Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Has Anyone Successfully Rented Email Lists Lately?

Posted by Inbox_Interactive on 2/20/2007 at 7:43 AM ET 1000 Points
As some of you already know, our business has revolved around email marketing for more than eight years.

For the last few years, we have primarily provided strategic/consulting, creative, list management, and deployment/reporting services. Of course, as part of our overall effort, we have implemented ways to help clients build their house list using various offline and online means.

One thing that we have not been overly excited about is using rented email addresses as part of a business-to-consumer customer-acquisition effort. I think it may still have its place in the business-to-business world, but even then on a very selective basis.

I think that consumers' email inboxes are so cluttered with junk that even the most legitimate of customer-acquisition (read: direct, paid response) messages will be lost in the noise, even if the name behind it is one that will be familiar to the recipient.

So, here I sit with a solid prospect with a great health/wellness product, a great brand name, a very identifiable, reachable, and passionate email audience, a solid testing budget, and a reasonable customer acquisition cost target (about $30) and I find myself not sure that this is even worth testing.

Sad, huh? The stars could not be more in alignment for a successful outcome, but I am not sure that success through this channel (rented email lists) is even possible.

Okay, having said all of that...here is the $64,000 question:

Has anyone recently and successfully used rented email lists to secure paid, direct response from consumers?

Any details that you can share about your campaign will be most appreciated. If you feel these details are not appropriate for public consumption, please feel free to email me, but just post a reply note here so that I can award points as necessary.

Thank you, all, for your time and input.

Paul

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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Phoenix ONE on 2/20/2007 at 8:36 PM Accepted
    We have found in pursuing email lists for clients, the cost vs result factor, no matter how well demographed, does not return an acceptable ROI. (Good lists have become too costly, generic lists virtually useless)

    The B2B ROI rates are slightly higher than B2C generated lists - consumers seem to "bulk up on subscribes that purge their mailboxes before seeing content. B2B skims content.

    Day of week, time of year etc are variables you must consider...Sending emails for Monday reads in B2B has very poor returns.....Time of year,etc

    We have discovered ----buying HIGHLY focused AD words program- creating a fantastic landing page, with a signup right on that page will provide an exceptional database for targeting and mailing with timely content develops a much greater capture rate and response. - This Cost is a fraction of a pure list purchase - in addition you have people hitting the click that are focused on your offering!

    Hope this helps

    Good Luck and Happy Marketing ~
  • Posted on 2/21/2007 at 10:09 AM Member
    well i have used a very few B2b mails in my whole life time(i haven lived much though)

    They don give as much as returns you expect...there are a very few in this web world who really cares about the bulks.

    If u really want to take the risk,...then try out a mass amount of people who care really care about -
    (strategic/consulting, creative, list management, and deployment/reporting services). But before you start this you need to have the biggest database of such people who intend to have more interest and replies.

    Also due to so many free services available...its tuff to winover
    but start carefully with many options at ur hands before they can buy ur pdt.

    All the best!
  • Posted by Inbox_Interactive on 2/21/2007 at 10:25 AM Author
    Thank you, everyone, for replying.

    I tried to award points fairly to those who provided specific, original feedback to the question.

    Kathy, just in case you have not had a chance to read the entire article that you borrowed from, here's a link:
    https://www.imakenews.com/ephilanthropy/e_article000081819.cfm

    After reading the handful of applicable replies, considering that many of the other "regulars" here did not chime in (which I take to mean that they haven't had much success here, either...phooey!), and--perhaps most importanly--talking with a trusted list manager and broker, I've come to the conclusion that we should allocate the client's dollars elsewhere.

    Again, thank you.
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