Impact of Bad Email Lists

[webgeek]

If you're a typical small business owner, or marketer who works with a lot of SME's, you've undoubtedly considered email marketing. After all, it converts some 40x better than social media, so why wouldn't you?

What you probably haven't considered is how important it is to either buy quality lists, or verify/validate and cleans the lists prior to using.

There's a lot of great email marketing stats out there in the world - like 1/3 of consumers change their subscription email address annually. Thanks http://www.convinceandconvert.com/convince-convert/15-email-statistics-that-are-shaping-the-future/ for that one.


An even more important statistic: Email lists with 10% or more unknown users get only 44% of their email delivered


Now read that again....

It's mostly true for B2C but still is earth-shattering. If you have 10% bad email addresses on your list, you won't get 90% delivered to the inbox (it's called the rate of inboxing or inboxing rate).

When you send to a new list, those 10% bad emails mean the target domains or ISP's are getting a number of bogus emails FROM YOU which are going NOWHERE. They detect this as SPAM and don't bother trying to deliver more from you.

Suddenly your 90% inboxing rate goes down to 44%. Yep, you're going to get less than half your list delivered.

You'll also hurt your SenderScore (your reputation measure), risk getting blacklisted and find that even though you clean your list (something you should do), you won't get any improvements for quite some time.

10% bad = 56% not delivered


To avoid this scenario:
1) build your list, don't buy it, or
2) cleanse your list by running it through a good email verifier before you send a mail to it

 

[Erminoli]

it converts some 40x better than social media.

Do you have a source for this? Intuitively, I would say that you got a higher chance to connect with someone via Twitter, since almost every cold outreach email will fly into a spam folder.

 

[webgeek]

Do you have a source for this? Intuitively, I would say that you got a higher chance to connect with someone via Twitter, since almost every cold outreach email will fly into a spam folder.

Did you follow the link in the original post of this thread? The one entitled "15 Email Statistics..."

 

[Erminoli]

Did you follow the link in the original post of this thread? The one entitled "15 Email Statistics..."

Yes, I did!

But there are only email statistics. Now we need some Twitter statistics, too, so that we can compare both outreach methods.

 

[Simon Baker]

To avoid this scenario:
1) build your list, don't buy it, or
2) cleanse your list by running it through a good email verifier before you send a mail to it

Very true! Got burned with a couple bad listings myself

 

[Cynic]

Cleaning data is one way to deal with this......

I thought this would delve into SMTPs and IP health but okay.....

 

[Simon Baker]

Cleaning data is one way to deal with this......

I thought this would delve into SMTPs and IP health but okay.....

Perhaps start a thread about it yourself? I for one would certainly follow

 

[Ashley_Price]

To avoid this scenario:
1) build your list, don't buy it, or
2) cleanse your list by running it through a good email verifier before you send a mail to it

While I don't generally do email marketing, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I do build my own lists for when I am cold calling firms. I research the firm's website, etc., (making sure they haven't got "No Sales Calls" or similar). However, I take a lot of what is on the site with a pinch of salt, especially the "Our Staff" page. Again, as mentioned in other threads, I've had several instances where I had rung up to speak to the person listed on the site, but they no longer worked at the firm and in one case hadn't done for several months.

So, if the company's own website is out of date, how can you trust a list built by a third party?

 

[threenine]

What an awesome bit of free advice! there were some points I had never previously considered.

 

[Mike_Cartwright]

Never bought an email list, and never will. It's not just worth it. Instead, it is better if you build your own email list organically. Having relevant content, an insightful eBook, and free stuff are good reasons for prospects to leave their emails.

 

[TheConsulter]

E-mail lists are not worth to buy. Many addresses are outdated, so you're basically paying for nothing. As has been stated here, it's better to build one yourself. To reduce the risk that your e-mail is being flagged as "junk mail", make sure that you have the permission to send e-mails to the recipients. After all, those who opt-in to your e-mails are most likely to buy. They have at least shown interest in the products or services that you have offered.

 

[soundengineeruk]

I read some where when GDPR kicks in the cost of buying list will increase..

 

[webgeek]

E-mail lists are not worth to buy. Many addresses are outdated, so you're basically paying for nothing. As has been stated here, it's better to build one yourself. To reduce the risk that your e-mail is being flagged as "junk mail", make sure that you have the permission to send e-mails to the recipients. After all, those who opt-in to your e-mails are most likely to buy. They have at least shown interest in the products or services that you have offered.

You're obviously referring to an inferior list supplier.

I've bought, mined and built many high quality lists. Run them through an email address verifier service and you're virtually guaranteed 95% deliverability. After your first send, clean out the bounce/blocks and you're running 99%+ deliverability.

Our Sender Sore is 99, using this method. That means the list is pretty darned clean.

Some people mine lists from LinkedIn. Others use who.is records. Some people use financial services like Experian or DnB. Others get their data from Mastercard/VISA.

There's a lot of good lists to be had out there, but you won't get 1 million emails for £99. Not 1 million good ones anyway.

For B2B, you need to be sending high value content their way, not spamming them with 'buy my crap'.

There's a lot more to email marketing that flinging a flyer at a list you bought on fiverr.

 

[WebshopMechanic]

I've worked in e-commerce and online marketing for 14 years and any experience I've had with buying / renting lists has been poor. I still get calls now saying the list is double opt-in.

What the hell does that mean? What have they double opt-in for??? Not my bloody marketing they haven't.

You can't force yourself into someone's inbox and then expect to get sales. You need to earn it if you want a quality customer.

I just get annoyed when I get emails landing in my inbox for VOIP services or business insurance. They may think it's relevant but it isn't.

And whichever company thinks I've double opted-in has sold my bloody email to 500 other lists.

Anyhow, you're best off building a campaign that targets a need, creating a marketing funnel and focusing on getting qualified leads to that funnel so you can convert them.

Yes, it's more work and takes longer but the results will be worth it.

Also, a few best practice email tips from experience:

1. Cull people from your list if they haven't opened your last 8-10 emails. This will improve your deliverability rates and reduce your costs.
2. Use a final 'we're removing your email' before you do.
3. A/B test subject lines before any send. Using a more scientific approach will give you better results.
4. Use more text than images. Images can trigger spam filters. Don't place crappy stock shop in the email for no reason. Stick to high-quality copy that resonates with their problem.
5. Any campaigns you do send, set an automatic resend 2 days later using a new subject line. Provided the offer isn't time sensitive you should be ok and you could see an extra 20%+ open rates. I use this and get great results regularly.

Matt