Does SPAM work?
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Do people actually buy products advertised through email spam? I would never dream of buying enlargment pills, or applying for an online mortgage etc, but since spammers have not stopped spamming, I guess that some people do fall for these scams.
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Do people actually buy products advertised through email spam? I would never dream of buying enlargment pills, or applying for an online mortgage etc, but since spammers have not stopped spamming, I guess that some people do fall for these scams.
Last time I saw empirical data it was about a 0.0003% success rate or something silly like that. It's about 3 in a very big number (like 1,000,000). Of course, the rate depends on the product, and the perpetrators can get $30 or $50 a pop. Call centres work in the same way. A friend of mine worked at a cold-calling centre and for every poor and misguided person that they called out of the blue and persuaded to remortgage their house, the cold-calling company got £60. They had about a 0.06% success rate (6 in 1000), but the centre made lots and lots of calls... You'd be surprised how many nefarious companies use this method as a method of getting business. It's just a case of doing it in big enough volume so that the probabilities work. It doesn't cost a spammer any more to set up an account and mail 1,000,000,000 bits of mail than to send 10, but they make much more by pulling volume. That's as much as I know as to why they do it, although there's no way I'm condoning it or justifying it in any way. Suffice to say if I had a spammer's coattails in one hand and a big hatchet in the other, I'd do the same as the next man! :laugh:
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Do people actually buy products advertised through email spam? I would never dream of buying enlargment pills, or applying for an online mortgage etc, but since spammers have not stopped spamming, I guess that some people do fall for these scams.
From wired.com[^]: An order log left exposed at one of Amazing Internet Products' websites revealed that, over a four-week period, some 6,000 people responded to e-mail ads and placed orders for the company's Pinacle herbal supplement. Most customers ordered two bottles of the pills at a price of $50 per bottle. Do the math and you begin to understand why spammers are willing to put up with the wrath of spam recipients, Internet service providers and federal regulators. Since July 4, Amazing Internet Products would have grossed more than half a million dollars from Goringly.biz, one of several sites operated by the company to hawk its penis pills. And good grief: records on file with the New Hampshire secretary of state show that Braden Bournival, a 19-year-old high-school dropout who is also listed as vice president of the New Hampshire Chess Association, owns Amazing Internet Products.
"Sucks less" isn't progress - Kent Beck [^] Awasu 1.1.1 [^]: A free RSS reader with support for Code Project.
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Do people actually buy products advertised through email spam? I would never dream of buying enlargment pills, or applying for an online mortgage etc, but since spammers have not stopped spamming, I guess that some people do fall for these scams.
I don't think it is because it 'works' really. I think it is the pure fact that spam is one of those business decisions that even if it does not work it costs very little compared to other forms of conventional advertising. If you spend thousands or millions on a legitimate add campaign and get only a .003% response you can get pretty pissed off, but if sending out 1million emails only costs you a few bucks and you get the same response you are not out all that much.
Paul Watson wrote: "At the end of the day it is what you produce that counts, not how many doctorates you have on the wall." George Carlin wrote: "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things." Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote: If the physicists find a universal theory describing the laws of universe, I'm sure the asshole constant will be an integral part of that theory.
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Do people actually buy products advertised through email spam? I would never dream of buying enlargment pills, or applying for an online mortgage etc, but since spammers have not stopped spamming, I guess that some people do fall for these scams.
For me it is very unlikely that I would buy something from some one who spams me and the more they spam me the less likely that they are going to get my business. Come on 10+ SPAM emails from the same product every day. What are they thinking?? It just makes me :mad: John
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I don't think it is because it 'works' really. I think it is the pure fact that spam is one of those business decisions that even if it does not work it costs very little compared to other forms of conventional advertising. If you spend thousands or millions on a legitimate add campaign and get only a .003% response you can get pretty pissed off, but if sending out 1million emails only costs you a few bucks and you get the same response you are not out all that much.
Paul Watson wrote: "At the end of the day it is what you produce that counts, not how many doctorates you have on the wall." George Carlin wrote: "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things." Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote: If the physicists find a universal theory describing the laws of universe, I'm sure the asshole constant will be an integral part of that theory.
Ray Cassick wrote: one of those business decisions that even if it does not work it costs very little compared to other forms of conventional advertising I fear you are right, but I can't believe the mentality of such businesses. I'd steer clear of businesses that spam as a matter of principle. But what you say is true, it costs nearly nothing, and probably the manager who makes the decision isn't 'internet-savvy' anyway :( Paul ;)
I could put a quote here, but someone would just steal it.
Murphy -
Last time I saw empirical data it was about a 0.0003% success rate or something silly like that. It's about 3 in a very big number (like 1,000,000). Of course, the rate depends on the product, and the perpetrators can get $30 or $50 a pop. Call centres work in the same way. A friend of mine worked at a cold-calling centre and for every poor and misguided person that they called out of the blue and persuaded to remortgage their house, the cold-calling company got £60. They had about a 0.06% success rate (6 in 1000), but the centre made lots and lots of calls... You'd be surprised how many nefarious companies use this method as a method of getting business. It's just a case of doing it in big enough volume so that the probabilities work. It doesn't cost a spammer any more to set up an account and mail 1,000,000,000 bits of mail than to send 10, but they make much more by pulling volume. That's as much as I know as to why they do it, although there's no way I'm condoning it or justifying it in any way. Suffice to say if I had a spammer's coattails in one hand and a big hatchet in the other, I'd do the same as the next man! :laugh:
Stoo 70 wrote: They had about a 0.06% success rate (6 in 1000) 0.06% is 6 in 10000... -- Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable
for their apparent disinclination to do so. (Douglas Adams) -
Ray Cassick wrote: one of those business decisions that even if it does not work it costs very little compared to other forms of conventional advertising I fear you are right, but I can't believe the mentality of such businesses. I'd steer clear of businesses that spam as a matter of principle. But what you say is true, it costs nearly nothing, and probably the manager who makes the decision isn't 'internet-savvy' anyway :( Paul ;)
I could put a quote here, but someone would just steal it.
MurphyPaul van der Walt wrote: But what you say is true, it costs nearly nothing, and probably the manager who makes the decision isn't 'internet-savvy' anyway My brother a couple of yrs ago in the US while down on his luck, got into the remortgaging business. He couldn't understand why I was against a decision of his that he thought was creative to bulk mail. Eg spam, he had no idea that it was an unacceptable practise etc. Regardz Colin J Davies
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Stoo 70 wrote: They had about a 0.06% success rate (6 in 1000) 0.06% is 6 in 10000... -- Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable
for their apparent disinclination to do so. (Douglas Adams)