcop or something because they don't remember signing up to my site.

As for whether or not i'd ever buy a list to do it with, no. anyone with an email extraction bot can make a list of 5million email addresses and claim they opted in 15 times, how can you prove they did or didn't? that's the problem behind buying these opted email lists, can't really prove they did or didn't opt in. Last thing anyone in this biz needs is heat for spamming, this industry is scrutinized enough as it is. Why add to the fire?

I use to send lots of mass-mailings to my partners about new infos, websites, promo stuff or just to say hi!...

But in the subject line, i try to write something "personal" to them, and let them know it comes from their sponsor... and it ain't no spam...

Never received any complaints for the moment but it's true Spam sucks...

:bonk:

do you aLL use outlook six
 

If you go to message rules in outlook6,

and set a few custom ones, takes 3 mins and I have some already set up if any one needs...

i can block about 75% of all the spam.

i send out promo e-mails, but always have a real, simply unsubscribe line and really delete people from lists i make. but the lists i make are all from addresses posted on-line

That's a good info quote...

DK... Maybe I'm in left field, but isn't 7 million just a drop in the pond when looking at the big picture here?

I see a lot of posts saying that "targetted email marketing" is not only still effective, but still very profitable, and will continue to be so. I have my doubts.

But I don't want to confuse mailing to opted in's versus mailing to members of a specific service. For example, when I send out the xnations newsletter twice a month, I am not selling anything. I am simply passing on information about a service to which the addressee uses. There is a big difference.

---------------
Ahhh,
with all do respect my friend,
I think I noticed mention of sponsors in your newsletters.
A newsletter is just a different way of cooking spam.
More palitable I guess
:)
Look at my sig? subliminal spam?

True enough... Sponsors pay for exposure in such things, and if you were a sponsor, you'd expect it too.

Yours isn't as subliminal as it is clever.... LOL
(did you forge Aly's signature?) haha

Something that has serious potential
 

It doesnt exist yet.. but when it does.. I will be in line to sign up on day 1.


Cooked Spam


I didn't see this posted in this thread... sorry if it's a repeat.


::-|

Good article.

(lots of readers here)


like this:

"pushing low mortgage rates and anatomic enhancements by e-mail,"

isn't it always a variation of one of those!

I'll be on http://www.talkhardradio.com/ today at 5pm eastern talking about this if you have time to tune in and listen.
Cheers.... Chris

Hey there just got back in and missed that one,

is it every thursday? the radio show?

perhaps because there isnt much meat in spam

Okay here's my question. Can you actually buy a list of double opt in addies and still say that it's opted in? Maybe I missed a previous post explaining this. I've heard several different opinions on this. It seems obvious that an opt in to one list probably isn't valid for anything except that original list. Am I missing something here? And exactly how do you keep records to prove that these people opted in in the first place in case you need to produce the evidence some day? :confused:

Oh yeah. Just out of curiosity... If someone wants to try a mailer with our Quebec Cuties cash program... Check out the program and our site and give me a shout if you want to talk deal. We don't pay 40 dollars per signup but it's a new site so it seems to me that it should do pretty good. And it's entirely possible we can haggle a bit over the payout percentage. I'm really quite interested in seeing how well it would do.

Oh yeah... PSW says it has to be opt in! Hehe.

People legally sell their lists by putting a disclaimer on the page where the surfer puts their email address in that says something like

"by signing up for this service, you agree to allow us, or ANY OF OUR PARTNERS to send you email at this address, we reserve the right to sell your email to pertinant advertisers..blah blah blah"

I think this sucks - if I sign up for something - it means I want that - not something from someone you SOLD my name to!

twinkley

destroy wanadoo.fr?
 

Yes she's right on that one.

By the way:

what is

WANADOO.FR

(obviously from france)

been getting repeated "underage" spam from there OVER AND OVER:

like this -
Some later they'll know adult life.
Some later the'll see a real world with tears and dirt.

Some later they'll know a taste of sexual kisses and fill the wild passion of fall...
Now they're living in other world and fill themselves good and happy.
Pure nice and complitely beautifull creations living in those VIRGIN WORLD http://go4lolita.com/virgin/
already unaccessible for us.

But we can see them!
And we can try to be closer to their perfectanse of youth.

Free Tour & Join http://go4lolita.com/virgin/

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Version: 2.2.0

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miemaI+UEEEIAyje73unaq3iII3yjYO33uM3mjiuMmejn+iauM +F3yFuqQn7eF7M
YiiBmI+37jUuu7UAiAFneA7EQu+e7EUie3BIumun33BI7+OMA+ BqaQeie7U3+AQe
3emUIAAY7YQO+IEUQF+i+7QuaaEFyByYaIiqnqUM3EEnEnnM7Q Y7jI7U3Ye7+Aiy
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uqyOj37QQmiyeje7aOEnqM3Y7yuIAe73AAeQ7Y7mjEninBMY7I MBUQmnaMFaiM3i
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here's the spoofed header (as usual):
Return-Path: <virgin31904@vworld.com>
Received: from mail.**************.com (lonwri001.virtuebroadcasting.com [212.23.58.7])
by lsh100.siteprotect.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id IAA02897
for <webmaster@**************.com>; Fri, 20 Dec 2002 08:19:31 -0600
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 08:19:31 -0600
Message-Id: <200212201419.IAA02897@lsh100.siteprotect.com>
From: Gray Duglas <virgin31904@vworld.com>
To: webmaster@**************.com
Reply-to: Gray Duglas <virgin31904@vworld.com>
Subject: Some later they'll know adult life(8224)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=OMAIL_ATT_0.05005273828282958224"

Chris,

I'm going to be launching into a beta a mailer service just before the show.

Hit me up on ICQ if you want to be one of the beta testers. It requires placing the email signup code on your pages. Perhaps you can test it on your tgp pages.

You will be able to email market to the members even if they didn't signup through your page.

Re: destroy wanadoo.fr?
 

ISP, belgium and france

thank you
 

thank you for that info...




(nice sig man)

Evil Chris,

First off, great thread! Finally got a chance to read through it and some good info here.

Twinkley, VERY unfortunate situation you had to deal with when you bought that "clean" list.

My 2 cents and it has already been said numerous times, treat your list w/ respect and everyone is happy.

Poppy

I am definitely on side with the importance of a Double Opt in mailer. And Hallelujah to those who say they will not sell the names on their list.

I have managed a few lists in my day. The lists that were double opt in did the best by far in overall conversions and VPC (Value Per Click).

Here is a small example of real data comparing a general SPAM list and a Double opt list.

SPAM LIST - 3 million names, conversion 1:235, VPC .08 cents
Opt List - 250k names, conversion 1:78, VPC .21 cents

Both sent the same creative and on the same day. If opt lists are not better then why would I get more sign ups and clicks then a SPAM list.

Sure there are many who have made money from the SPAM names. And many who continue to today, but in the end, especially with articles like this it is apparent that the ideal is to opt the names in.

Very interesting topic and some great responses,

will have to bookmark and read some more

In my experience renting mailing lists from other companies has not been profitable for us, at least recently.

On the other hand, using an in-house mailing list to stay in touch with our users has proven VERY profitable. Every time we do a mailing several old customers that might have been lost return to the site.

The addresses cost nothing since we collect them on our signup page (it is optional). Each mailing includes an unsubscribe option that actually works, plus we never sell or share the addresses.

If you take the time to build and care for your own mailing list, you may find that it is an excellent tool for retaining members.

B

Some pretty interesting points of view here...
What happens however, when you have an airtight list and suddenly from one mailing you get half a dozen complaints?

Hey can anyone recommend a good application that will remove unwanted email addresses from lists?

Good Thread!

Evil Chris -

Have you tried using eList Pro?

It works great, right from your desktop. This way you are sure to have a copy of your removes list. Never leave it on the server in case of a crash. I copy mine to my harddrive daily:-)

eList Pro... hmm nope I haven't heard of that one... where can I get a copy?

I strongly suggest everyone to collect their own email addresses, it will always be better in the long run, and significantly cheaper overall. I've never found rented lists profitable...except when I'm the one renting out =)

Newsletters and the like though to people who you know for certain want them can be a major boost to any program.

I just did some research on eList Pro and that is what came out:

http://www.marketmenow.com/all_pages...roinfopage.htm

Is that it Sharky?

Well, I hate spam also. There are a few things I subscribed to and I'm glad to have subscribed.... I also love Twinkley's weekly "spam" about her show... without her reminding me I would always forget about it...

However, I live in Switzerland and I don't give a fuck about mortage payments in the US oder whatever... some of that stuff is even sent to one of my .ch email addy.... and when I get the same spam email triple I just wonder don't they notice they have my email address more than once in their system???

Yep! that's it. and it's well worth the $$

:-)

It would appear that this problem is not going away.
Check out this article in the recent YNOT News...
http://www.ynotmasters.com/news/ynew...303/page7.html

Like I have said, I think that mass porn mailings are going to practically disappear. Too many problems to deal with....
I know for a fact that a lot of the people that *used* to mass mail on a daily basis have not only stopped, but are packing up and selling all of their lists to the highest bidder. (and the bids ain't as high as you might think)

Chris -

Those you know must not be making enough $$ for it to be worthwhile to ADAPT!

Asnwith any industry,.... you need to adapt with the changes. Often each adaption means more $$ out of your pocket, if you have it.. you will be forced to adapt or get out. If you don't.. you obviously try to sell what you can and get out!

:-)

Sharky, of course you're RIGHT!
Nothing ventured (or invested) means nothing gained.

Adapting, in the case of doing mailers, means more work for much less profit. Whereby once, your massive email lists were making it to the desktop of 95% of your destinations, now only 30% get it, and the CTR is lower than it's ever been for email marketing.

So what do most people do? They give up the game. They sell their lists and hype up to potential buyers how much money they can make, but in truth, it's how much they could have made if they had their hands on these lists etc.. 2 or 3 years ago.

You seem to be misinformed or have some really crappy software. My numbers don't look anywhere near that bad.

While I agree with you that lists make less compared to what they would have 3 years ago, so do free sites!!

But then again.. tooo many people are realizing you can amke some $$ in amil.. so STOP! It's not worth it!