On the third day of Listmas, my data showed to me they were sending three times daily…
So, the funny thing about this one being on day three is that to be more accurate to what some folks are doing now, this should be anywhere from day 4 to day 7. For instance, here’s a shot of my spam folder from over the weekend:
This sender is sending five times per day (and that happens throughout the year, not just now). But, this is Christmas, so we’re in a kind and generous mood, so day 3 it is.
There is abundant research on desensitization. A relevant Google search returns 143,000 results across different fields.1 And while a lot of folks want the only takeaway to be that “greater exposure leads to greater acceptance,” a better lesson would be “greater exposure requires greater stimulus to be noticed.” In other words, the more that a sender touches the file, the more likely that the touches are ignored.
The screenshot above is a good example of what I’m talking about here. There are a total of 11 messages in that image. They’re all in my spam folder. None of them have been opened. Which one would I want to open? They’re mailing me 5 times per day!
There are a variety of metrics that providers use to help make decisions about what messages to accept and where to send the messages that they do accept. Through the years I have I heard a variety of things used in this regard, including (but by no means limited to): Message previews, Message opens, Folder placement, Spam/Not Spam clicks, Time spent viewing an individual message, and Link clicks.
Here’s the thing: It’s entirely possible that the increase in mailing tempo will result in lower spam complaint rates. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, if the recipients are fatigued, then they’ll ignore things (until they don’t and send complaints about a bunch of messages all at once). Messages ignored are not messages complained about. The second reason is that messages which get routed to the spam folder (such as our example above) tend to be forgotten, and there’s no need to tell the mailbox provider that messages in the spam folder are spam. So, “low complaint rates” is not necessarily a good indicator of good list hygiene or that a proper tempo has been picked.
What’s the result of this? Continued relegation to the spam folder and possible eventual blocking or blocklisting. Nothing that a marketer really wants to see.
Ultimately, understand that when people do sign-up for a list, there’s often at least some indication of expected tempo. That’s not a legal contract, but it is a social one. When you break that social contract some really bad things can happen.
Two purchased lists,
and that’s why they suffered poor delivery.
Footnotes
- Desensitization –medicine –biology, Google Scholar (n.d.), https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C15&q=desensitization+-medicine+-biology. ↩︎
About the Author
Mickey Chandler is a Consultant & Attorney with over 28 years of experience in Email Deliverability & Privacy Law. He has a strong background in email authentication infrastructure (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), ISP and mailbox provider relations, anti-spam policy and compliance, CAN-SPAM and state anti-spam law gained through overseeing the Abuse & Compliance team at Salesforce Marketing Cloud, originating the ISP relations role at Informz (now part of Higher Logic), and working in the fight against spam since 1997. He holds a B.A. in Government, a B.S. in Computer Information Systems, and a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. He is a certified CIPP/US professional and a certified CIPM professional.
