You should never buy an email list. We will discuss why buying an email list is not a good shortcut to take.

If your email marketing campaigns are having trouble, it might be tempting to buy an email list to help you extend your reach. These lists usually come with the name and email addresses, and sometimes they include additional information like the income level of the people on the list. Since email is a huge part of digital marketing, it may seem like a good idea to buy an email list. However, these are actually a waste of time and money for your company.

Quality

If a company is selling email lists, they are probably not terribly trustworthy. Of course, the company will give you all sorts of claims about how effective their lists are, but there are usually a lot of issues with the list you receive.

The list might have missing or incomplete data, like having the wrong names for the people. It also might have out of date information, like emails that have been abandoned or do not exist anymore.

The biggest issue is the email addresses may have been harvested illegally, breaking the CAN-SPAM Act. If you violate the CAN-SPAM Act, you can be subject to fines of up to $16,000 for every single email you send.

Getting a list of 5,000 emails overnight sounds too good to be true, because it is. You might reach some people who are interested in your services, but for the most part, your emails will end up in the Spam folders.

Poor Response Rate

You bought a list with 10,000 emails on it for $100. You probably assume you will get a five percent conversion rate, so you will end up getting $50,000. It sounds like a great investment.

However, you may end up with a much lower response rate than that. If 500 of the people on the list open your email, but they have no interest in your product or offer, you may not even see any conversions.

You Will Look Like a Spammer

How do you react when you receive unsolicited emails from a company you have never heard of? You probably roll your eyes and mark the email as Spam. That is, if the email does not go straight to your Spam folder to begin with, in which case, you probably just ignore it completely. If you get several emails from that company, you may unsubscribe before flagging it as Spam.

Assuming the emails were not illegally harvested, the people on these lists may have filled out a form and checked a box about receiving offers from similar companies. Most people forget about checking that box, so no matter how well written your email may be, it is most likely going in the Spam folder.

There is also the possibility that your emails will filter into the promotional emails section of their inbox, which is not checked nearly as often as the main part of an inbox. Your emails might end up getting lost in the hundreds of other promotional emails the recipient gets daily.

The List is Not Unique to You

The company you bought that email list from may sell that exact same list to tons of other companies. The recipients of these emails are probably already irritated with all of the unsolicited emails they have been getting. They most likely have already put filters in place, so they do not have to see any more emails if they have not abandoned the email altogether.

Additionally, some people have email addresses specifically for filling out forms. In which case, all of the marketing content they do not want to read goes there, instead of clogging their main email account. These accounts are checked rarely, if ever. Your emails may never get read if they go into these secondary email accounts.

You May End up in Trouble with Your Email Service Provider

Your email service provider is the company who sends out your emails, like Constant Contact and Mailchimp. If too many of your emails are marked as Spam, you might find yourself in trouble with your provider. They might close your account, fine you, and possibly take legal action.

It is also against the terms and conditions of most email service providers to buy an email list.

Your Company’s Reputation Can be Badly Damaged

In addition to your email provider shutting down your account, taking legal action against you, and fine from both them and the Federal Trade Commission, you can find your reputation is hurt.

With just a few strokes on a keyboard, your reputation can be shattered online. If you Google your company and discover that several of the results in the top 10 are angry reviews from people who have been receiving unsolicited emails from you, that means other people are seeing the same thing. Someone looking up your company that finds these is going to pass over your company for an organization that does not have multiple rants from consumers about unsolicited emails.

You will end up spending more time and money fixing your reputation than you did buying that email list.

Legal Problems

If you are using a purchased list that was not illegally obtained, and are therefore not technically doing anything wrong, you will still get complaints. If you get too many complaints, you may end up in a legal battle, simply trying to prove you did not do anything wrong.

Different countries have different laws when it comes to email marketing. If you buy an email list with people in other countries, keep in mind that you will have to follow the laws in those countries as well.

Conclusion

A good email list cannot be bought; it has to be worked for. Do not give in to the temptation of buying an email list. It really is too good to be true. A digital marketing agency can help you with your email marketing and develop a strategy to help you get a good email list for your marketing. Contact Seattle Digital Marketing today to get started!