Why I hate spammers more than you
We all hate spammers. I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t want to run into one in a dark ally and dislocate his jaw (and clicking fingers). Spammers are the reason identity theft is so prevalent. They are the reason junk folders were invented. They are why companies spend billions on security filters and helping customers who’ve been duped by fake emails. In fact, I’m guessing the only folks who like them is Pfizer, the makers of V!@gra (and maybe the Nigerian government).
But as much as you probably hate spammers, I hate them more. Why?
I’m an email marketer, which means I use email as a marketing channel to send relevant, timely offers to our customers and prospects who have indicated it’s okay for us to communicate with them. Each person who I email knows they’ll be getting emails from me, they can clearly see who the email is coming from and they can unsubscribe anytime with the click of a mouse. But spammers make my life hell! Here’s why:
1. Formats. Because of them, I have to create a separate email format every time I send an email to AOL customers, because AOL has had so many spam problems they have blocked traditional html emails.
2. Spam buttons. I don’t send spam, but it never fails that once in a while a subscriber will click the spam button in gMail or Hotmail when really all they want to do is unsubscribe. The result: black marks on my reputation as an email sender, and too many of those will lead to…
3. Blacklists. Just like the ones during McCarthyism, email providers, like Hotmail, gMail, Yahoo!, AOL and individual companies with their own have blacklists of companies they’ve deemed are spamming their customers. Too many spam complaints (regardless of how relevant the emails are or if they’ve opted in) and you’re out. No more sending any kinds of emails to them. See how messed up the system is? You have to prove you’re not a witch instead of being proven you are.
4. Spam Filters. One of the biggest topics in the email marketing world is how to make sure you’re emails don’t automatically end up in a Spam folder. Obviously, if a person has given their permission for us to send them messages, it would make sense that they be allowed to receive them instead of rifling through hundreds of spam messages in order to get my relevant ones. It’s a constant, uphill battle.
5. Whitelist payments. To stay on the good side of email providers, most legitimate email marketers have partnered up with companies who help them make sure they’re emails get to the right place and that our domain is not put on the blacklist. The companies send updates (Some even call them report cards) on your spam complaints and lets you know if you’re too close to the threshold of acceptable complaints.
In all truth, there is a lot good email marketers can do to minimize these problems, but if people weren’t sending crappy, unsolicited emails all the time, these problems would mostly go away.
Spammers are why Spam buttons, AOL formats, blacklists, Spam folders/filters exist, and those things are why I deserve to loathe spammers more than you do.
For more reasons why I hate spammers (and other cool stuff) subscribe to this blog. Photo courtesy of rbatina.
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