Opted In

June 13, 2004 9:58 PM

I'm helping someone trying to start up a small business. He's got a list of 50,000 opt-in email addresses and wants to send out an ad. Any idea how he can do that? (Is this even ethical? He purchsed the list from people who CHOSE to opt in for this particualr industry?)
posted by phyrewerx to computers & internet (13 comments total)

I could tell you, but then I would have to shoot myself.

Seriously, this sounds very, very fishy. There are legit companies who specialise in helping you do email campaigns. Generally they assume that you already know you want to talk to. Given that, they can then help you construct a c lassy message, track responses, etc.

BUT:

Um, what is the source of the 50,000 opt-in email addresses? Is it a reputable firm? If you email, say, 10 people, asking if they remember signing up, do they say yes?

It's ethical if people gave your friend their addresses themselves, or if they gave it directly to the supplier with expressed consent that they wish to receive unsolicited mail ("Yes, please put me on a list that you see which will result in messages about topic X"). Anything else is spam, and it isn't right for him to do it, or for you to help him, friend or no.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:15 PM on June 13, 2004

Are you 100% sure the company that sold him the list is completely reputable? How, exactly did the people opt in?

If you don't know the answer to the second question, I'm willing to bet these people didn't, in fact, opt in. Spamming is obviously not ethical, and while it works, I think it only works for industries that capatilize on morons (viagra, pyramid schemes, etc).

Assuming they did, though, there's a wealth of bulk email tools out there that provide all kinds of tracking of who opened your email, what links they clicked, etc.. A good place to start for a new company is to use a service provider ( e.g. cheetah mail on the high end). Cheetah Mail will tell you to fuck off if you're a spammer, however.

On the other end, if you don't care about any of that stat stuff, you could just grab a free email script, drop it on a hosted server, and schedule it to send them out over a couple nights.

But seriously, find out EXACTLY how these people "opted in" and MAKE SURE they actually said "I want to be spammed by advertisements from any company related to this industry".
posted by malphigian at 10:19 PM on June 13, 2004

Yeh, I trust this friend well enough to believe him when he told me that these people opt'd in twice before their emails showed up on the list.

Cheetah Mail sounds like what he's looking for (Thanks malphigian!). But are there any cheaper alternatives? I was helping him look at Hosting companies that can do newsletter type mailings also.
posted by phyrewerx at 10:32 PM on June 13, 2004

Even if they have opted in, many mail recipients of your broadcast mail will either have forgotten they did so or simply not care, and report this perceived spam to their ISPs, Web hosts, or blacklists. In other words, it may be far more effective (and friendly) to launch an informative Google-optimized site and build a confirmed mailing list from there.
posted by Danelope at 10:37 PM on June 13, 2004

I call shennanigans on this guy.

Who would ever agree to be spammed by any company in an entire industry about anything?
posted by falconred at 10:58 PM on June 13, 2004

You may want to look at Constant Contact. They work pretty hard to ensure that they send legitimate mass-email, compliant with the law, and genuinely opt-outable. They will also block your account if your list turns out not to be legit, so proceed only if you are indeed very confident it's legit.

Disclaimer: the company I work for is a partner.
posted by weston at 10:59 PM on June 13, 2004

You're not going to find any practical help on how to send the email here. Either learn how to talk to an open source list daemon or fork out for Lyris, et al.

Everyone here will tell you you're evil. And you are. But there is a very low number of *employed* internet company managers here, so please take everything with a grain of salt.

In the end, don't expect a hell of a lot from 50K so-called "opt in" email addresses. You're talking about a few actual give-half-a-shit clicks. Count them on one hand. 1% response rate is mastubatorialy optimistic. And once you factor in conversion to sale, you're going to make a conversation with your parents look profitable by comparison.
posted by scarabic at 11:00 PM on June 13, 2004

Thanks for everyone questioning the ethical portion of my post. I agree, the return rate on the mails might not be so high, nor do the people who opt'ed in would even remember they did.

But the meat of my question is: how does one go about even sending 50,000 emails, (assuming that the list is legit) are there online services that do this other than Cheetah?

I've been googling for the last few days, but the signal to noise is unbareable. I could care less if the company fines the sender for sending out what later turns out to be unsoclicted emails (hey, I hate spam as much as everyone else, and if this truns out to be a spam campaign, I hope justice would be done). All I am asking for is someone tell me what the services of these companies are classed under, and whether or not I can find a directory that lists them.
posted by phyrewerx at 11:19 PM on June 13, 2004

I just realized this is in a way opposite to Maceo's post, please don't infer that I have a vendetta with 50,000 people.

(though 5000....nevermind)
posted by phyrewerx at 11:30 PM on June 13, 2004

Whenever I get a list of 50,000 opt-in email addresses, I like to do the following:

*Send out an email to everyone on the list offering the secret to unlimited happiness for just $4.95

*Collect and cash all the checks

*Randomly select a nice Zen Koan to send out to everyone who responded

*Smile
posted by Kwantsar at 2:00 AM on June 14, 2004

phyrewerx, does this help.
posted by ajbattrick at 4:27 AM on June 14, 2004

Email me with your contact info and I'll pass it along to a reputable company I know that can guide you through the dangerous path that is email marketing.
posted by bshort at 9:07 AM on June 14, 2004

If you want to confirm the validity of the list, ask the list provider for the following:

* The URL of the signup page, or a screenshot if it no longer exists. Check to make sure that it contains no dirty tricks, that people would know what they've signed up for, etc.
* The logs that provide the timestamp and IP address, demonstrating double opt-in for each address.
* If you're feeling really cautious (as you should be), ask for a few e-mail addresses, so that you can get in touch with them and ask them if they know they're on this list, and if they want this e-mail.

Any list provider that won't provide the above should be told to shove it.
posted by waldo at 7:49 PM on June 14, 2004