7 Things to Consider Before Purchasing an Email List
Buying an email marketing list can be a fantastic way to generate quality sales leads for your business, if you find the right list. If you’re considering purchasing an email list there are (surprise!) some important questions to ask.
1) Where did the email list come from? How was the information gathered? This is one of the first and most important questions to ask when you find an e-mail list for sale. There are all kinds of ways to gather personal information from people. Likewise, there are all kinds of individuals trawling the internet digging up whatever they can find to try to sell to unwary customers. For obvious reasons, an email list containing old or outdated information, or one that has been pieced together by scanning various public forums in every corner of the web is likely to yield poor results in an email marketing campaign. Thrive’s email lists come from reputable companies whose patrons have asked to receive information on a variety of subjects. A few of Thrive’s affiliate companies include The Home Depot, Expedia.com, and Careerbuilder.com.
2) Is the email list Opt-in? As outlined above, consumers on opt-in email lists have chosen to receive email offers or advertisements pertaining to particular areas of interest. All of Thrive’s consumer email lists are double opt-in, meaning that they have not only chosen to receive these offers, but that they have also responded positively to a follow-up email confirming their wish to receive offers in the future. Very few business email lists are opt-in lists. While the majority of our business email lists are not opt-in (although some are), for business to business marketing the success of the campaign rests much more heavily upon the strength of the product and the relevance to the business receiving the email.
3) What information, records, and fields are included in the email list? In order to have the best chance of response from a prospective client, you should know as much as possible about him or her. It’s nice to at least address the individual by name at the opening of the message. What if your offer is gender specific? Thrive’s consumer email lists include the following fields: Email, First and Last Name, Postal Address, Opt-in Time Stamp, Source of Opt-In, and Double Opt-In IP Address. Many contain additional information such as Birth Date, Gender, and most contain Phone numbers. These fields can be very helpful in segmenting your list for optimal results.
4) Is the email list clean? The age of the list is also a consideration, albeit less important if there is a regular cleaning of the list going on. How is an email list cleaned, you ask? Reputable companies who sell or rent email lists will have a means of testing them to find bad email addresses. Additionally, some of the best lists for email marketing campaigns are used quite frequently and are therefore carefully cleaned to remove any individuals who no longer wish to receive them. Most of our email lists are cleaned daily to ensure accuracy.
5) Is there an accuracy guarantee? If you are considering an email list rental or purchase and the seller does not offer any type of guarantee as to the accuracy of the data, it’s best to move on. Because of the nature of transferring data and the sheer quantity that is often sold, having a guarantee is essential because there’s no way to check each record yourself prior to purchase. Furthermore, ask for references of clients who have previously purchased or rented the email list. Thrive proudly offers a 100% email accuracy guarantee. In the event that an email list does not contain 100% valid email addresses, Thrive will provide extra email addresses to ensure full deliverability.
6) Is the list going to deliver a good return on investment? Put another way, does the email list have a good price vs. performance ratio? Consider carefully what your use of the email list will be and whether or not the cost to purchase it outweighs the usefulness for your particular application. One way to ensure that your ROI will be high is to know your marketing strategies when looking for an email list for sale. If you are marketing a niche product or service, look for email lists that are very specifically targeted. Our database affords our clients a wide range of business and personal interest categories to choose so that they are sure to get the most out of each email list.
7) How (and how quickly) will the email list be delivered? Email lists can be very large files and, depending upon your email account capacity, may not make it to your Inbox. Additionally, the file needs to be openable. If it is a file format your computer does not recognize the seller of the email list should provide a different format. In addition to the accuracy guarantee, a guaranteed delivery time is equally important. We send your copy of the purchased email list within 48 business hours of payment processing. It is downloadable via a link in the email so your Inbox is never going to be clogged. The document will be in CSV format, which can be opened in Microsoft Excel.
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