Buy an Email List : Can it be done right?

So you want to buy an email list? Ok my last post on the subject of buying email lists kicked up a little bit of a fuss on a LinkedIn Group the “Pro Email Marketers”. The basis of the argument was that one individual thought I had gone too far, when I said List Sales was  pointless, unethical and wrong. The argument goes that because it is legal in the UK to buy and sell and send email to a non-permission b2b list, that this made it ok. Moreover that because it was ok , there were hundreds of legitimate list sellers doing it, and many companies were buying these lists.

So this article will try and redress the balance – I do not expect it to manage to fully redress the balance and I have offered the individual the right to reply. This article explains how I can see a list sale being completed legitimately.

The individual that complained was very upset as he felt that the sale of non-permission b2b lists was acceptable practice in the UK, ideally he felt any campaigns from these lists should be targeted. So for the sake of clarity and for the balance that he asked for on the blog I will make it clear:

It is perfectly legal to purchase a non-permission list of email address of UK Business and mail them with B2B offers. The only proviso is that it contains the name, address and registered company details of the sender and an opt-out link. As long as you do that it is plain sailing as far as the law is concerned.

There are, I am well aware, many back room deals being done by very big companies in regards to the purchase of  email lists with little or no permission. You of course will not find them on Twitter tweeting about list purchase, and they will flatly deny knowledge of any such activity if you ask them. There is a reason why that is the case, that is because in the eyes of most people in the industry the selling of lists is a shady practice at best.

Luckily the collective mass makes the decision as to what happens with email, so reputations are tarnished and ISP’s and ESP’s decline to deliver email they define as spam. I have yet to see an ESP or ISP that has a clause in its terms and conditions in regards to allowing the sending of mail to non-permission lists if its UK and b2b. I know Spamhaus, Spamcop, MAAWG, Signal Spam and others make no such distinction. The vast majority of users make no such distinction.

So that said how can you buy an email list? Well the problem as I see it is permission. You need a clear audit trail of permission to be firmly on ‘best practice’ ground. The idea of transferring permission or selling it is an anethema to most privacy advocates. But come Andrew, there is money involved. There has to be a way.

OK so you find a company that claims they can sell you a list to re-use, ad infinitum. They guarantee they have permission to email this list, and not only that they have several thousand senior decision makers who said it was ok to share those details with third parties.

You want to buy an email list, and they tell you its responsive. So get them to prove it and buy it. You can get a list following these methods very quickly, a list of prospect that has directly given you permission, is guaranteed to be responsive and interested in what you have to say. It really is relatively simple, now I wonder how many List Sellers will offer it as a service. If their lists are so targetted and responsive then they should be happy to offer this. Obviously it will be at a premium, but at least your paying a price that is tangible for each lead, as opposed to wasting money on an unresponsive list with high bounce rates.

So before we go further, this is my idea of how it could be done. It would, I think pacify most of the people that sit on my side of the fence in regards to permission (as long as that original list was permission based).

Step 1

Get the List Owner to send an email saying there is this great newsletter (thats you) that they really will not want to miss, and explain all the benefits. All they need to do is click to confirm they want to join the list. This email can contain sales offers etc. Just make sure the list owner sends this first message

Step 2

You send them their welcome email asking them to confirm their subscription.

Step 3

Anyone who has confirmed is added to your list.
You now have your own list that you ‘bought’ if you wish to call it that.

What list sellers will offer

When it comes to selling lists companies would like to make it appear that they are extremely ethical and above board. One thing they will offer is an opt-out campaign, sometimes they like to call it a ‘permission pass’. They can be clever with words like that. So a permission pass could be dressed up to sound similar as the above but it is not. In fact it does not involve permission at all.

Permission pass is when the list seller will send an email to their list saying we are passing on your details to XYZ, if you want click here to opt out.

They are happy to do this because they know most people will not opt out. That isnt because it is a responsive list necessarily though, more likely people will not click the link as they do not trust it, the email itself will end up in many junk folders and of the email that did get to the inbox much of it would not be opened.