Many people think that buying an email list can save them time and heavy investment, but they don’t realise that it can cost them in the long run. We know that buying an email list seems an easy option as compared to getting permission from prospective subscribers and targeting them after analysis. Buying email lists and sending emails without permission can send your emails in the spam folder.

MailPod is the best email marketing provider and ensures that your email deliverability is effective. We believe in providing you with the highest deliverability rates in the email marketing industry. Before making such a crucial decision of whether to buy or create an email list, you need thorough research, and MailPod is here to make that research easy for you. We present a number of Pros and Cons you need to consider before Buying an Email List. 

Sometimes Buying an email list can save your efforts and time. In fact, some businesses benefited a lot from purchased email lists. Here are some Pros of buying an Email List:

Time-Saving

It is true that a purchased email list can save you a lot of time and money in terms of efforts. Instead of starting everything from scratch, you can easily purchase an email list suitable for your business. Creating an email list is a lengthy process as you have to identify the prospective subscribers and entice them to fill a sign-up form.

You have to introduce offers and discounts, and still, there is no guarantee of 100% conversion. Also, you have to make the best strategy and change it accordingly. You need not worry about all those things when you buy email lists as all this work is already completed and you can start sending emails to your ready-made subscribers.

Comparatively Cheap Email Marketing

You only have to pay for what you want. When you create an email list, you end up paying for extra things because you practice hit and trial. That can cost you in terms of Manpower, Time, Efforts, and Money. But, when you buy an Email List, you do not have to invest in any such things. You only pay an amount for buying a number of subscribers. If you are a start-up or small business, then a purchased email list can save you from heavy Investment. 

Brand Awareness

It is true that you can not be sure whether the subscribers in your purchased lists are the ones you want to target or not. If they are not your target audience, then need not worry because you get to establish brand awareness about your product/services. Maybe, they like it and become your long-life customers. So, buying an email list helps you to target people and create brand awareness.

Sometimes, buying an email list can deteriorate your real goal of email marketing. It is possible that your message would not reach your subscribers as your emails can land in the spam folder. 

Also, you have to pay penalties or even complete jail time for buying an unsolicited email list. The punishment depends on your country’s anti-spam laws. We will walk you on the journey of the cons of buying an Email List: 

Costly in Long- Run

It is quite clear why businesses (even some big companies) lean towards buying email lists. They feel it will save them some time, and they can focus on KPIs. They do not have to put effort into starting everything from scratch. But do not forget, it will help you only in the short-run. The shortcut of buying email lists make you suffer in the long-run. 

In fact, some companies work for providing these shortcuts and offer you email lists on the basis of categories:

• Targeted
• Verified
• Opt-in
• Real-time
• Clean (which automatically indicates that purchasing email lists is dirty)

When you purchase an email list, you have no idea about how many other people are using the same email list. You are not aware of the real purpose of signing up for those email lists. Even you can not authenticate the verified category of email lists. For example, someone may have signed up for cooking recipes, but you remain unaware of the fact and provide them information about sports. 

Think about ease of subscribers

That can irritate the subscriber, and there are chances that they can mark you as spam that will lead to much worse conditions. Even if some subscribers won’t mark you as spam, but they will never open your emails and boom, your efforts got wasted!

When you purchase an email list, you remain devoid of the advantages of explicit opt-in (subscribers willingly and actively opted for receiving your emails). If you do not have explicit opt-in, then you are bound to have problems in the long-run and sometimes even in the short-run. 

When you create an email list from scratch and send the first email to the subscriber after getting their permission, you still have to send a confirmation message about receiving further emails from you. However, you cannot get to send this confirmation message when you purchase an email list because the receivers did not allow you in the first place to send them a message. The second step of creating a more engaged list is to send a confirmation message. 

The Unavoidable Consequences

Sending Emails to the people who do not want your information in the first place can deteriorate your brand name. You will always remain in doubt about your email marketing strategies, whether the failure is due to an unauthenticated email list or campaign.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs), for example, Gmail and Yahoo can track if a subscriber clicks a link, opens an email, or reports a message as spam in their inbox. If the subscriber engagement is acceptable such as opening emails, clicking on links, or sharing tells ISP to send future emails in the Inbox.

Whenever ISP feels like engagement is not good, then it can send your emails in spam. In most cases, the engagement rate of the purchased email lists is not good, and hence, it directly hampers your sending reputation. 

The CAN-SPAM Act 

A United States law: CAN-SPAM Act regulates commercial emails. It directly does not disallow buying email lists, but it does prohibit sending bulk unsolicited emails. You are indirectly violating a law if you are buying email lists. 

The Cons of Buying Email Lists overcome the Pros of Buying Email Lists. Hence, it is advisable to create an email list if you want long-term benefits instead of opting for cheap email marketing practices. It may take time, but once you create a full-proof email list, you will reap tons of advantages.

Mailpod hopes that we successfully add to your research of Pros and Cons of Buying Email Lists with our expert team of email marketing providers. We will launch many related articles on How you can make a success out of this, till then keep tuned and subscribe to Mailpod for guidance and management.