Rental/Acquisition List

These lists are extremely tempting for new email marketers. Growing a viable subscriber list through opt-in methods can take time and effort. However, the time and effort to gather verified and willing recipients for any commercial email is an important process, and is vital for long-term success.

There are companies that gather email addresses from various sources- some more shady or nefarious than others, however, if a user subscribes to one newsletter or online list, they are most likely to reject all others that come their way from unwanted sources.

These lists, depending on the source can be quite pricey too, usually based on CPM or cost per thousand, known as an acquisition cost. An average cost ranges from a few cents for each email address to a dollar or more, again, depending on the source and accuracy of the list.

All reputable email marketing software services strictly prohibit the use of all rented, leased, or purchased lists. The chances that a great number of spam reports will be generated is high, and not only the email marketers reputation is on the line so is the mail service provider and they will not risk being black-listed or loose their whitelist status because one of their clients were using an unapproved list of subscribers.

If a company does forge ahead and use a list that contains dead or illegitimate emails either from an online account or through software resident on their own servers, they assume all the all the negative consequences or risks has been proven time and again when conducting their online business in a less than reputable manner.