Email Marketing Tips Blog

An eye-opening article at Direct Mag quotes from a study which found that 29% of Internet users have bought goods through a spam email.

The research study, conducted by online security company Marshal, found the most commonly purchased items were sexual enhancement pills and other adult material, software, jewelry and clothing.

Unfortunately, it looks like the percentage of people buying from spammers is increasing. In 2004, Forrester Research did a similar study, finding that 20% of those they surveyed reported purchased from spammers.

Marshall attributed the rise to the spammers’ ability to reduce their costs by using botnets, or networks consisting of thousands of infected personal computers, which are remotely controlled by criminals. Thanks to this, spammers have reduced or eliminated their need for their own servers because they can take control of other people’s computers.

Eighty percent of the world’s spam is accounted for by only five botnets.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

In the “You’ve Got to be Kidding Me!” category, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the nine-year sentence of Jeremy Jaynes, who was listed in Spamhaus’ ROKSO database as the eighth more prolific spammer in the world.

Jaynes had been convicted of violating Virginia’s Computer Crimes Act, by sending unsolicited bulk email via a fake address.

The Virginia law, which has been around for five years, defines spammers as those who send high volumes of spam email (10,000 messages in 24 hours or 100,000 messages in 30 days), AND use a fictitious name.

So, what got Jeremy Jaynes off the hook? It seems that the first Amendment protects those who use anonymous names when sending emails expressing their political and religious opinions.  This goes all the way back to the Federalist Papers, which advocated ratifying the U.S. Constitution and were published with fictitious names.

The Virginia ruling states that since political and religious emails (with fake names) can’t be classified as spam because they are protected under the first Amendment, that same ruling must be extended to others….like Jaynes.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently released a statement that contains updates to the CAN-SPAM Act. Please take a moment to find out how these new rules may affect you.

What You Need To Do….

1.  Please review the “From” address in your campaigns. At all times, it needs to be clearly recognizable as belonging to you or your organization.

Remember: this change affects you especially if you co-operate with affiliates or third party email marketers. In such cases, you must also provide only one opt-out mechanism for a message.

What Else You Need to Know…

2.  Each commercial email you send needs to have a valid physical postal address. Update: You may now use a post office box or private mailbox instead of your personal physical address.

What GetResponse did….

3.  GetResponse has made sure the unsubscribe mechanism is very simple. CAN-SPAM specifies that if any subscriber wants to opt out, s(he) cannot be required to provide information other than his or her email address, opt-out preferences and definitely cannot be made to pay a fee. Any steps other than sending a reply email message or visiting a single page on an Internet website are illegal.

This is only a short summary of the most important updates and cannot be treated as legal advice. If you wish to know more about the update, you can familiarize yourself with the full text of the update. If you need legal advice, please contact your attorney.

While most of the world suffers with spam levels averaging 81.5%, the United States wins the “prize” of the most spammed country, with an 86% spam email rate.

Cities may fight to be named #1 on Money Magazine’s “Best Places to Live in America”, but they sure aren’t vying to be named the most spammed states. Those honors are shown below:

1. Illinois
2. South Dakota
3. Oregon
4. New Hampshire
5. Wisconsin
6. North Carolina
7. Indiana
8. Texas
9. Pennsylvania
10. Alabama

Want to know the real reason these states have the highest spam rate? Read Paul McNamara’s tongue-in-cheek report.

Adam Vitale has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years for spamming 1.3 million AOL subscribers. In addition to his sentence in a Manhattan federal court, Vitale was also ordered to pay $180,000 to AOL in restitution.

Vitale’s partner, Todd Moeller, had already been sentenced in November 2007 to 27 months.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

While my kids can type text messages faster than I can write articles, I just don’t “get” text messaging. Now, I’ll admit, it might be because I like to TALK even more than I like to write, but I’d really rather hear my friends’ voices than imagine their inflection on a 2″ screen.

But I’m definitely in the minority these days. And it seems that those dregs of society - spammers - are devising more ways to interrupt your day (and communications) with their garbage.

Cell Phone Spam

Even though I don’t text, I found a recent article from the New York Times interesting. It seems some of the heat is off of email spam, while the bad guys turn their attention to spamming your cellphone.

If you think email spam is bad, cellphone spam is even worse.

• You can’t delete it without opening it.
• You have to pay for it. (Keep in mind, the spammers pay nothing to send it to you.)
• There’s no way to stop it.

Until now.

This New York Times article shows you how to block cellphone spam with a number of cellphone companies. If you’re not bothered with this yet, you will be. So make note of what to do so you’ll be prepared.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

I was chatting with a friend the other day and he announced that he was finally going to start mailing to the list he had built up over the past few years (but had never mailed).

This is not a good idea. If someone signed up for your list 3 years ago, the possibility of them remembering who the heck you are and why they subscribed to your list in the first place probably ranges somewhere between slim and none.

The first thing they’ll think when reading your message is, “Where’s the SPAM button?”

First of all, in 3 years’ time, a good percentage of these people have moved from homes or jobs and their email address has moved with them. So, your emails are going to bounce. And bounce. And bounce again.

The ISP’s take notice when they see too many bounces. In fact, I’ve heard that some ISPs actually keep those old email addresses around and use them to trap spammers. After all, if Jane Doe wanted to continue to receive email (family, friends, etc.), she would have told people by now.

The fact that you’re still emailing Jane tells the ISP’s that you are either buying those CD’s with 5 trillion email addresses for $4.95 (remember those??) OR you’re too lazy to keep your list clean.

Unfortunately, when in doubt….blacklist.

It takes no time (and sometimes no reason) to have your email blacklisted. Sorry to say, most small merchants don’t even know that it’s happened. And if it does happen, they don’t have a clue what to do to reverse it.  It’s much better to keep it from happening in the first place.

Be proactive. If you have lists which are that old, take a deep breath and start over again. Or (if you are determined to make contact) at least include as much information as possible so your readers remember you. Things like: from, to, name of the report or publication they originally signed up to receive, the website they enrolled from, the IP address they used, etc. In this way, they may unsubscribe but, hopefully, they will know that you didn’t make it up!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

ValueClick, Inc., an online advertiser, has agreed to settle FTC charges alleging deceptive claims and emails, as well as failure to secure consumers’ sensitive financial information.

ValueClick (through a subsidiary) used deceptive emails, pop-ups and banner ads to drive traffic to its site. Visitors were told they were eligible for big-ticket “free” gifts, such as laptops and iPods.

What they weren’t told is they had to go through a maze of forms and more forms and third-party offers galore, which they HAD to “participate in” in order ot get the supposedly free merchandise.

This was obviously in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act and the FTC Act. In addition to the financial settlement, ValueClick and Hi-Speed Media must clearly and conspicuously disclose that consumers have to spend money or incur obligations to quality for “free” merchandise.

Visit the FTC site to learn more about this settlement.

I came across an interesting interview at TimesOnline with Ray Tomlinson, accredited with sending the first email message through his software called “Send Message Program”, who admits he never envisioned the evils of spam.

Things have changed since that first email was sent back in 1971. It’s been reported that most of us spend 52 hours a year sorting and deleting junk email. (Sometimes it even seems like 52 hours a week!)

One good comment for those of us who market through email is, “there will always be a need for people to be able to communicate asynchronously, that is, send messages that won’t be read or replied to immediately, and that’s what email allows you to do.”

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Crime does not pay, kiddies, and apparently neither does spamming. The proclaimed “spam king”, Robert Soloway, recently pleaded guilty to fraud in connection with email, felony mail fraud, and failing to file a tax return, as report in the Seattle Times recently.

In a plea deal with the federal prosecutors, they agree to drop 37 counts against him, including aggravated identity theft and money laundering - in exchange for his guilty plea for one count of spamming, mail fraud, and failing to file a tax return.

Mr. Soloway will have plenty of time to catch up with his email, as the charges he will be facing add up to 20 years in jail and up to $625,000 in fines.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse