Date.com used to rely on direct email marketing for the bulk of their new users.
Now, it turns out that spam filters are wrecking their marketing efforts:
“A year ago, I would have said e-mail was critical to our business,” said Brad Shapiro, vice president of sales and marketing at the Toronto-based company. “We were sending over 100 million prospecting e-mails a week. But a lot of those e-mails weren't getting through or the response rates were too low. Now we're sending out 60% less.”
Let's face it, nobody is sending out 100,000,000 legitimately-sourced emails a week. These guys are stinking up the Net with spam.
When will the direct marketing industry finally get the message that defending spammers is not in their best interest, and cut sleazeballs like Date.com loose? Using Congress to put the entire nation on opt-out status with every company in the world isn't going to do them any good if their messages can't make it through the filters.
Posted by bp at July 09, 2003 04:45 PM
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all i have to say about spam is that there is a delete button for a reason, so if you know its spam or just dont want to open it use the delete button and dont cry like a baby.
Posted by: heather on December 14, 2003 05:24 PMOf course legitimate companies can send that many emails. Because it isnt them that is sending them. They contract out to list owners to advertises to their members. A 1000 list owners with 100,000 or more subscribers easily tops 100 mil.
Posted by: Michael Ellis on June 7, 2004 12:26 PMI don't buy it. Either your contractors are sending date.com email to each of their subscribers every week, or you've got 50,000 contractors with mailing lists averaging 100,000 subscribers. Or something in-between. Are you telling me that 100,000,000 people get your email every week and that most of them don't think it's spam? Give me a break!
In any case, I believe that your contractors are spammers. And I believe you're looking the other way.
There are plenty of companies that are ignoring the fact that a large part of their distribution or affiliate network consists of spammers. Dish Network comes to mind. Or a certain automotive site which spammed this site recently. If sleazeballs are doing your dirty work, you're sleazeball.
Posted by: Barry Parr on June 7, 2004 12:26 PMWell I wasnt referring to us in that 100million but I do see how its possible. There are several 100 million people in the U.S., thent he same in Europe, plus Canada, Australia etc. You could easily find that many people all on the web
Posted by: Mike Ellis on July 7, 2004 01:44 PMHow many of them are single adults, who are presumably your market?
I repeat: Are you telling me that 100,000,000 people get your email every week and that most of them don't think it's spam?
Posted by: Barry Parr on July 8, 2004 08:41 PM