Here's why you should and should not buy an email list.

galegatling Level 1

August 26, 2017, 8:40 am

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For those who don't know, an email list is a list of all the people and their email addresses who have given you their permission (would sometimes be considered as spam, but we'll get to that later as we progress with on the topic) to send you emails, newsletters and updates about almost anything that they subscribed you for. Buying an email list may be a good thing specially if you don't want to go through the hassle of building it from scratch specially in today's era wherein almost all Internet users are using an email for almost everything that they are doing in the Internet.

To some, the bigger your email list is, the more revenues are.

Here

On this thread, I am going to show you some of the reasons why you should and shouldn't buy an email list.

Why you should:

As stated above, buying an email list will have a significant impact of your sales and revenues.
It will also eventually being to grow a lot more since you already have started with a lot of emails on your list.
You can concurrently send all your subscribers an update all at the same time.
You have full control over your list.
You can interact with a lot of people.
If you get lucky, you may find a very inexpensive email list

There may be some advantages of buying an email list, but there are also disadvantages. Some of them are:

Your email provider could probably charge you if your email list grows bigger and bigger.
You could be fined and sued for God knows how much because you sent a spam email to someone who did not opt to subscribe to your list.
Your reputation is on the line - anyone can eventually say something bad about you because of what you do which is spamming people with a bunch of emails.
There will be more and more complaints and bad reviews.
Nobody wants to have an inbox full of spam emails.

As usual, there will always be more cons when buying an email list. Some may not be listed but we all get the idea.

This post made me hungry. Why do people hate spam? I love spam. Don't you?

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kgord

I guess buying an email list is something you could try to determine whether it does or does not work for you. Evaluating it, and seeing if it is working for you, should probably mostly determine whether or not you are going to be able to benefit from using a list or not.

9 years ago

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galegatling

You're right. And there's only one way to find out. The pros and cons are very interesting and you sometimes have to think twice if whether you would opt to buy one or not. Each of them have their own point so it's really up to the person to decide whether he would really benefit from this or not after buying one, of course.

9 years ago

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Authord

LOL, this post made me laugh real hard when i got to the disadvantages

, and i still don't know why.

i love the way you make use of your words wrapped with humor

.
But well, i clearly see no reason you should not buy an email list, if you are into online marketing or any form of marketing, it is an essential part in marketing of any form. The importance of email list can not actually be over emphasized, because it's very vital. So if you are into marketing you should get an email list.
But the disadvantages can not be neglected as well, because i myself know how i get pissed of when i get spammed with this kind of mails, that is out of the circus of my interest. But it all boils down to how well you play your cards

9 years ago

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kgord

Yes, I liked the graphic with the can of spam. That was really pretty cute! Something different for sure. I think that it is something that we should all try to remember about list building. Some might consider our efforts spam.

9 years ago

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vinaya

I don't think buying an email list is a good idea. Here are my reasons why you should not buy an email list.
Are the people on your email list actually real customers. The one who built the list could have got the emails from various sources and not all people are customers.
Do the people on your email list actually check your email. If they don't check your email or click the links inside email or do not check the products, there is no point in sending email.
Thus, you should always build email list from voluntary subscribers.

9 years ago

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Corzhens

I used to receive emails with footprints, i.e. the addresses from the previous senders. Someone advised me to collect those email addresses, they are actually friends of my friends of my friends. After some years, someone inquired if I have an emailing list that I can sell. Hmm, that sounded good to me. But I did not sell it because the one inquiring was a close friend. He was able to use that emailing list I compiled for promoting something. And I guess it benefited him. But now, I don't think the emailing list is that effective anymore. To promote something, social media is more potent than emails which can be ignored. I am saying this because any email that I receive from someone I do not know goes directly to the spam folder.

9 years ago

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AmieBotella

Social media direct messages are slowly becoming infiltrated by ads as well. Good thing the majority of these social medias still have the settings that can be edited by the owner. Or else it will stuffed up too with so many ads via private messages.

I'm glad that gmail sorts these types of emails and I do not bother looking at them and just straight delete them all to trash. So I don't think email list is all that useful these days but who knows, one might still be keen into sorting down their email everyday.

9 years ago

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DarthHazard

If I find out that I have received a certain email after that user/business has bought an email list then I will just completely ignore it. It doesn't matter how important the email may be or how interesting it might be, I will just completely ignore it. It's not difficult to know when your email has been bought either because I make sure to remember all the sites that I have signed up to and given permission to email me. It's extremely annoying and I wish companies just didn't bother doing it.

9 years ago

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galegatling

Yeah, sometimes the best thing to do is just to ignore it. Eventually you will get used to it. It would be better if you get your own list and mark them depending on what they are for and who bought them or where they went etc. I am also curious to know if how much you would sell your email list. At what price range probably?

9 years ago

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overcast

I think buying email list is a trend in the make money online and other scam niches. You can see that they buy email list so that they can target the users in that niche. And considering the people who are into this niche, it's possible that you may end up giving too much content. And then often such content may not convert for many. So it's all about how you make use of the email list. It's kind of bad for buyers.

9 years ago

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augusta

Everything has got two sides.the bad and the good.I think buying an email list is trending and makes one have subscribers easy than when you need to source for this email addresses yourself.But the disadvantage is this mails getting into the primary mail box and the person obliging you.

Personally,any mail from an unknown source is expressly deleted,so as one is purchasing this email list,I think it pertinent that one hope that it isn't even marked as spam.

9 years ago

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Tronia

I have personally never bought an email list but I did build them a few times myself - initially, it might be "hard" but that's just because it's a bit slow. Otherwise, if you know what you're doing and the best ways to get people's emails (through landing pages) it isn't extremely difficult. But sure, buying an email list is way faster and requires no effort, just money. However, we have to ask ourselves what sort of emails are we receiving? Will they be useful for us and for our niche?

9 years ago

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galegatling

These are true. I guess your last two questions will eventually rhyme with each other. In buying an email list, oftentimes we have them categorized depending on the interest or niches these lists belong to. For instance, if you buy an email list with emails in it that has people interested on let's say weather forecasts, then you should give them similar emails to avoid having those above-mentioned disadvantages.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

This is a great post, and you have actually succeeded in convincing me that buying an email list, instead of building one more organically over time, is not a good idea for me. The idea of getting sued or ruining my reputation because of distributing spam and other un-wanted email materials to others is enough to keep me from buying such a list and employing it. I know that I can't stand spam, and it is very annoying what shows up in my junk mail folder, so i would not want to be burdening others with the same types of things.

9 years ago

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centurion

I do not support to buy the e mail list. In your website you will create a subscription form so that visitors will come and visitors will submit their e mail addresses and in this way you will get an e mail list for the future time.

Thanks
Centurion

9 years ago

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Soulwatcher

I would never buy a email list because the first thing I do when I get email from someone that I didn't sign up for is I report it for spam in my gmail and I am sure that other do too and that's a sure fire way to get your email blacklisted on good if enough people report you as sending spam.

9 years ago

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galegatling

Yep that is the common reaction of us people when we receive emails from person or sites that we don't even know and didn't even sign up in the first place. But there are also benefits on buying an email list - specially if you buy it from a reliable and trusted source. You can even choose what kind of list you would want to buy because email lists are getting smarter these days. Some people even want to get paid to be included on some lists!

9 years ago

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AmieBotella

Exactly what i do also. I never opened any ad or email that I get from someone I never signed up for. Besides, now the inbox is categorized also into where these all fall, it makes it so much easier to delete them all at once.

9 years ago

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Judas2018

I don't do email lists. Everyone who contacts you through email gets a reply, correct? So include your site link and logo and social media links within the reply is all. That will work wonders for you. It's not rude, abrasive or obnoxious. Nothing says 'bad morning' like receiving an email from someone who has nothing to show you except pleading for you to buy their product or visit their website. The email should be requesting something. Like promote our project, have you seen our project, or asking to build a working relationship with you. Not just: CHECK THIS OUT!! GO THERE! BUY THIS!

9 years ago

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itommy

there are many spam email lists out there and you should care about that before purchasing an email list.
Even some people can offer you with cheap price for email lists with million of subscribers but it will not generate any benefits or sales for your website.

9 years ago

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jaymish2

I also think that it is better to grow your email list organically. If you buy your e-mail list you are not sure which kind of audience you are getting. This is like walking around in the dark. At least if you grow your email list slowly, you will know what attracted your subscribers and you will know what information or products they are interested in. You also don't know by what means the people on the bought email list were acquired, so emailing them without their permission is actually spam.

8 years ago

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Corzhens

In the days before the social media when email marketing was the most effective in terms of traffic and business conversion, my husband was collecting email addresses. But he didn’t sell his email list. What he provided was an email service which he called spamming because he would be sending out an ad to the thousands of email addresses in his list. But in fairness to that spamming activity, his clients were happy with the results.

8 years ago

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Jeane

Buying an email list may simply be a waste of your money. One thing you most certainly aren't sure of is whether any of the people in the email list will be interested in what you are selling or promoting. There is a high likelihood that most of the emails you send will not be opened by the recipients so not only would your money have been wasted but your time spent creating content that would be sent to the people on the email list would have been wasted too.

Leave the buying of email lists to blackhat marketers because they don't really care about a reputation since they are always on the move.

8 years ago

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Seoclerks

Here's why you should and should not buy an email list.

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