Why Purchasing an Email List is a Bad Idea

Even though the first email message was sent in 1971, emails remain one of the most quintessential communication methods online. While instant messaging has replaced emails as the go-to means of communication between individuals (or even small groups), emails still reign supreme when it comes to official, mass correspondence. Email lists facilitate that mass communication.

Businesses almost exclusively rely on email lists to inform their customers of new products and services, promotions, events, and other goings-on that might interest them. Such marketing emails are nothing new; we are all familiar with them. These lists must be carefully curated and managed; building one up takes time. It might be tempting to simply buy one off the Internet that has thousands of addresses in it. Our advice: never, ever, do that.

This post includes:

• What is an Email List?
• Buying an Email List is a Bad Idea

What is an Email List?

An email list is exactly what it sounds like. It is a collection of email addresses individuals or businesses can use to send newsletters, promotions, updates, or just emails in general.

An email list also allows you to personalize the emails you send to your customers. You can have separate email lists for different types of customers: those who buy specific things, who browse your website a particular way or at a given time, etc. For additional information, check out our blog about the benefits of building an email list.

Typically, people must subscribe to your email list, allowing you to send them your email marketing. That agreement to receive your emails is an important point and leads us directly to the core of this article.

Buying an Email List is a Bad Idea

A solid email marketing strategy is always a good idea when trying to reach your customers and inform them about your products and services. It can also help with SEO and boost your quality, organic traffic. Email marketing cannot function without a mailing list. Do not worry, though! Building one is not difficult, it just takes time. Or you could buy one instead of waiting for your customers to subscribe to yours naturally.

It is incredibly tempting to take this shortcut. Why not? It is a bunch of email addresses that are ready to hear about your awesome products. A whole new, unexplored customer base! That might have been the case once upon a time, but nowadays, people do not like receiving emails from random sources they do not recognize.

Purchasing an email list, instead of organically growing yours over time, can have a lot of negative consequences for your email marketing strategy and business. Here are the five worst ways it can impact your business.

1. Legal Risks - We are starting with the biggest risk buying an email list carries. Many regulations require senders to first obtain consent from the recipients before sending emails. GDPR and CAN-SPAM are two such regulations for example. Using a purchased list means you will be sending emails to people who have likely not subscribed to receive your communications, therefore carrying the potential risk of fines or legal issues;
2. High Unsubscribe and Spam Rates - Continuing with the train of thought from the previous point, people who are not subscribed to your emails will not recognize them. Therefore, they are far more likely to mark them as spam, unsubscribe, and even report your account. Marking the emails as spam and reporting your account both hurt your sender's reputation. That can cause deliverability issues with your organic lists or even result in your email service provider shutting down your account. That is even more relevant since Google and Yahoo passed new bulk sender requirements for their services;
3. Low Engagement Rates - Whether people unsubscribe, mark your emails, report your account, or just ignore the message, it all means one thing: low engagement rate with your email. Since these recipients did not opt-in to receive your emails, they are far less likely to open them. Additionally, the emails you send are not tailored to the specific customers because you do not know their habits on your website. Both those things will severely affect your email marketing campaigns and not in a good way;
4. Unjustified Resources and Cost - Due to the low engagement rates we mentioned above, sending emails to a purchased list–instead of a carefully curated one–may prove to be the exact opposite of profitable. There is a high chance you will not see a significant increase in sales that will justify the increased resources and costs for sending all those emails;
5. Detriment to Brand Reputation - We all know how important trust is online nowadays. Customers are far more likely to interact with a website they trust over others. Sometimes, reviews help with trustworthiness, but using a purchased email list works in the exact opposite direction. Unsolicited emails can make your company appear spammy, untrustworthy, and lacking credibility;
6. Banned From Marketing Services - Email marketing platforms wholly abhor the usage of purchased email lists. Since emails are sent from the marketing platform's IP addresses, the other points we described above apply to them. As you can imagine, those platforms do not want their IPs to suffer reputation losses or even get blacklisted. Therefore, they forbid the usage of such lists and are harsh in dealing with offenders.

Purchasing a compiled email list is not worth the risks. Yes, it is an appealing shortcut, but ultimately, it will do far more harm than good, wasting your time and money in the process.

An organic email list will not keep you safe from potential issues with international regulations and email service provider rules, but it has many other benefits. Focusing on growing your email list organically builds a more engaged audience, protects your brand's reputation, and provides precise, legitimate email marketing analytics. All of these things benefit your business in the long run.

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