In the email list marketplace, renting vs. buying a list is where the rubber meets the road. It all comes down to value and common sense. As it is most times in life, you get what you pay for, or more importantly, you hope you are getting what you paid for.
Business people know how valuable their customer and prospect email lists are, same holds true in the email list marketplace. If someone is going to sell you a large database of email lists for a very low price, they obviously know there is little value to the email addresses. Why would they sell you their valuable lists for short money?
Email list owners that have valuable lists guard them with their life. They never sell their list or let them out of their control.
We have seen this type of data shenanigans before. In the early days of postal lists, selling high quantities of inaccurate lists was also a big problem. The problem was exasperated by throwing good money after bad. First you bought a crappy, out-dated and undeliverable list. Then you paid to print the mail pieces and have them processed through a mail house. And just to ad insult to injury you had to pay the postage bill. Over the years, unscrupulous list vendors fell by the roadside and postal regulations made lists more deliverable.
History does repeat itself. Fast forward to 2012. Postal lists are now all very deliverable based on technological advances and postal regulations. It is the email lists that are now the concern. Just because you can get a large file of email addresses for a low cost does not translate into a good value. The fact that they give you so many email addresses for such little money should raise a red flag.
There are costs in addition to the charge to your credit card. The most important of these costs is the real risk of being identified as a spammer.
Here are the top 4 reasons why you should rent an email instead of buying one:
Reason # 1 Value -By renting their list, the list owner demonstrates value by maintaining control of the email messages and how often messages are sent to their customers. They value the email addresses by protecting them against misuse.
Reason #2 Opt-in - All reputable lists for rental are opt-in or double opt-in. This means that the email recipients have acknowledged that they are interested in receiving emails. Be sure to confirm the opt-in policy of the list owner.
Reason #3 Tracking - Even if you are able to embed tracking codes within the links to your landing pages, tracking reports from email list vendors provide valuable data for deliverability and open rates.
Reason #4 Black Listed - Understanding and abiding by the Can-Spam Act is essential. If you are deemed a spammer by your ISP, it could negatively impact your ability to send emails in the future. By renting a list, the list owner deploys the emails and is respondsible to be Can-Spam compliant.
There are many respectible resources out there that provide email lists for rental. Talk to an independent list professional to help guide to those resources.
When requests for email lists come in, my first thought is: Do they understand what is really involved in an email campaign? Will I be providing a business solution or will this be a teaching moment? I'm OK with both. The trick is to try identify the folks who need some extra knowledge from the folks that understand the 3rd party process and want you to take care of their specific need.
To quickly determine the inquirers knowledge of how third party email list marketing works, I ask a few quick questions.
1. When will your creative be available for testing?
2. When will your suppression file be ready?
3. What date would you like us to deploy?
The uninformed inquirer may respond to my questions with:
Why do I need to send you my creative? What do you mean by a suppression file? How many emails would it be? Can I use them as much as I want? Will the list be ready by late morning / early afternoon today? Then, I know it is a teaching moment.
When renting an email lists, you need to know who is at the party. There are 3 players or "invitees" to the party.The term 3rd party email lists relates to the 3 players involved in delivering and receiving a marketing message via email.
They are:
Invitee # 1 - The marketer - They have a message that they want delivered to a defined audience.
Invitee # 2 - The list owner - They are the host. Their email list is the guest list to the party.
Invitee # 3 - The recipient - They have opted-in to receive marketing messages delivered to them by the host.
The marketer provides the message (html creative), the host deploys the message and the the recipient receives the message. If the recipient responds to the marketers message, the recipient can then be added to the marketers guest list.