SimplyCast: Interactive Marketing Blog

One of the more common questions asked by customers when signing up to use SimplyCast’s email marketing software is “do we sell or rent previously created email lists”?

The answer is no as it is illegal according to Can-SPAM to send unsolicited email without the permission of users.

So why would anyone even consider renting or buying someone else’s email list?

While the idea seems attractive to obtain a ready-made list of email addresses, there is a big trap waiting for anyone pursuing this course of action without care, such as lawsuits, blacklisting of domains and termination of account by your email service provider.

The best way to go is to do the hard work of building your own list but if you are still curious about buying or renting a list, here are the drawbacks.

List rental

List rental is an accepted practice in email marketing. Owners of address lists will send an email to their list on your behalf and they charge you a fee for the service.

What you must understand is that you never get to see the email addresses on that list because the list owner does the sending, not you.

That right there should make you feel a little nervous because you don’t know 100% if the addresses are even targeted to your needs.

You also need to understand that the actual address list never falls into your hands. So you will pay a rental fee every time an email gets sent to the list.

Buying a list

The alternative is to buy a physical copy of a list of email addresses. After you pay the purchase price, there are no further fees to pay and you can send your promotional message as often as you like to that list.

Sounds better, right?

Wrong.

With very, very few exceptions, purchasing a bulk list like this is a shortcut to an email marketing disaster.

The value of any created list of emails is only maintained if you don’t abuse it. If you send too many campaigns, people will stop responding or worse, they may even report you as a spammer.

So what happens if the owner of that valuable list does sell copies to anyone willing to pay the right price? In short, the list gets ruined and the value is lost. There is no longer control over frequency of emails sent or what the campaigns are even about.

No list owner who values their business or customers is ever going to sell copies of their address list. If they do, it loses all value to them and will give them a shady reputation.

If somebody tries to sell and send you a bulk list of email addresses, chances are very high you are getting a spam list. This would be a list of addresses of people who have not agreed to receive messages like yours, or who are on a list that has been blasted by other mailers.

Remember email marketing is about relationships and the only way to build a relationship is if you build your own list.