If Ken Can Do It… Should We
Apr 09 2009
As I was working today I was forwarded an email from a co-worker that called to my attention something that did not completely shock me, but did surprise me. You would think with all the emails I see and all the articles I read that very little could shock me. But what was in this email threw me a little bit. Could it be because of the “economic downturn”, publishers reaching for revenue, or simply it was just part of our sales plan? Not sure the exact answer to my question really, but Ken Magill’s Direct Mag sent out a third party email. Wait, let me take that back… he rented his “list” to target us with an ESP ad that was neither targeted or wanted. Now I understand the publisher model of driving revenue with advertising, partnerships, exclusives and more… but what kills me is the lack of targeting.
Ken, with all of the things that you write about it throws me for a loop when you rent your list to other marketers to send non targeted offers. Now I know that it is part of the business and a great revenue driver for most publishers, but it just seems off brand for you to allow. I understand that you don’t have control over your publisher and the sales team, but you might want to have some level of oversight on how you are used as a brand for your own reputation. The articles you write slam other people for how they use their lists and as a “beacon of light” for the industry I would think that you would think twice about this practice, OR at best, maybe run a suppression or filter list against it to make sure that it was getting to the right people that might take action. Well maybe I am wrong here as I am not perfect.
But Ken/Direct Mag is not alone in the ESP/email marketing world. Just look at the ESP using him/Direct Mag to increase reach and other publications. Overall most of the ESP’s use this same rental practice that they stand up at trade shows, panels, speaking events, and Tweet, blog and write about… all in the name of best practices and things that they personally despise. I have a folder full of emails from Vertical Response, Constant Contact, Emma, Yesmail, and even a personal favorite ESP Bronto. So if they all do it is it okay for everyone else?
But wait, maybe it is not them (aka the people/spokes people out talking to the email marketers) but the sales people and internal marketers themselves that are not keeping messages aligned. This is worth having a talk about if you see this happening in your own organization.
Is it spam? Is it a good practice? WWKD? (What Would Ken Do – or write?) That is what I ask myself. Not only WWKD but what would I do/want. If I cannot answer that in a way that makes sense to me then I should not be doing it.
Now I am not faulting Ken for this as most likely he was not responsible for this rental and I can assume that it was sold as part of a larger package. But what I want to see from everyone in this space that IF you stand up and say you hate it, you are against it, you don’t believe in it… that you walk you talk. I will not stand up and say that I don’t believe in it (it being list rental), although it is not something that we do often for clients. And at eROI and we never do it for ourselves. But I can tell you that indeed it does work, and sometimes when it is targeted and well managed it works incredibly well. But there are so many other ways to grow your lists and list rental falls way below my first ideas for campaigns, exposure, reach and lead generation.
So what are your thoughts about list rental and targeting? Do you use it for your own programs? Does it work? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Posted by Dylan Boyd at 8:40 AM
Published in B2B E-Mail Marketing, Best Of Email, E-Mail Marketing, Email News, Spam Emails, Worst Of Email on Thursday, April 9th, 2009
(6 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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Here it is, your March Email Marketing Calendar.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:41 am
From a best practise point of view, and in my opinion, this was a well executed list rental and should stand out as a great example of how to do it.
1 – No data changed hands
2 – From was clear using the Magilla Brand and the rental brand
3 – Disclosure was clear and visible as to who was sending it.
4 – notice to stop 3rd party mail was clear in the footer.
I didn’t receive this – likely because I have already opt-ed not to receive 3rd party mail from Direct Mag.
Sadly, with the change in the site (register for full content) I may opt not to receive email from them at all soon :(
Matt
@emailkarma
April 9th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Did Ken sell out. He was writing about how evil list rental is and now he is fully participating. What gives?
April 9th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Interesting that “organic” is mentioned in an email that was clearly born from list renting!
It’s funny, over the past 4 days I’ve read on several occasions about publishers, email marketing and list growth. I personally do not like list rental or selling of any kind; I might work in the Email Marketing Industry but I’m also a consumer of it. If I subscribe to something, I expect it only to come from that source and be about what I signed up for. Nothing else is important to me.
I personally would not want my company to be represented within a rented list, it’s just that simple.
April 10th, 2009 at 7:39 am
First, I don’t control my publisher’s e-mail marketing practices.
But as far as I’m concerned there was nothing wrong with that e-mail.
I have never once written that sending advertising mail to your own permission-based list on behalf of a third party is wrong. Why? Because it isn’t.
I don’t work for free.
That ad was perfectly targeted for my readership.
You’re in the e-mail business. You subscribe to an e-mail trade publication. And you’re surprised you’re getting e-mail from Magilla Marketing on behalf of e-mail service providers.
Are you kidding with this?
Also, when you criticize someone publically, have the guts to put your name on it.
April 10th, 2009 at 7:52 am
I’m not an email marketing best practices expert, but if this is breaking them it’s a gray area and it seems there are far more serious email marketing ‘bad practices’ you could point out and try to remedy.
You say you don’t ‘blame’ Ken Magill and other ESPs, yet you name them and take on a ‘holier than thou’ attitude – admit that eROI is also not ‘pure’ – then call for everyone who isn’t pure to get off his or her soapbox. That wouldn’t leave anyone standing would it? Which I guess is one point your blog post is attempting to make, but to what purpose? Many ESPs are striving to encourage best practices. Should everyone stop trying to improve email marketing because mistakes are made? That seems to be the logic here.
Regarding blogging best practices, I can’t seem to find a name or a face for the eROI blog. Maybe it’s there, but it’s not easy to find. Who are you? Where is the name/signature on the blog post telling who authored it? It would be nice to reveal your identity so we can have an open dialogue.
April 10th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Dear Ken and Tom, MY NAME IS DYLAN BOYD. I AM THE ONLY AUTHOR OF THIS BLOG. Ken you know me well enough to know this.
What I think is that if you of all people cannot segment your list for a 3rd party list rental from an ESP from sending to know email addresses of another ESP, you have wasted the “clients” money and deserve the criticism. Pull this list and think about suppressing domains that are not relevant like exact target, silverpop, bronto. emma, etc or you are just throwing the money spent out the window without an ROI for your 3rd party advertiser.
And Tom if you have seen enough of these people preaching about how they hate this, how they think it is a bad practice, but then see their own company (who they do not have any marketing control over) use the same tactic… it makes you think about them.
I can tell you that I do not have any issues with 3rd party list rentals, but I do have issues with walking your talk and wasting money because you are lazy.
April 10th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Has it ever occurred to you that other ESPs mmay want that ad for competitive analysis?
Good direct marketers want as many competitive ads as they can get. It helps them learn what their competitors believe is working. Plus it gives them ideas. I’ve been one. I know what I’m talking about here.
And I, of all people, cannot segment my list. It’s not my list. It’s Penton’s list.
Moreover, while Penton’s not perfect, that campaign went against nothing I’ve ever preached against.
You subscribed to Magilla Marketing.
You’re in the industry.
You’re a relevant target for that ad.
Also, the client pays the same whether Penton makes the effort to suppress the minuscule number of ESP domains out or not. Your wasting-money argument is ludicrous.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Hi Dylan,
Thanks for identifying yourself just now adding your name/tag/ID to the blog posts. Now we’re talking to each other!
April 10th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Thanks Ken.
Just as you have opinions, I do as well. And I choose to post them here on my blog.
I really I would not care to see what other ESPs are thinking of my offers. Why, they will not convert. If they spend that much time worrying about my pricing, discount, offer strategy and do not focus on their strengths then they are going to lose the battle.
Hell and all of them are subscribed to our resource center and own newsletter anyway. It is entertaining to look sometimes, but our focus is on our customers and new clients not on the comp.
As a marketer you should look at what is going to help you drive conversion. Last I checked I am not buying ESP services. Relevance is key and segmentation is everything in email, and this goes double for a list rental, sponsorship or anything else you want to call it.
I realize you do not have much control over how your list is used and it is handled by the publication, but it has your name all over it and to me that could be a reputation killer.
End ending, I am not a relevant target.
I hope that you enjoy your Easter weekend and I look forward to our next encounter. Happy to meet up with you in NYC over a Scotch and debate the good and bad, the best and the worst, the perception and the truth the first week of May 09.
Let me know as in real life beats comment wars and email wars hands down.
April 10th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Tom noticed that you do PR for Campaigner. Your thoughts make sense now.
Always happy to pick up the phone if you want to talk to a real person with real opinions.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Good debate on this post. The comments made for great reading and provided back up information for all sides. Great to see email marketing is still a hot topic we can get our teeth into, discuss it, debate it and progress it.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:15 am
If I read the original post correctly, the blogger didn’t even receive the email he was complaining about. It was forward “from a coworker.”
Then you go on to complain about the email “you” received.
Your arguments make no sense.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I have to agree with Ken (and Matt) here. Sending something to your own list isn’t against the rules by any measure, and it’s quite common.
I’ve taken Penton to task more than once for their email practices (for example, frequency of partner messages), but this disagreement seems manufactured.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Yo! You sign up for a FREE e-letter subscription that tells you during the registration process that you may get third party ads now and again and then you’re surprised by this? What gives? Ken, and everyone like him, provides you with great information FOR FREE with the reasonable expectation that you may on occasion receive an ad.
It’s like when you subscribe (PAYING, mind you) to any magazine and start getting direct mail from marketers in the same space. This is the way the world works. This is why these guys publish. Except in the very few cases of high dollar niche publications (think: some of the pubs Thompson puts out), this is how these guys make money: AD sales not subscription sales. Don’t believe me? Just ask the former employees Seattle Post Intelligencer or Rocky Mountain News.
Ken, and his compatriots, are great people, but they don’t work for free. This isn’t charity. Sorry, but the open source kum-by-yah approach isn’t applicable here. The bills have to get paid at the end of the day. And if getting the occasional ad targeted to someone in our industry is the price we pay, that’s a fair trade. And after all, most email applications come with a delete button.
Either figure this out or get out of the business.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
As a marketer I am constantly looking to gain new customers and expand our market share in a very small (itty bitty mind you) geographical area, but I also pay _very_ close attention to what my competition is doing and how they are doing it. We attend association meetings and jokingly call them “spy fests” for that is what we are doing – marketing espionage to better our own business. Our sales & marketing meetings are full of, “…so and so did this campaign and it blah-blah’d” or “…if we do this campaign, it will knock the socks off of this and that for the season!”
The OP must not be very well educated in marketing practices – oh, he might have graduated cum laud from some muckity-muck business school specializing in marketing – but how can he NOT compare or even want to know what his competition is doing? Even at the executive level, marketers have to be aware of their colleagues! eROI is not so big that they don’t have to worry about the competition.
Sad… the arrogance exuded by such a post.
The only thing this blog post has accomplished is to show just how ignorant some executives really are when it comes to marketing (internet, email or otherwise) practices and how they work in the real world. Get away from the graphs and charts and emails – look at how your business is truly impacting the market. There is a lesson to be learned (which could affect your ROI).
April 14th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Zoa: I must be completely ignorant, poorly educated and a noob to this land. Thank you for your comments.
What I did not state is that I do not care nor do I not pay attention to competitors. But I would be upset with an ad buy that spends money to target my competition with a list rental. They are not my audience. And if I made a buy or recommended a buy like this for a client I would be extremely disappointed.
If you are going to spend money, time or resources to go after leads, prospects or clients it is best spent on making sure your message reaches the right people.
Why would people in competing businesses want to include those business in the campaign? After all most are in a CPM model.
I think that this was my quote: “I can tell you that I do not have any issues with 3rd party list rentals, but I do have issues with walking your talk and wasting money because you are lazy.” What I mean by this is so many people in this industry are telling their customers and others how they are so far against these campaigns and yet if you turn around their own marketing teams are running them. From someone that is (your quote) “must not be very well educated in marketing practices” I would think this is a 101 level concept.
As well as this one:
“Now I am not faulting Ken for this as most likely he was not responsible for this rental and I can assume that it was sold as part of a larger package. But what I want to see from everyone in this space that IF you stand up and say you hate it, you are against it, you don’t believe in it… that you walk you talk.” I never said what Penton/Direct Mag/Ken’s subscriber list did was wrong nor not done in a best practice manner, but what I stated was is I think it is poor effort to not target and parse out domains to a select target.
I would rather that my comp does not know what I am offering others. I think that by not targeting then in a list rental you are taking that first step to get smart about your marketing. Not that you can control it 100% of the time online, but with email you can and you should be able to control much more.
Even those that are in our eROI resources center do not get certain email campaigns that we target with in our own life cycle campaigns. We build smart campaigns by domains, comp, behavior, opportunity, etc that are parsed and intelligently executed. We try to stay away from the batch and blast mentality that is so easy to do but rarely produced the quality of results.
As you can see from this blog I watch everything that I can and put my thoughts down daily. But check back in some time to learn more about the daily rantings of an idiot.
Thanks for your comments and I look forward to your opinions.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Sorry D, gotta go with Magill on this one.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
I’m not seeing anything at all out of line with Ken or Penton here (and Penton are not my favorite company, at all).
It looks like you’re trying to manufacture controversy where there isn’t any, and that’s disingenuous and just plain bad journalism.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Steve:
I have never said that what was done was wrong in the implementation and best practices side of the campaign itself. It is well marked as a third party email and sent to those that opted in for 3rd party messages. What I said was this.
“Now I am not faulting Ken for this as most likely he was not responsible for this rental and I can assume that it was sold as part of a larger package. But what I want to see from everyone in this space that IF you stand up and say you hate it, you are against it, you don’t believe in it… that you walk you talk.”
I never said what Penton/Direct Mag/Ken’s subscriber list did was wrong nor not done in a best practice manner, but what I stated was is I think it is poor effort to not target and parse out domains to a select target.
I hope that you understand this.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Dylan, I enjoy reading some of your posts, but it seems like you are digging yourself deeper into the ground with every reply. Ken has a valid point here:
1. He explained how this email was conceived.
2. The email has descriptive text abount its content everywhere – from header to footer.
3. You didn’t receive it personally – your coworker might’ve been subscribed to legitimate offers and it backfired on you.
4. The email offers free content – a whitepaper, despite being from one of your competitors with their logo plastered all over it.
5. Above all, no data exchange has happened (not that it’s hard for YesMail to get personal email addresses of the people in the industry).
While I partially agree with your comment about the fact that TLDs of major ISPs should’ve been filtered out, on the other hand, I’d personally always be happy to take a free advice from my competitor.
Just get together with Ken and buy him a beer – he’s worth it :) I can even direct you to here for some awesome Norfolk ale: http://www.woodfordes.co.uk
May 5th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Alec -thank for your comment. I actually apologized in a later post you might not have seen.
And I will drink a beer, drink or soda with anyone, anywhere. Ken… you are included. I am in NYC this week if he wants to call and meet me.
OR there is a ReturnPath annual event Wed PM he can meet us all at for a drink.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Ken Mcgill and Directmag doesn’t practice what he preaches. Ken did sell out. He was writing about how evil list rental and purchase is and now he is fully participating. He is a scum bag