For those who work in companies that subscribe users to emails, when users unsubscribe, what portion of them say they "never signed up for this"?
Obviously not looking for hyperaccurate answers, just in general, how many people tend to unsubscribe from promotional emails and how many tick the option “I never signed up for this”?
I click unsubscribe if they don’t make the sign in… If it’s too much work, I just put a mail filter. In thunderbird all this stuff is easy to do.
I also use fastmails multiple identities so I can just delete some identify that is getting spam. Problem gone.
For us, probably 1 in 15ish say they never signed up. We also have a double opt in, meaning every single one of them opened an email and clicked a link to confirm they wanted to keep getting marketing emails
About 0.2% of people unsubscribe every time we send something out
Funny you say this. Every few months I search my emails for “unsubscribe” and click through each of them to… unsubscribe. I’ve always been pretty religious about this somehow believing that even though the impact may not be immediately obvious it would be in the long run the best way to avoid bullshit emails.
Just last week I finally turned the corner and just thought fuck it, unsubscribing may be the “right” thing to do in some kind of ideal sense but it’s just a waste of time. Just mark it as spam and move on.
It’s a common request to get a list of users subscribed to a newsletter.
It also may be commonly illegal in some countries.
I don’t think this is really true.
The vast majority of mailing lists these days are run by mailchimp or whoever who have an active interest in avoiding spamming people who have opted out.
Also, what’s the point of sending spam emails to the type of person who unsubscribes from mailing lists? It costs nothing to send an email. Spammers don’t care whether there’s a live human at a specific address. I think if you trimmed your list to only people who had unsubscribed, you’d get a lower hit ratio than just sending to any address you can get your hands on.
The unsubscribes? Or the “I never signed up for this” count
On the unsub front, only ~30% of our mailing list engages with sends (opens the email), and I’m willing to bet up to 50% of our mailing list is “dead” emails, so really it’s 2-3x that number in practice. We have CASL to comply with so we aren’t willy nilly with adding people to our list either.
“About 0.2% of people unsubscribe every time we send something out”
Oh hey that’s me!
I work at a small SaaS company that sells software to Higher Ed. Our marketing email is entirely separate from our product email. The marketing emails are a nuisance and I don’t have a lot of info on them. The product emails I have to monitor the bounce rate and complaint rate to keep our email reputation up and ensure deliverability.
People still check the box that they didn’t sign up for email even though every email sent out of the product is opt-in. I assume it’s usually because someone’s boss decided they needed to get a specific email report or something.
Our complaint rate is still super low though, lower than .01%.
People still check the box that they didn’t sign up for email even though every email sent out of the product is opt-in
Do you think it’s just people moving on from their role ? Oh Bob has left, let’s just forward all his emails to Bill…
Professional marketer here, all of the unsub rates in this thread look nominal (0.1-0.2%).
Also, when we run third party distribution campaigns, a large amount of people, I can look at their hotjar journey and watch in real time their mouse movements as they download a whitepaper, then we call them and they say they never downloaded it.
It’s a mix of lying to the annoying marketing company (I get it), and just plain forgetting you did it.
I switched from Hearthstone Deck Tracker to Firestone Deck Tracker yesterday, I’m not entirely sure if I checked to see I wasn’t signing up for marketing emails, it’s that easy.
Not to mention, I can buy just about any non-EU email address i want on demand.
Also, when we run third party distribution campaigns, a large amount of people, I can look at their hotjar journey and watch in real time their mouse movements as they download a whitepaper, then we call them and they say they never downloaded it.
Can you elaborate a bit on this?
If I’m understanding you correctly, you send out marketing stuff via email, and then you call the ones who clicked through to the landing page did whatever?
yes. Some of the data is anonymized but there are ways around it (i.e. someone downloaded something at 2am and they were the only user, I can work out it’s you from the time stamps)
But I can watch your mouse move around the screen as if I was filming you with my phone (obviously only your mouse pointer, I can’t see your other windows or into your bedroom etc)
I understand how it works, I’m really just surprised that you’re talking about it the way you are - like this is some amazing skill set employed by “professional marketers”.
I can watch your mouse move around the screen as if I was filming you with my phone
Not my mouse obviously because hotjar will obey “do not track” flags from browsers, but ublock will prevent the hotjar script from loading, and prevent sending any telemetry.
I dont know what you mean by “the way i’m talking about it” I’m just describing the function to someone who was unfamiliar with the technology.
Yes, if you deliberately block a piece of software it doesn’t work. I was using “I can see your” to mean “I can see any given person’s” with the caveat of that person not deliberately blocking it, I figured that was taken as read.
There’s more to building out this kind of functionality, including dynamic IDs on clickable elements, A/B testing colors, CTA text, dynamic personalization, client mini-sites, first- and last- click attribution, full funnel attribution, lead scoring and so on…
None of it is crazy if you know how to do it, same with fixing a car, building a cabinet, coding an app or cooking a meal.
However, it’s interesting to me that you scorn how obvious this technology is and easy to use, and then close that most people don’t know about email pixels, cookies (or cookieless server side tracking), and lead scoring. But to call it “scammy” like I’m doing something that literally every business does, including mom and pop stores and amateur dramatic societies, is a little unfair.
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just talking about what happens in general terms.
Most businesses do not spam potential customers. Any business that provides actual value to its customers doesn’t need to do this.
Honestly it’s infuriating that you think these shady sales tactics are normal or appropriate.
As an aside, marketing involves augmenting products and services so they’re better embraced by various markets.
Sending emails is something else.
Most businesses do not spam potential customers
Depends on how you define spam. A few personalised emails (maybe they were missed? happened to me) with an opt out button, an opt in button and a personalised landing page are nothing crazy.
However it becomes crazy when you track mouse movements, send twelve mails in six weeks, employ ‘dark’ surveillance marketing tactics and relentlessly bite the leg of anyone who remotely looks like they can be pressured into a contract.
So sending a few emails is fine in a business context, but @[email protected]’s company is way overdoing it.
I guess the context is important, and I’m willing to admit that I’m an idealist with unrealistic expectations, but if there’s something being sold and it’s not something I requested then it’s spam IMO, even in a business context.
A few personalised emails
They’re never personalised. Anyone who knows me well enough to actually “personalise” an email would just call.
Anyone who knows me well enough to actually “personalise” an email would just call.
I would be way more wary about someone I don’t personally know selling me something via phone than via mail.
Marketers and sales people do call frequently. Most businesses have teams of people dedicated to calling.
People who work at businesses also get calls all the time. I’d be extremely surprised if any businesses didn’t get phone calls. I find all these really strong reactions very odd. As everything is mobile phone nowadays its more individual but since the invention of the telephone, receptionists and telephone operators were full time jobs.
People are acting like it’s cruel and unusual to phone someone, yet people have been doing it for hundreds of years.
Everyone’s jumping on this “12 times in 2 weeks” thing. I think you should count the number of emails you get from certain companies and I think you’ll find that any sufficiently large company has emailed you more than 12 times.
Amazon emailed me 15 times this week alone. LinkedIn Emailed me 50 times in August.
Amazon emailed me 15 times this week alone.
But you’re already a customer. They didn’t cold mail you and they respect opt outs. I suspect your company doesn’t have a simple ‘I don’t want these emails’ link.
LinkedIn Emailed me 50 times in August.
Because you enabled notifications. Again, they didn’t mail you without having a prior relationship with you and you can easily opt out.
Don’t act like you’re better than those two companies just because you send mails just like them. I don’t think that cold calling or mailing people is wrong, just predatory practices like you described.
Don’t be discouraged to discuss this further though. Just because people have a different opinion than you doesn’t mean that either party is right or wrong.
I suspect you don’t have opt out.
well you are wrong, I do have that, its at the top and bottom of evrry email as well as a link to our privacy policy, as it’s mandated by CAN-SPAM amongst others, and we have further options if the company is flagged as needing HIPAA, GDPR, GLB, CCPA etc - which also trigger different email headers and footers.
I even have a weekly automated pass of replies to emails to check for common phrases indicating they want out like “unsub” “do not” “please stop”
I once had to pull a(n old, different) company out of email blacklists by working very technically with SPF/DKIM/DMARC engineers and issue whole new security certificates across a wide range of web domains so I know full well the impact of non compliance
None of it is crazy if you know how to do it, same with fixing a car, building a cabinet, coding an app or cooking a meal.
I personally know how most of that works, but as a software developer I would refuse or tone it waaaaaay down if someone wanted me to code something like that. Most of that is unnecessary and evil, and probably illegal in some countries.
If I had to code something like this I would have a call to action button with a signup for more info and possibly a personalised email with a personalised landing page. You don’t need to surveil someone to know if they are interested in your product.
Thank you for the insights into your industry.
I really think a lot of people here are blowing this out of proportion. I don’t see how whether testing if red or green is better is “evil.”
Or knowing if people click on the button on the top level menu, or the hero banner is “evil.”
I think that’s a touch hyperbolic.
But also, you say “personalized landing page” as if that’s different. But you just designated “tracking” as “evil” - that’s what personalization is. What you proposed as an alternative is just as “evil” as the general functions of a website.
I really think a lot of people here are blowing this out of proportion. I don’t see how whether testing if red or green is better is “evil.”
That’s not what I have an issue with. I specifically told you which behaviour I find acceptable and which I don’t find acceptable. If you didn’t read that, I’ll just repeat it for you:
Depends on how you define spam. A few personalised emails (maybe they were missed? happened to me) with an opt out button, an opt in button and a personalised landing page are nothing crazy.
However it becomes crazy when you track mouse movements, send twelve mails in six weeks, employ ‘dark’ surveillance marketing tactics and relentlessly bite the leg of anyone who remotely looks like they can be pressured into a contract.
Where does Lemmy use this technology? Or did you mean apart from Lemmy there’s not many sites?
If I notice sites employing stuff like that which isn’t blocked by ublock I will most likely stop using them unless they’re insanely useful.
You’re not talking to a regular user here. I know how the web works and what tracking and fingerprinting is. Please stop trying to normalise predatory web design practices. You already landed on Lemmy, so you get a taste of what a web without surveillance capitalism could look like.
Maybe think about what tools you really need and what tools don’t really give you benefits that outweigh the invasion of privacy of your users.
Lemmy uses Cloudflare Insights on a bunch of instances.
Again, it’s not about what I want, if I’m to submit a request to internal IT from the marketing dept to discontinue use of a paid product, I have to submit a legitimate use case as to why the company should abandon it, it’s going to look pretty suspicious and eventually someone will ask why we can’t do all the stuff we used to do, and there is no business-centric use case to decomission analytics, only a personal preference, which would be at odds to the functions of a standard marketing department.
Not to mention, I can buy just about any non-EU email address i want on demand.
That such a marketplace exists is a major annoyance.
I see “email is dead” a lot. It’s not. I use it every day and so do most people.
It’d be a nightmare to conduct everything I do via email via whatsapp or Jira or Instagram messenger…
I can buy just about any non-EU email address i want on demand.
What does this mean? Like, you can just point to a random person and pay someone to get you their email?
yep
ZoomInfo, Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Lusha, Salesloft, Gong, Cognism, Gartner, G2, Voila Norbert, Hunter, FindThatLead, Prospect io, Hubspot Sales Hub…
Some examples, “Get me the email address of the VP of ITOps at every company who had series C and beyond funding in Q1 of 2022” - done. “Get me the email of the Head of Business Intelligence at Acme Ltd’s Ohio office” - done. “Get me the email of Tim Smith, he works in Sales at Nike” - done.
Roughly $3/person
Also, when we run third party distribution campaigns, a large amount of people, I can look at their hotjar journey and watch in real time their mouse movements as they download a whitepaper, then we call them and they say they never downloaded it.
This shit pisses me off. If I’m forced to enter my e-mail address to download a white paper, that should not be considered consent to spam me. My company gates our whitepapers behind e-mail/personal details as well. I just put in my marketing team’s personal contact info when I have to download something from our own website.
thats funny but if you gave me a real name and a fake email, it gets run through data normalization and I’d likely get your real email.
If you just give me the company name, fake name and email, it’s possible that if you met our qualification procedure, we’d just dig out the best looking person at the company (head of department, procurement manager, vice president?) and start contacting them based on “institutional buying intent.”
I mean I’m emailing you twice a week at your work email address for 6 weeks about a product to help you with reducing costs on a certain business function, and making sure you see ads for my company when you would see ads for a different company, and someone pays me money to do it.
I dont touch any personal emails, so I don’t really consider it immoral to email you about your job at your job.
But I’m not giving you explicit consent to spam me??? You’re gating content behind me giving up an e-mail address and then pretending like that’s consent. This is the part I find immoral.
And you’re being disingenuous here. You’re not “e-mailing me about my job”, you’re spamming lame brochures that I never explicitly consented to receiving. Whether you think that’s immoral or not, don’t attempt to rephrase it as if it’s some great service you’re doing me.
You are giving me explicit consent, though, as payment for downloading a whitepaper.
Or if you’ve been prospected, I have to maintain a reason for emailing you in the CRM, and I’d invite you to consider the ramifications of “businesses can’t contact other businesses.” What if you need your windows cleaned? Or your fleet vehicles need to have their tires checked? Or you need a new warehouse to expand your business?
You personally in your every day role may not want that, but businesses, in general, do.
I am emailing you about your job if you are in charge of expensive ($10MM+) software applications and are interested in downsizing your compute and storage costs. Are you those things? If you are a CDAO of a billion dollar company, you probably would like to consider the product I work for.
You are giving me explicit consent, though, as payment for downloading a whitepaper.
You don’t understand the word “explicit” do you? Unless I check a box that says “please send me bullshit”, I am not explicitly giving you consent to send me bullshit. You’re also not giving me an option to pay for the whitepaper to avoid being sent bullshit.
Or if you’ve been prospected, I have to maintain a reason for emailing you in the CRM, and I’d invite you to consider the ramifications of “businesses can’t contact other businesses.”
The ramifications are that your shitty industry dies over night, and I’m okay with it.
What if you need your windows cleaned? Or your fleet vehicles need to have their tires checked? Or you need a new warehouse to expand your business?
Okay, now I’ve lost respect for you as a person. If I need any of that I’m going to ask my peers for references because I trust references way more than some jackass sending me the same e-mail 12 times over 6 weeks. If I can’t get references, them I’m going to use a search engine. Did you forget that exists?
You personally in your every day role may not want that, but businesses, in general, do.
But for all your bragging about being able to drill down and locate very specific individuals, none of you drill down and search by “this person in particular NEVER responds positively to spam”. So until you start doing that, I’m affected by your immoral practices and I get an opinion too, whether you like my opinion or not.
I am emailing you about your job if you are in charge of expensive ($10MM+) software applications and are interested in downsizing your compute and storage costs. Are you those things? If you are a CDAO of a billion dollar company, you probably would like to consider the product I work for.
We’re having a conversation about your industry in general. Not whatever goalpost you move the conversation to.
It’s clear to me from this conversation that your industry is not able to morally justify themselves and instead of owning your shitty behavior you have convinced yourselves that you’re doing people a service. You are not good people. :(
???
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