[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There’s a saying you get what you pay for.

That’s definitely true for purchasing email lists.

Buying email lists is the standard practice for some businesses who want to grow their email subscribers list, and their list of prospects.

List buying isn’t hard, and many business owners and marketers see list buying as one of the only methods to growing your list of contacts.

But is it effective?

It can be, but list buying can also be harmful and damaging to the health of your email list, as well as to your brand.

List buying can be a slow poison.

In order to show why email list buying is bad idea, let’s go over an example.

Say that your business buys a list from one of the options below.

Taking the lowest cost option, you’ll spend $3,000 just for the list. You figure that on a 1% conversion rate, (typical conversion rates are 1%-3%) you’ll sell anywhere between 100-300 units of your product, which costs $99 – generating gross revenue of a range of $9,900 to $29,700.

Not bad, right?

Then what?

Just because you had some success one time, doesn’t mean you’ll have it again. (I’d bet our CMO’s annual salary that you won’t get the same outcome, twice)

And just because your list got you a 1% conversion rate, with the above result of $9,900, doesn’t mean you’ll get the same result again. You certainly won’t get that same result from the same list.

You need to be asking yourself a few questions:

• Is this process of spending $3,000 scalable?
• Is the process of spending time, for a lesser ROI, scalable?
• Is it affordable?
• Are you spamming people by randomly sending content from a random list?
• Do your prospects want to be spammed?
• Wouldn’t you rather put in the work to build a list organically, with names and emails of buyers that actually want to hear from you?

One good email is better than a 1,000 purchased ones.

Business owners and marketers want their email lists to generate thousands of potential buyers. Buyers who will line up at the door to purchase what you’re schlepping.

But that’s not reality.

The underlying danger in adding a large number of purchased emails to your prospects list is you’re not really adding any good leads, or potential buyers.

Buying 1,000 contacts in an email list does not mean you’ll get 1,000 new customers.

Buying 1,000 contacts in an email list does not mean you’ll get 1,000 new prospects or potential buyers. Or even one new customer or buyer.

Your goal should always be to earn subscribers information by organic methods, not paid methods.

Buying emails that you did not earn can have the following unintended consequences:

• It can pollute your entire database.
• Buying lists can equal with high bounce rates in your email marketing campaigns.
• Buying lists can equate to low engagement.
• And buying lists often result in wasted time.

By getting into the habit (we’d call it an addiction) of list buying, you’ll find that most , if not everyone, on the list you purchased will never even open your emails or click-through to your website.

Why does this happen?

The reason that most of the emails on your purchased list don’t open your emails is because they most likely joined the list unintentionally.

Meaning they don’t want to get your stuff.

List companies usually come by these email addresses from a different company. Most likely those people that checked “yes” to a box of receiving offers from “related companies.”

The people you’re emailing from a purchased list probably inadvertently enrolled to receive emails. Meaning they haven’t signed up to receive your stuff and they see your messages as spam.

Another problem is many companies who sell email lists are not entirely honest as to how the acquired the names on the list. It’s possible the email list seller got those addresses without the person’s consent.

A lot of list buying firms buy their lists from credit card brands, like Mastercard, Amex, and Visa.

Because these lists are purchased, with a lack of integrity, many of the contact records are incorrect. Email directory companies are known for not checking the emails validity, which means the emails could be out of date.

Many of the emails you purchased may be worthless, with not one of them converting into a lead, a prospect, or buyer.

Quality email addresses aren’t for sale.

Even if the contacts and email addresses you acquired are valid and healthy, the people on a list will undoubtedly have been spammed by content before.

And if the email addresses on the list you purchase have been sold to other companies like yours, that means they might be receiving marketing content and emails from multiple companies, at the same time.

Which is a direct violation of CAN-SPAM.

A lot of email lists are pulled from all different directions, and chances are if you’ve bought the email list, so has your competitor.

A little fact that many business owners forget, if you can buy that email list of 10,000 addresses, so can your competitors.

They, like you, are spamming uninterested people with countless messages. Not only are you reaching out to uninterested people, your competitor is doing the exact same thing.

Do you want to be your competition, or beat your competition? We’d prefer the latter.

The problem with email list buying that most marketers overlook.

Finally, here’s the one aspect of list buying that most business owners and marketers don’t consider.

When your business sends emails to prospects that didn’t ask to get your stuff, you’re likely to have high numbers of emails marked as spam. Having a high number of emails marked as spam means your going to get your business blacklisted by your email marketing provider.

How does that affect you?

If you’re blacklisted, and found to be in non-compliance by your email marketing company, your account is suspended. In some cases it will be terminated.

There could possibly be fines involved assuming your email marketing company reports you to the Federal Trade Commission. (FTC) And in some extreme cases your email service provider might even take legal action against you.

What are the penalties for non-compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act? The fine is a hefty one. It’s a $16,000 fine for every single email that violates the CAN-SPAM Act. A list of 10,000 x $16,000 per email = $160,000,000.

We doubt this exact scenario would happen to your business, and we tend not to live in extremes. But we’ve also seen some pretty crazy things over the last 10 years of digital marketing, so never say never.

Buying email lists can also be detrimental to your brand. The last thing you want is prospects on social media blasting your company for receiving unwanted emails, or emailing you about why they’re getting your emails when they never opted-in.

Closing thoughts.

As conventional as list buying is, any marketing professional will preach the harms of this practice.

As much disagreement there is on how to use email marketing effectively, the danger of buying email lists is something marketing professionals largely agree on.

And using purchased email lists, albeit correctly, is getting harder and harder because of gov’t regulation, legislation like CAN-SPAM, and sophisticated spam filters.

You’re far better off earning your subscribers over time. The quality of an email address that’s given to you by a prospect, with their permission, will always take precedence over how many you buy.

Download our guide on email marketing.

We want you to be the hero of your marketing, and the hero for your customers.

Fill out the form below to download our free guide to email marketing, where you’ll learn all about how your business can receive a return-on-investment on your email marketing efforts.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]