Question SPAM or not?

hoff1985

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mm1
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Jul 15, 2012
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Switzerland
I'm diving a bit into Affiliation Marketing and recently had a discussion with a friend... On some point we started discussing about Sending E-Mails to get new customers... I would love to know your opinion.

The question was:

If an affiliate buys E-Mail Addresses through an official (serious) address selling service on the internet, is it then allowed for him to send marketing E-Mails to this Address?

I couldn't answer it, so it would be interesting to get your opinion :)

Thanks guys,
Hoff
 
If I go to someone's website and check a box that says "Please send me offers" then it's not spam. If someone buys my email from a third party no matter who they are to send me unsolicited mails, it's spam.
 
It sounds like the definition of spam to me. Do you plan to send the same message to all of these email addresses?

i don't know... i mean it's not my plan... i will focus on a website. i was just asking myself if all these e-mails i get daily from casinos are spam and if so many affiliate-networks don't care because i never signed up for any of the crap i receive every day.

second thing i'm asking myself then is: All these affiliate partners offer ready-to-send marketing e-mails... how can u use them and not acting as spammer? i don't think that a lot of people officially give your their e-mail address to use for your marketing-mails!?
 
i don't know... i mean it's not my plan... i will focus on a website. i was just asking myself if all these e-mails i get daily from casinos are spam and if so many affiliate-networks don't care because i never signed up for any of the crap i receive every day.

second thing i'm asking myself then is: All these affiliate partners offer ready-to-send marketing e-mails... how can u use them and not acting as spammer? i don't think that a lot of people officially give your their e-mail address to use for your marketing-mails!?

When i receive spam and all the crap sometimes i might get one that get's my attention. But instead of clicking link in that email I instead research around about that casino and then use a proper site where maybe a no deposit is offered. Nowhere in hell i would use those spammers link :)

Also i would not suggest you to buy any of those "email packs" as lot of them are useless anyway and you wont get anything good out of it.

Instead build them yourself by making nice website or websites. Get a newsletter or and also have clearly stated in terms that you might send out other promotions regular from advertisers. This way you get quality instead of quantity...and also will not be spam as people sign up to your newsletter this of course as long you have it stated. :thumbsup:

Hope this made sense as wrote it all bit quick so might not got around what I really wanted to say proper so sorry for that hehe.
 
The problem with buying a list is that you have no idea that the people behind those addresses gave their INFORMED consent for YOU to use them for marketing purposes. As far as the recipients are concerned, their first impression of you and your site would be "spammer".

It's different where YOU have created the site, and have a facility for users to "sign up" with your site to receive "newsletters, special offers, etc". This is where there would be a legitimate reason for the use of ready made template offer emails from affiliate programs. It would save you the work of constructing them yourself, and also give the program better control over the content to ensure that the offer is correctly described, and current.

Recipients will know that they signed up to your site, and hence will know why they are getting the emails. You are also likely to get a higher conversion rate this way.

The CM newsletters also occasionally contain news of special offers for accredited casinos, so in a sense, Bryan is also using email marketing to draw customers to the accredited casinos. CM members know they signed up to the newsletter, so know why they are getting them, and that the offers are an integral part of them. They also know that they can be trusted as much as they would trust a listing on the site itself.

You don't need an interactive forum to operate a mailing list, and since you would have handled the primary opt-in, it is far less likely that the offers will be viewed as spam.

You do need a system for opting out though, one that is easy to use and effective.

Having proper opt in and opt out procedures would legally mean the mailers were not spam.

Better still is a "double opt in" procedure, considered more robust than simply entering an email address into a webform and getting it added to a list.

From about(dot)com:-

The Difference Between Opt-In and Double Opt-In
•Email addresses on a (single) opt-in list are not confirmed. Anybody can submit anybody's address to the list, and it will be there until it is unsubscribed.
•On a double opt-in list, all email address must be confirmed before they are added. A request for confirmation is sent to the submitted address and the address owner must take some action to confirm that
•she is the owner of the email address,
•the address is working and
•she indeed wants to subscribe.
 
When i receive spam and all the crap sometimes i might get one that get's my attention. But instead of clicking link in that email I instead research around about that casino and then use a proper site where maybe a no deposit is offered. Nowhere in hell i would use those spammers link :)

Also i would not suggest you to buy any of those "email packs" as lot of them are useless anyway and you wont get anything good out of it.

Instead build them yourself by making nice website or websites. Get a newsletter or and also have clearly stated in terms that you might send out other promotions regular from advertisers. This way you get quality instead of quantity...and also will not be spam as people sign up to your newsletter this of course as long you have it stated. :thumbsup:

Hope this made sense as wrote it all bit quick so might not got around what I really wanted to say proper so sorry for that hehe.

Correct.

In other words, there are NO shortcuts. You need to do the legwork yourself and build your own list.

What you propose in your OP is definitely SPAM. I'm really surprised that it wasn't obvious to you.
 
That's why i'm asking it here because i want some opinions. And again it's not for me. I don't want to do mailings anyways.

I just (outside of the casino business) met in the last few years due to my job a lot of IT companies and some of the really big "address" sellers, and interestingly they often claim that all the adressess are verified to receive any promotional E-Mail. Of course it sounds fishy to me, but if that isn't the case how can all these companies still be in Business?

If COMPANY XYZ says, all our E-Mail Addresses are confirmed to receive any promotional offers via E-Mail (Because they agreed to that through different Newsletters, Lotteries etc.) how can it then be Spam when someone sends to these addresses?
 
That's why i'm asking it here because i want some opinions. And again it's not for me. I don't want to do mailings anyways.

I just (outside of the casino business) met in the last few years due to my job a lot of IT companies and some of the really big "address" sellers, and interestingly they often claim that all the adressess are verified to receive any promotional E-Mail. Of course it sounds fishy to me, but if that isn't the case how can all these companies still be in Business?

If COMPANY XYZ says, all our E-Mail Addresses are confirmed to receive any promotional offers via E-Mail (Because they agreed to that through different Newsletters, Lotteries etc.) how can it then be Spam when someone sends to these addresses?

It's all down to how they register "agreement".

Many use sneaky smallprint to slip agreement under the radar to the unwitting recipient. Often, the customer is lead to believe that their email address will ONLY be used by the company they sign up with, not sold on.

"informed consent" is where it is not sneaked in, but customers are presumed to have NOT agreed unless they have taken a specific action, such as ticking a box that states "tick if you agree to us passing your email address to anyone we want, and for them to pass it on as well". This is what is actually happening for these big address sellers to get their lists, but if the truth was placed next to an opt in box, their lists would be a good deal smaller.

The other trick is to have a "agree that we may pass on your details to selected third parties", often accompanied by pressure to agree such as by saying that if you don't agree, you wont benefit from the full service as parts of it are contracted out. Customers think that "selected third parties" means that the company will thoroughly vet to whom they pass on the details, and impose conditions that it goes no further, or that it is used solely for them to provide their duties as subcontractor. In fact "selected third parties" pretty much allows anything. "selected" is not defined, and so the company could "select" anyone they want, or who is prepared to pay a big enough price. This means that far from limited distribution, the information quickly becomes an asset that is being freely exchanged among a whole raft of companies, often offering products and services that bear no relation to what the customer originally signed up for.

The spammers then claim that provided they include instructions for opting out, whatever they send is not spam. In fact, this procedure is itself a trick, as by using the opt out facility, as well as opting out of that one newsletter out of hundreds, you have just confirmed that the email is active, and that spam is reaching the recipient. This means that even if the opt out is complied with, the spamming company now has an even more valuable asset, a currently active email address, and as they have no further use for it, they will sell it on to another spammer.

Once recipients start receiving emails from companies they have never heard of for products they have never shown an interest in, it does not matter how technically "not spam" it is, the recipient has no way of telling the difference, and as they know they can't possibly have "knowingly opted in", it will be regarded as spam, reported as spam, which could lead to the sender's domain getting blacklisted.
 

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